Opinion in the UK seems divided, and during my conversations with friends, colleagues and clients, people seem polarised in one camp or another. Even the cabinet appears divided on what is the best path. Contrast this with what seems to be an aligned European union, and we are in for an interesting lead up to Brexit.

LinkedIn produce a UK workforce report every month, using information from the profiles of over 24 million people in the UK. The April report, using the latest data from March 2018, looks at hiring and professional trends in the UK. The key insight from the report is that the UK had become a net loser of international talent: the UK is now losing talent to the other 27 EU member states, as fewer professionals from the rest of the world are moving to the UK.

Brexit could have a significant impact on the UK insurance industry, especially on firms with operations in Europe. UK insurance companies are all looking at their operating models and designing a strategy to mitigate the potential effects. Having the right people in the right locations will be critical, and Europe could benefit. More and more insurers are starting to implement their plans and beginning to hire.

Many insurers are opting for Belgium, Ireland or Luxembourg, with the regulators all expecting some degree of local presence and structure. Generally, we are seeing regulators wanting to approve candidates who are sufficiently qualified and based in the relevant country. The types of positions being hired are CEO, CFO, CRO, Chief Actuary, and Legal and Compliance. These are highly skilled functions, most of which are being hired locally.

We are seeing an increase in recruitment as a result of new insurance subsidiaries in the EU, which has led to an increase in demand for people with specialist skills such as actuarial, risk, finance, compliance and law, and underwriting. We are also seeing this in specialty classes, where there is a small pool of talent with the relevant skill set. As well as insurance companies, we have seen an increase in hiring at some local regulators, such as in Luxembourg, and consulting firms as they play their part in developing a Brexit strategy for their clients. In Luxembourg and Dublin, there might not be a sufficiently large pool of talent with insurance experience, however if firms look in to adjacent sectors such as banking and asset management where possible, they will find many more people.

If firms are deciding to set up in markets with a lower availability of talent, companies will need to think about accessing the global insurance talent market to secure the best available candidates. The easiest options will be EU citizens, candidates commuting from UK, or expats. There would need to be careful consideration about how to attract these candidates and why their career and personal life would be better served in the new position and country, versus their current role and location.

We are also seeing a growing number of EU companies setting up branches or subsidiaries in the UK as an insurance policy against Brexit. It’s difficult to say how much of an impact this will have on insurance jobs in the UK, but we’ve seen a small increase.

In summary, availability of talent should be one of the key topics to consider for firms when deciding on their Brexit strategy. Each regulator will require firms to establish a staffed office, but to varying degrees. So far, Brexit seems to have created more jobs in the EU insurance market. Over the next few years, in my opinion, there will be other developments which will have a bigger impact on the number of jobs in the EU/UK insurance market, such as artificial intelligence, automation and the increase in mergers and acquisitions. We still don’t know what Brexit will look like, or what the effects will be, but the only certainty is that things will be changing.