Hiring in financial services is selective, not slow. Across 2025, businesses took a cautious approach to recruitment against a subdued economic backdrop, yet clear demand hotspots held firm for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security, according to Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook for 2026. For insurers widening their technology risk cover, that pattern matters: the skills driving the market are the same skills needed to underwrite, price and manage that cover.
The regulatory bar is rising with it. In the financial services sector, recruitment was generally for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) level 6 and above roles, rather than levels 3 to 5, as noted in the Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report on GOV.UK. In plain terms, employers want degree-level and professional expertise, not entry-level cover. That raises the stakes on every brief you write.
Cyber and technology risk now sit at the centre of the brief. The UK cyber security workforce stands at roughly 143,000 people, with growth moderately accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024, per the Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2025 report on GOV.UK. A workforce that size, growing at that pace, is competitive. Insurers pricing and transferring technology risk are hiring from the same pool as every other firm that needs to defend against it.
And the gap is real. A comparison in the AI Labour Market Survey 2025 on GOV.UK showed 70% of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy. For insurers, the practical response is to merge disciplines: underwriters who read threat intelligence, actuaries comfortable with data pipelines, and risk specialists fluent in the controls behind a policy. The single-discipline brief is giving way to a hybrid one.
Start with the outcome, not the job title. When demand concentrates on specialist tech skills like AI, data and cyber security, as Computer Weekly's 2026 outlook sets out, a brief built around a generic title competes with everyone. Describe the problem the hire solves, the technology risks they own and the decisions they make. That precision helps the right people self-select and speeds up your shortlist.
When briefs widen to cover technology risk, the hard part is finding people who match several skills at once, fast. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, through Reed.ai. It is free for the people you hire. If you are rewriting insurer briefs around cyber, data and regulatory expertise, tell us the role today and see your shortlist.
