Financial services is leaning towards experience. In the sector, recruitment has generally been for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) 6+ roles, rather than RQF 3 to 5, according to the Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report (2026). In plain terms, that means employers have been reaching for degree-level and professional qualifications over entry and intermediate ones.
That tilt matters for claims. Lloyd's junior claims teams have long been a route in for new entrants, people early in their careers who learn on the job. When hiring concentrates at the senior end, the question becomes who fills the junior bench and keeps the pipeline healthy for the next five to ten years.
The wider picture shows the same pressure on early careers. In engineering, entry-level hiring has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10%, a 9-percentage-point gap, reports GOV.UK's snapshot of entry-level hiring in the UK (2026). The pattern is clear across sectors: the bottom rung is getting harder to reach.
Because the market is squeezing the entry level, employers who want fresh talent have to make it themselves. When ready-made experience is scarce, new entrants become the people who define how junior claims teams work, learn and grow.
That shift carries weight. The 9-percentage-point gap between entry-level and senior hiring in engineering shows how uneven the market has become, per GOV.UK's 2026 entry-level hiring snapshot. Where early-careers hiring stalls, teams age without renewal, and the skills handover between senior and junior staff slows down.
In claims, that handover is everything. Loss adjusting, policy interpretation and customer judgement are learned by doing, next to someone who has done it before. New entrants who join now are not just filling seats; they are shaping the culture, pace and standards of teams that will run claims for years.
Start by hiring for potential, not just the finished article. With financial-services recruitment skewed towards RQF 6+ roles, as noted in the Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report (2026), employers who only chase experience compete in the same narrow pool. Opening the door to people earlier in their careers widens it.
A few practical moves help:
Speed matters most. When the early-careers pool is tight, as the national data shows, the employer who replies first and interviews fastest usually wins the person. A slow process loses good people to quicker rivals.
We built Reed.ai to make early-careers hiring faster and fairer. We search 15 million candidates to surface people with the right potential, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, and book interviews so you can move before anyone else does. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Ready to build your next junior claims team? Start today.
