Sunny Everton shares his insights on current market conditions within the UK insurance in-house legal sector—covering hiring trends, salary pressures, skill demands, and what both employers and legal professionals need to prioritise heading into 2026. For support with hiring or career planning, Sunny is available to offer tailored advice.
What’s affecting hiring and employment across the UK insurance in-house legal market?
The UK insurance in-house legal market is navigating a period of heightened complexity, driven by regulatory change, economic pressure and evolving business models. The FCA’s sustained focus on Consumer Duty, ESG and operational resilience has increased the need for lawyers with deep regulatory capability. Alongside this, the rise of InsurTech and wider digital transformation is pushing in-house legal teams to contend with new challenges around data privacy, cybersecurity, AI governance and intellectual property.
Economic uncertainty and cost pressures have prompted some insurers to consolidate legal functions, increasing workloads and making strategic hiring decisions more selective. Demand remains strongest for regulatory, compliance and cross-border transactional expertise as firms grapple with global market shifts. At the same time, rising private practice salaries are widening the pay gap, with 76% of employers citing salary expectations as a barrier to securing top talent, making attraction and retention increasingly difficult.
What are the main issues legal counsels are facing in the insurance market?
In-house legal teams continue to face mounting demands as regulatory intensity grows. Consumer Duty and PRA scrutiny remain front-of-mind, while ESG, climate risk and sustainability considerations are now central to strategic and operational decision-making. Claims inflation, more complex disputes, and increased severity of notifications add further pressure, particularly for teams already operating with lean headcount.
The rapid expansion of InsurTech, AI and data-driven operating models—combined with ongoing consolidation across the insurance market—requires legal counsel to navigate new structures, technologies and commercial arrangements. The result is a market that is simultaneously experiencing strong demand for legal talent while hiring slows, as employers become more cautious and selective in response to economic pressure.
What do employers need to implement in 2026 to attract top legal talent?
To stand out in 2026, insurance employers must offer competitive compensation packages that reflect rising private practice salaries. Clear career progression pathways and transparent promotion criteria are increasingly non-negotiable for candidates assessing long-term opportunities. Hybrid working and genuine flexibility are now baseline expectations, not differentiators.
Beyond pay, firms must invest in the professional growth of their in-house teams—funding upskilling in ESG, AI, regulatory specialisms and digital transformation. Creating an environment that supports innovation, inclusion and cross-functional collaboration will be critical to attracting and retaining the next generation of high-performing legal talent.
What skills do private practice lawyers need to develop to become more attractive to insurance firms when moving in-house?
Private practice lawyers aiming to transition in-house must move beyond rule-based advisory work and demonstrate the ability to design practical, operational frameworks. This includes policy creation, implementation and training—running workshops for compliance, underwriting and product teams, and translating regulation into business-ready processes.
Fluency in regulatory change, claims, coverage and policy wordings is essential, along with an ability to think like a general counsel: concise decision-making, pragmatic risk assessment and an understanding of the regulator’s mindset. Commercial and technological capability is equally important; lawyers should seek out opportunities involving data, digital transformation, outsourcing and AI governance to build credibility in areas where insurers are investing heavily.
Culturally, adapting to in-house expectations is key—triage, executive-level communication, and operating across legal, compliance and governance functions. Demonstrating ownership and leadership through CV examples such as leading workstreams, designing training programmes or collaborating with cross-functional teams helps signal “I’m already operating like an in-house lawyer”, making the transition more seamless for employers.