The wider UK labour market is cautious. The Low Pay Commission describes conditions as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies, and vacancies sitting below pre-pandemic levels Low Pay Commission Report 2025, GOV.UK. That backdrop shapes insurance too: employers are hiring deliberately, not in volume, so every appointment carries more weight.
There are bright spots that matter for insurers. The ONS reports that the largest volume increase in vacancies between August and October 2025 was in professional, scientific and technical activities, up by 5,000 ONS – Vacancies and jobs in the UK: November 2025. Insurance sits close to that professional-services cluster, and it competes for the same underwriting, claims and data talent. When hiring is measured rather than fast, the case for using real evidence to pick who you hire gets stronger.
Two forces are reshaping the roles insurers hire for. The first is specialist demand. Businesses are taking a cautious approach overall, but there are clear demand hotspots for specialist skills including AI, data and cyber security Computer Weekly (tech recruitment outlook 2026). Insurers rely on those same skills to price risk, detect fraud and run digital claims journeys, so the competition for them is real.
The second force is the squeeze on early careers. Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT launched, with graduates facing the toughest market since 2018 techUK – What's actually happening with entry-level and graduate jobs?. For insurance, that raises a retention question: if you hire fewer junior claims handlers and customer-facing staff, the ones you do hire have to succeed and stay. Complaints data tells you exactly what 'success' looks like in those roles.
Start by reading your complaints as a job spec. Group them by cause, not by product. Slow claims decisions, unclear policy wording explained badly, missed callbacks: each pattern points to a capability you are short of. That turns vague hiring briefs into concrete requirements you can screen for.
Then hire against those causes. If most complaints trace back to how a decision was communicated, weight your interviews toward clear written explanation and empathy under pressure, not just product knowledge. If they trace back to handling time, look for people who work well with process and systems. This is where specialist and data skills earn their place, given the demand for exactly those capabilities across the market Computer Weekly (tech recruitment outlook 2026).
Finally, close the loop for retention. Feed complaint themes back to the people you hired, so they see the impact of their work and know what good looks like. In a low-hire market Low Pay Commission Report 2025, GOV.UK, keeping a strong hire is worth more than replacing one. People stay when the role is clear, the tools work and their effort visibly reduces the complaints that used to pile up.
Once you know the exact capabilities your complaints data points to, you need to find those people quickly. That is what we do. We search a database of 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, and manage the process end to end so you can focus on choosing well. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Ready to turn feedback into your next hire? Start today with Reed.ai.
