Full Breakdown
Legal & General to Cut About 10% of Workforce by Mid-2027
By Drooid · · How we work
Job-cut Announcement
On September 23, Legal & General (L&G) informed its employees that it will eliminate roughly 1,000 positions—about one-tenth of its roughly 10,000-strong staff—by the middle of 2027. The plan will start with a voluntary redundancy programme in the United Kingdom, with the possibility of compulsory cuts if take-up is low. The firm’s asset-management division, which oversees about £1.2 trillion of assets, is excluded because it is already undergoing a separate restructuring.
Background and Strategic Shift
António Simões, who succeeded longtime chief executive Nigel Wilson in early 2024, has been reshaping L&G’s structure. Since his arrival, the group has merged its asset-management businesses, sold non-strategic holdings such as housebuilder Cala Homes, and refocused on its pensions arm. Simões has pledged to return more than £5 billion to shareholders between 2025 and 2027 via dividends and share buybacks. The current job-cut programme is presented as the “next stage of that transformation” aimed at simplifying a business that, according to the CEO, has become overly complex over the past decade.
Data & Statistics
- Workforce: ~10,000 employees, ~1,000 jobs targeted for removal (?10%).
- Asset-management assets under management: £1.2 trillion (division excluded from cuts).
- Share performance: up 13 % in 2026, yet under-performing peers such as Aviva and the broader market.
- Expected market activity: L&G projects £500 billion of UK pension-plan transactions over the next decade as employers shift defined-benefit schemes to insurers.
Verbatim Quotes
- “To deliver our strategy successfully, we now need to make sure the way we work reflects the business we are becoming. Across L&G, we need to change how we work today and, through this, become a leaner organisation. By the middle of next year, we expect to reduce the size of our organisation by around 1,000 roles,” — António Simões, CEO