Financial services is hiring at the senior, specialist end of the market, and underwriting sits right in that bracket. According to GOV.UK's Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report (2026), recruitment in the financial services sector was generally for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) level 6 and above roles, rather than the RQF level 3 to 5 band.
That tells you something useful before you design a single interview. You're competing for people with degree-level and professional qualifications, deep technical judgement and a strong grasp of regulation. The bar is high, and so is demand. A well-designed panel is how you make a confident decision quickly, rather than losing a strong person to a slower process.
Underwriting is a judgement role. You're hiring someone to price and accept risk, balance commercial appetite against exposure and defend decisions to brokers, actuaries and regulators. That means a single interviewer can't fairly cover the ground. You need several perspectives in the room, each looking at a different part of the job.
Because these are senior, RQF level 6 and above positions, as set out in the GOV.UK Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report, candidates expect to meet the people they'll actually work with. A panel also protects you: more than one assessor reduces the chance that one person's bias or gut feel drives the outcome. The trade-off is coordination, so keep the panel tight and give every member a clear job.
Start from the competencies, not the people. List what the role genuinely demands: risk assessment, pricing, regulatory knowledge, communication with brokers and teamwork. Then assign each competency to one panel member so there's no overlap and no gap. Everyone knows what they own before they walk in.
Keep the panel to three or four assessors. Larger panels feel like an interrogation and slow your decision down. Use a structured scorecard with the same questions and the same rating scale for every candidate, because consistency is what makes comparisons fair and defensible.
Build in a short, realistic exercise. Give the candidate a sample risk or a case to price, then ask them to walk the panel through their reasoning. You learn far more from how someone thinks aloud than from a polished answer to a hypothetical. Agree your scoring immediately afterwards, while impressions are fresh, and keep feedback moving so you don't lose momentum with people who have other offers.
Score independently first, then discuss. If assessors share views before scoring, the most senior voice tends to anchor the room. Compare scorecards, talk through any gaps and agree a clear outcome against the competencies you set at the start. Record your reasoning, both for fairness and for the regulatory standard financial-services hiring demands.
A good panel can only assess the people in front of it, so the shortlist matters just as much as the interview. We search a database of 15 million candidates to find and rank the underwriters who match your brief, then handle the process end to end so your panel spends its time on the decision, not the admin. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. If you're building an underwriting team, start with a stronger shortlist today.
