Legal & General plans to cut around 1,000 roles by the middle of 2027 as the FTSE 100 insurance and investment group continues a programme intended to simplify its structure and improve performance.
The reduction represents roughly 10% of the organisation’s workforce. Chief executive António Simões told employees that the company needed to become leaner as it changes the way the wider group operates, with a voluntary redundancy programme expected to form the first part of the process in the UK.
Compulsory redundancies have not been ruled out. Legal & General said it would consult unions over the changes, while its asset management division is excluded from the planned reduction after going through its own restructuring last year.
Simões told employees: “Across L&G, we need to change how we work today and, through this, become a leaner organisation.”
The programme extends a wider reshaping of Legal & General since Simões became chief executive in early 2024. The group has sold housebuilder Cala and combined investment operations as management has sought to concentrate capital and management attention around businesses it believes can generate stronger long-term growth and returns.
Legal & General reported higher operating profit at its half-year results in August and raised several performance targets, although activity in its pensions buyout operation had softened. The business spans insurance, retirement products, institutional pension risk transfer, and investment management, giving organisational changes at group level consequences across several large operating divisions.
The proposed workforce reduction comes as financial and professional services groups examine operating costs, organisational layers, and the amount of capital and staff required to support established business models. Higher employment costs, changing customer behaviour, technology investment, and pressure to improve shareholder returns have increased attention on productivity across labour-intensive service businesses.
Legal & General also faces a more complicated execution challenge than a business carrying out a single-site restructuring. It administers long-term savings, insurance, pension, and investment relationships where customer service, specialist expertise, risk controls, and regulatory obligations have to continue while organisational changes are implemented.
Reducing duplicated processes and management layers may lower costs, but the financial benefit will depend partly on whether the group can preserve service quality and specialist capability through the transition. Large-scale workforce changes can also create short-term costs through redundancy payments, consultation, system changes, and recruitment into areas where expertise still needs to be strengthened.
The exclusion of asset management from the latest programme shows the reductions will not be applied uniformly. That division has already gone through structural changes, while management is now focusing reductions elsewhere in the group.
The announcement adds a workforce dimension to a strategy that has already involved portfolio changes and internal consolidation. Simões has been seeking to simplify a group built across several distinct areas of savings, retirement, insurance, and investment.
Consultation will determine how the 1,000-role target is distributed and how much can be achieved through voluntary departures. The company has not set out a detailed divisional breakdown for the planned reductions.
The timetable gives Legal & General until the middle of 2027 to complete the programme. Management will therefore be carrying out the changes alongside existing financial targets and growth plans, making workforce execution part of the wider test of whether simplification improves the group’s operating performance.
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