London market early careers hiring fell by 25% in 2025, with a further 25% decline forecast for this year, as industry leaders warned that a shrinking talent pipeline could see the proportion of under-30 workers fall from 24% today to just 7% within a decade.
Speaking at a press conference at the Lloyd's Building on Monday, July 6, 2026, the London Market Group (LMG) launched the fourth year of its Futures Academy programme alongside the publication of its London Matters 2026 report. Executives said the programme has become increasingly important as firms cut graduate and apprentice recruitment amid softer market conditions, AI uncertainty and an ageing workforce.
Despite employing more than 60,000 people, the London market recruits only around 1,200 young people each year through apprenticeships, graduate schemes and entry-level roles, according to LMG data. Around half of those hires go to the five largest brokers, while another 20% are concentrated among five underwriting businesses.
Chris Lay, chair of the LMG and Operating Partner at Ardonagh, said: "We have an ageing workforce, we have a very low percentage of people under 30 and as we project forward, we expect that to be sort of single digit of the population under 30 by 2030, probably 10 years from now. But at the pace of change it could hit us much quicker."
Lay said the slowdown reflected softer market conditions, uncertainty over AI's impact on future jobs and wider questions over how work will be structured.
"It can just end up in this type of paralysis," he said, "by which we're saying should we just pause."
Caroline Wagstaff, chief executive of the LMG, said the organisation's latest workforce data challenges the long-held assumption that insurance struggles to attract young people. Instead, she argued, the evidence shows firms are cutting back on early careers recruitment despite strong candidate demand.
"Hiring was down by 25% last year and it's predicted to be down by another 25% this year. That's hard evidence of those debates and which way the CFOs are winning."
Wagstaff said the LMG had shown market CEOs that hiring a young employee increases firms' expense ratios by only around 0.02%.
"We've got a bad market habit of every soft cycle we stop hiring," she added. "This is not a new problem. It's just exacerbated by AI."
The LMG's primary response is its Futures Academy, now entering its fourth year. Patrick Philpott, chief executive of Visionpath, said the programme was designed to provide meaningful exposure to careers in insurance rather than simply introducing students to the industry.
"It was about having something that really brought this to life and gave them a reason to want to be part of this industry," he said.
The two-week programme combines classroom learning with placements at London market firms before concluding at the Lime Street Festival careers event. More than 600 young people have taken part since launching in 2023, around two-thirds from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
This year's cohort of 150 students was selected from more than 2,000 applicants, underlining strong demand from prospective entrants despite declining recruitment across the market.
Wagstaff also highlighted the LMG's talent hub, which allows smaller firms to recruit from a shared pool of candidates without running their own assessment centres.
"We put them through a single assessment centre and then we say to the market, here is a pool of talented, diverse young people," she said. "All you need to do is interview them."
Of the 250 students who have completed the full programme across its first two years, 50 are now working in the London market. That cohort is 65% from ethnic minority backgrounds, 35% from low-income families and evenly split between male and female participants.
Orla Foley-Wright, HR and Communications Director at Antares, said the business received 1,055 applications in six days for its latest graduate intake before closing applications early. The firm ultimately doubled its planned intake to 14, including two Futures Academy participants.
Toby Sisson, Group Head of HR at McGill & Partners, said graduate applications had risen sharply since the business launched.
"When we launched as a company seven years ago, our very first intake, applications were very manageable, sort of 50 people," he said. "Last year we had over 2,000."
He argued that the challenge is no longer attracting candidates but maintaining recruitment through changing market conditions.
"If we don't as an industry combine to bring talent in, we are all going to be chasing the same talent after five, seven years," he said. "There's no right answer here that doesn't involve actually doing it."
For the LMG, that makes the Futures Academy only part of the solution. Sustaining the market's talent pipeline will ultimately depend on firms continuing to recruit through the cycle, rather than cutting early careers hiring when conditions soften.
