Aon is stepping up its Displaced Workforce Impact Programme, pitching people uprooted by war and conflict into UK professional jobs as the insurance sector wrestles with a deepening talent squeeze and unemployment among displaced professionals running at up to three times the national average.
The broker said the programme builds on the strategic frame it laid out in January with the Resilience Quotient, which flagged more than 120 million people forced from their homes worldwide by conflict, climate and systemic shocks.
Bridget Gainer, Aon's chief public affairs officer, casts forced displacement as a structural shift rather than a passing crisis, driven by extreme weather and man-made shocks from war to economic collapse.
Modelled on Aon's UK Work Insights Programme, the expanded push is run with the Refugee Employment Network (REN) and zeroes in on professional networking, transferable skills and the corporate hiring maze.
REN, set up in 2017 and now a registered charity, says it counts more than 400 member organisations and reaches over 40,000 refugees across Britain, billing itself as the UK's only national membership network focused solely on refugee employment.
Two pilot rounds in October 2025 and January pulled in more than 80 participants. Confidence in handling corporate recruitment jumped from 28% to 70% over the sessions.
The timing is no accident. Talent attraction and retention has vaulted from seventh to the top business worry for UK insurers in 2026, Gallagher Bassett's latest Claims Insights report found.
Some 72% of UK respondents say qualified candidates are harder to find, and 48% point to acute shortages in claims and adjusting.
The demographic squeeze runs deeper. Research from RSM UK shows more than a quarter of UK insurance staff are already over 50, while industry body Re:Generation warns half the current workforce could retire within 15 years. Graduate vacancies slid 18% in 2025, RSM added, thinning the pipeline further.
Suzanne Scott (pictured above), chief people and corporate responsibility officer at Axa UK and Ireland, has flagged "a significant lack of awareness regarding the diverse career paths available in insurance.”
Aon convened a panel in March bringing HR and business chiefs together with REN to thrash out how employers can reach displaced professionals and why they should bother.
Katherine Conway, Aon's head of inclusion, said the firm wants its workforce to mirror its global footprint, adding that the REN tie-up turns "our commitment to inclusion into real outcomes."
Jenny Walton, who took the top job at REN in July 2024, said work is central to rebuilding lives for those forced from home, calling the partnership a "win-win for business and the professionals we work with."
