This column was written by Caroline Wagstaff, CEO of the London Market Group.
In the three years since the LMG has been running its Futures Academy programme and broader early talent initiatives, more than 600 students have come and spent time getting to know the intricacies of EC3 and all the opportunities a career in specialty insurance has to offer.
This summer, we stepped it up a gear with the inaugural Lime Street Festival – with hundreds of students meeting 50 market firms while enjoying pizza and ice cream, CV workshops, professional head shots and panel discussions with CEOs. It was a powerful demonstration of both how our market can come together and the enthusiasm and curiosity that exists among young people once the door to our industry is opened.
Increasingly, firms are recognising the importance of building a sustainable talent pipeline and launching their own apprenticeship and internship programmes. These initiatives are not limited to underwriting and broking, but also extend into less-visible roles, such as software engineering, legal services, and actuarial work, all of which help young people see the breadth of opportunities available within insurance.
But while these activities are invaluable, are they enough? The London Market now employs over 60,000 people in London and beyond. But data indicates that collectively we only hire around 1200 young people every year in a mix of apprenticeships, graduate programmes and entry-level roles – and that number is not growing despite the fact that there are as many people over 50 as under 30 in the market.
And the hiring pattern across the market is very skewed with a small number of large firms taking the vast majority of young talent and the long tail of small to medium firms taking small numbers.
The market has an amazing wealth of expertise and experience – but it is going to retire in significant numbers in the next decade. It needs to be handed on to the next generation. And we need new skills: data analysis, AI, etc., which are undoubtedly more prevalent among younger colleagues. The trend is not our friend if firms don’t actively hire more, whatever stage of the pricing cycle we are in.
Working with early-career talent is both rewarding and challenging. Each year, we start with a fresh group of bright school and university leavers, full of potential but unfamiliar with insurance as an exciting and rewarding career option. Welcoming them into EC3 and showing them the unique opportunities our market offers is a privilege, but one that requires consistent commitment. The work is never finished; the investment of time and energy must be renewed year after year.
But there must be jobs at the end of the journey. We can spread the word that this sector is offering engaging and worthwhile opportunities for young people, but firms need to think about where their pipeline of talent is going to come from – or in five years' time, there will be a dearth of talent and the cost in terms of wage inflation will be high.
We have done some modelling that suggests that unless we increase the rate of hiring of young people significantly, around 400%, then in the next decade the number of employees over 60 will double, while the under-30s will shrink by two-thirds.
Collectively, we can invest time and energy in outreach, in telling the world that this is our market, which offers tremendous career opportunities – in attracting the young, diverse talent that we need to survive and thrive. But individually, firms need to think hard about the future makeup of their workforce and prioritize hiring and retaining young talent. Together, we can make change happen.
