Build the talent pool for the future
February 13, 2025
In October we published our annual Lloyd’s and London Market CEO Agenda for 2025 – “Leading through uncertainty”. We look at the current market conditions and set out six transformation topics that we believe CEOs should address in 2025:
5. Build the talent pool for the future
Hiring in the London Market has been very active in the last few years. The overall workforce grew by 25% from 2018 to 2023 and salaries increased 20-30%. Attracting and retaining talent has been one of the biggest challenges for carriers.
Despite an active start to 2024 which saw a 25% increase in senior moves year-on-year in January 2024, the market now appears to have slowed down. Overall, talent moves were down by 17% year-on-year in H1 2024.
Nonetheless, we expect talent to remain a major topic for executive teams as various market trends solidify. Broadly speaking, we see the need for more quantitative, analytical and technical staff. For example, market bifurcation creates the need for more portfolio managers who have a capital-led rather than risk-led view of the world.
The role of the underwriter will also change and the need for the traditional ‘all-rounder’ will wane. The underwriter of the future will more likely emphasise skills that can access insights from complex data sets and communicate these insights to brokers and insureds.
Imperatives for 2025
The talent pool of the future will likely look vastly different from today. The long-term talent strategy needs to be integrated into a company’s strategic framework. That means developing a clear link between medium and long-term objectives, required capabilities and talent requirements.
HR teams then need to evaluate their current skillsets and identify needs and gaps by function and seniority. Executives then have the opportunity to establish where to find these individuals and how to attract them to the organisation. Some organisations will need to re-evaluate their operating models to make themselves attractive to their critical future talent pools: for example, creating data infrastructure and governance that provides an appealing environment for data professionals.
