Overview of the UK’s Banking and Insurance sector

If you are thinking about getting into this field you can expect different things out of it. For instance, working hard and long hours in such a fast-paced environment with salaries from £20,500-£42,000 depending on your experience (High Fliers’ The Graduate Market in 2019)

Besides the hard work, you can also expect rapidly increasing salaries, big bonuses and great opportunities for progression.

What areas can you work in?

1. Accounting. This includes the roles of accountants that reports a business’s accounts or those who are willing to work independently and manage another company’s accountancy.
2. Banking. This sector enables people and business to manage their money through savings, credits, loans and insurances.
3. Financial planning. These types of jobs focus on providing advisory services and planing the financial future for people and companies.
4. Insurance. This industry advises workers and companies from different sectors in the possible risks they face daily and how can they protect from those.
5. Investments and pensions. Professionals seek the performance of funds, their client’s heritag and their financial risks. Their main activities reside on performance measurement, investment support, risk assessment, data management, and trading and stockbroking.
6. Tax. Often regarded as a subset of accounting, tax specialists can either work as advisers to their employer’s clients or take up governmental positions.

And the best employers are…

Regarding finance the best companies to work in are:

• Deloitte
• Ernst & Young (EY)
• KPMG
• PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

 

Among the UK’s retail banks and building societies, the highlighted companies are:

• Barclays
• HSBC
• Lloyds Banking Group
• Nationwide Building Society
• Royal Bank of Scotland Group (includes NatWest)
• Santander UK.

In investment banking, the most distinguished companies include:

• Barclays Investment Bank
• Citigroup
• Deutsche Bank
• J.P. Morgan
• Morgan Stanley
• The Goldman Sachs Group.

And the most important insurers operating in the UK are:

• Admiral Group
• Allianz
• American International Group (AIG)
• Aviva
• AXA
• Direct Line Insurance Group
• Legal & General Group
• Liverpool Victoria (LV=)
• Prudential
• RSA Group
• Standard Life.

There is number of ways you can enrol into this industry, you could work for example as a bank manager.

What do I need to do to become a bank manager?

You can gain experience working in a bank as a full-time employee or as an intern. In any case, you will need a completed degree depending on the job position.

To do a degree you will need a GCSEs (A-C) which includes maths, English and science. You will also need three A levels (or any equivalent level 3 qualification). The most relevant degrees in this industry are business, economics, finance, management or marketing.

If you would like to learn more about this industry see the courses selection we created for you.