Official figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and HM Revenue and Customs show finance and insurance payrolled headcount rose to 1,106,230 in September 2026, up 8,595 on the same month a year ago. The wider UK market contracted over the same period, shedding approximately 66,000 payrolled workers year on year to reach 30.28 million. Median monthly pay in the sector reached £4,332 in September, a 4% increase on a year earlier and ahead of the private sector average recorded in the latest ONS labour market overview.
Those figures land in a labour market that ING developed markets economist James Smith described, in a note reacting to today’s data, as finally showing “tentative signs that employment is stabilising.” Private sector payrolls grew in September for the first time since January, Smith noted, rising by a modest 8,000. The unemployment rate edged down from 4.9% to 4.7% in the three months to August, though Smith said part of that fall could be explained by a rise in economic inactivity.
At £4,332 a month, finance and insurance median pay is £1,672 above the UK-wide median of £2,660 recorded in September. Pay growth at 4% year on year is running ahead of both the private sector average and headline inflation. The premium reflects a sector that has added headcount through a period when most of the economy was contracting, but the vacancy data points to a more complicated story beneath that surface.
Finance and insurance job openings fell to 30,000 in June, their lowest monthly level since early 2022 and less than half the post-pandemic peak of 56,000. The sector averaged 32,000 openings in both the first and second quarters of 2026. Three years of flat vacancy volumes in a sector that has otherwise been adding people points to churn and internal restructuring rather than broad-based expansion.
A survey of 92 brokers conducted by Mission, an MGA capital partner, at the BIBA conference in May 2026 found talent attraction and retention ranked as the top priority, cited by 40% of respondents, ahead of artificial intelligence, regulatory compliance, and emerging risks. Specialist insurance broking vacancies did rise 19% in the first half of 2026, according to Sanderson and VacancySoft’s July 2026 UK Financial Services Market Overview, but that growth in specialist demand is occurring as entry-level hiring falls sharply.
Caroline Wagstaff, chief executive of the London Market Group, said at a press conference in July 2026 that hiring had already fallen 25% in 2025 and was forecast to fall by a further 25% this year. “Hiring was down by 25% last year and it’s predicted to be down by another 25% this year,” she said. “We’ve got a bad market habit of every soft cycle we stop hiring.”
Smith’s note also flagged the Bank of England’s November decision as a live risk for the wider economy. Private sector pay growth at 3.4%, adjusting for what Smith described as compositional effects, remains consistent with the Bank’s 2% inflation target over the medium term, by the Bank’s own reckoning. The one-month annualised increase in private sector pay was down to 1.7% on the latest reading. Smith said that whatever move the Bank makes in November, it will not be driven by anything in today’s employment data.
The Bank held Bank Rate at 3.75% in September in a 6-3 vote, with three members already backing a rise to 4%. Market pricing ahead of the November 5 decision remains divided, with prediction markets placing the probability of a November hike at around 16%. A rate move in either direction shapes the conditions that matter directly to the sector: investment income on float, pricing assumptions on long-tail commercial lines, and the cost of premium finance that underpins much of the broker distribution model.
