Legal & General Staff Face About 1,000 Job Cuts by Mid-2027, Starting With Voluntary Exits

Legal & General Group, the life insurance and pensions group known as L&G, expects to cut around 1,000 jobs by the middle of next year, and it will start by offering voluntary redundancy to its UK workers. Staff heard the news by email on Wednesday. Compulsory redundancies are not ruled out, so the choice facing staff outside asset management is whether to raise a hand now or wait. At Metaintro we set announcements like this against the company's own annual report and the UK redundancy rules, because those two documents tell you far more about your options than the headline does. Here is what L&G's filings show and what the law gives you.

What Did L&G Tell Its Staff on Wednesday?

The core message came in an email from chief executive António Simões. The group plans to cut staff numbers by about 10%, or around 1,000 jobs, by the middle of 2027, and it is opening a voluntary job reduction programme as the first step.

The reason given is complexity rather than a crisis. In the email, Simões wrote that over the last decade different structures, processes and ways of working had developed across L&G, making it more complex than it needs to be, and that the company now needs to become a leaner organisation.

The voluntary scheme is aimed at the UK first. The group will begin by offering voluntary redundancy to its UK workers, which matters because the UK is where most of its staff are based. Whether compulsory cuts follow is expected to depend on take-up of the voluntary offer.

The company has also committed to consulting unions on the reductions, and it frames the cuts as a way to focus investment where it sees the strongest opportunities for growth.

"By the middle of next year, we expect to reduce the size of our organisation by around 1,000 roles," Simões wrote to staff.

How Big Is the Cut Against L&G's Actual Workforce?

The company's own annual report for 2025 gives the clearest picture of the workforce. It records a monthly average of 9,739 staff in the UK during 2025, against 10,512 in 2024.

The worldwide average was 11,139 employees in 2025, and the report notes that this is an average headcount rather than a count of full time equivalents. The same table shows 71 staff in Europe and 101 elsewhere.

The American numbers are a special case. The USA line of 1,228 staff includes 941 employees of a business classified as held for sale. The half year results later record a gain on the disposal of the non-retained US business. Either way, the UK is where most of the group's staff worked in 2025, and it is also where the voluntary phase starts.

For an employee, the practical point is that this is not a small corner of the business being trimmed. It is a group wide programme, and only asset management has been ruled out.

Why Is a Growing Insurer Cutting Jobs Now?

The results L&G filed on 5 August do not describe a business in trouble. Core operating profit rose 7% to £918m in the first half, and the company expects full year core operating EPS growth to beat the top of its 6-9% target range.

The same filing uses language that later reappeared in the staff email. Management wrote that it is simplifying the way we work, using its scale and taking actions that are already improving efficiency, while creating additional capacity to invest in future growth. The staff email in September spoke of simplifying L&G and becoming a leaner organisation.

Shareholder returns are the other half of the picture. The group has a £1.2bn buyback programme underway, with about £450m completed by the end of July, and it is on track to return more than £5bn to shareholders over 2025 to 2027. The interim dividend rose 2% to 6.24p per share.

The share price is part of the pressure. Simões became chief executive in early 2024, and while the stock is up 13% so far in 2026, it has trailed rivals such as Aviva and the wider market in recent years.

What is still missing is the bill. The reports so far do not specify the restructuring charge, annual cost savings or timing of the financial benefit, so the size of the expected savings has not been set out.

Which Parts of L&G Are in Scope, and Which Are Not?

L&G now runs three core businesses, which are Institutional Retirement, Asset Management and Retail. The group has already been trimmed from four businesses into three divisions, and it sold assets such as its Cala Homes housebuilding operation along the way.

Asset management is the exception. That division is excluded from the job cuts after going through a restructuring last year, and it runs £1.2 trillion in total assets under management. Its costs were already being reshaped in the first half, with restructuring spending that reflected actions taken to simplify and reshape the business and position it for growth.

That leaves Institutional Retirement and Retail, and none of the reports name any other exclusion. If you work anywhere outside asset management, treat yourself as potentially in scope until you hear otherwise in writing.

What Does Voluntary Redundancy Actually Mean for You?

Voluntary redundancy lets you put yourself forward before anyone is selected. It can happen either through your employer asking for volunteers or through you volunteering, and it is sensible to do it in writing, following any company policy on the process.

Volunteering does not guarantee you go. Your employer does not have to agree to make you redundant, because it is weighing the needs of the whole business, and someone highly skilled and experienced in their role may be kept on. It also does not have to open the scheme to everyone. If you believe you were blocked from volunteering because of sex, age, disability or another protected characteristic, that could be discrimination.

Anyone who volunteers can still be turned down, because an employer does not have to agree to let a volunteer go.

Before any of that, you are entitled to clear information. An employer considering redundancies should tell affected staff which roles are at risk, why, and how consultation will work, and it should confirm in writing whether options such as voluntary redundancy or suitable alternative employment are open to you.

The legal protections apply to employees. Agency workers, casual workers and people on zero hours contracts are unlikely to have employee status, so contractors working inside L&G should check their own terms rather than assume the voluntary offer covers them.

What Must the Consultation Include, and Who Speaks for Staff?

A programme of this size is likely to trigger the collective rules, which apply whenever an employer is making 20 or more redundancies at the same time. Where the number reaches 100 or more, consultation must start at least 45 days before any dismissals take effect.

The consultation has required content. It must cover ways to avoid redundancies, the reasons for them, how to keep dismissals to a minimum and how to limit the effect on the people involved, for example by offering retraining. You can also claim at an employment tribunal if your employer does not consult properly.

At L&G, the representative side is already set up. Its annual report describes Unite as its employee union, representing staff individually and for collective bargaining alongside an in-house body called the Management Consultative Forum. Collective consultation runs through a trade union rep or an elected employee rep, and any affected employee can stand for election as a rep or vote for others.

There is a precedent worth knowing. When L&G proposed redundancies in its protection and savings business in 2013, it consulted employee representatives and Unite and said it aimed to keep redundancies to a minimum and provide redeployment inside the group where possible. That is the standard to ask the company to meet again.

Selection must be fair. You can be chosen on grounds such as experience or capability, but you cannot be selected because of age, gender, disability or pregnancy, and a selection on those grounds could be an unfair dismissal.

What Are You Owed if Your Role Goes?

Statutory redundancy pay applies once you have 2 years or more of service. It works out as half a week's pay for each full year you were under 22, one week's pay for each full year from 22 up to 41, and one and a half weeks' pay for each full year at 41 or older.

Two caps apply. Service counts for a maximum of 20 years, and for redundancies on or after 6 April 2026 weekly pay is capped at £751, which sets the statutory maximum at £22,530. Your weekly pay is the average over the 12 weeks before your notice, and you have 6 months from the date your job ends to apply.

The statutory figure is a floor, not a forecast of what a voluntary scheme will pay. None of the reports so far give L&G's package terms, so ask for the written figure before you decide anything, and check it against the statutory amount so you can see how much is genuine enhancement.

Notice sits on top of redundancy pay. The statutory minimum is one week's notice for each year of service between 2 and 12 years, rising to 12 weeks' notice once you have 12 years or more, and your contract can give you more but never less. If you are paid instead of working your notice, you should receive all the basic pay for that period, plus extras such as pension contributions if your contract includes them.

How Is a Redundancy Package Taxed?

Tax is the part to check line by line. Redundancy payments are exempt from income tax up to £30,000 from one job, and a statutory payment on its own always falls inside that exemption.

Not every line of the package counts. Payments in lieu of notice have been fully taxable as earnings and liable to National Insurance since 6 April 2018, whether or not your contract mentions them, and holiday pay is taxed in full like wages.

National Insurance is lighter on the redundancy element itself. You pay no National Insurance contributions on redundancy payments, even above £30,000, but other parts of the package may still attract it. When you compare an offer, split it into the tax free redundancy element and the taxable notice and holiday elements, because the take home figures can differ sharply.

Can You Move Into Another L&G Role Instead?

You may be offered one, and the law protects you while you try it. An employer might offer suitable alternative employment within the organisation, judged on how similar the work is, the pay and benefits, status, hours and location, and your skills.

You get a 4-week trial period in any alternative job, which can be extended for training if agreed in writing first. If you decide it is not suitable and say so within the trial, you keep your right to statutory redundancy pay. Turning down a genuinely suitable offer without good reason can cost you that pay.

L&G is still recruiting while it cuts. Its Cardiff careers page says the office is actively seeking people with experience in finance, actuarial science and insurance, and live listings include a permanent Customer Experience Advisor post in the Pension and ISA team, a Customer Experience Advocate role asking for pensions or SIPP administration experience, and a Support Engineer post working on the Snowflake data warehouse for the retail business.

The results also show which lines grew in the first half. Protection new business premiums rose 22% to £168m in the first half, and Retail Annuities generated £1.0bn of new business sales, up 36% on a year earlier. Workplace pensions administered assets rose 27% to £128bn. Our read is that skills tied to those growing lines are the safer ground in a simplification.

If you have two years of service, you are also entitled to reasonable time off during notice to look for work, though your employer only has to pay up to 40% of one week's pay for it.

What This Means for L&G Staff and Insurance Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

The honest reading of the filings is that this is a profitable company choosing to cut, not a company fighting for survival. That matters for your decision. In our view, a firm doing this by choice, with a voluntary phase first, has good reason to make the voluntary offer attractive, since every volunteer is one fewer compulsory selection. For a contrast with a distressed layoff, see our coverage of Microsoft's first voluntary buyout.

The window to shape your outcome is the voluntary phase. If compulsory cuts follow, selection criteria take over and your leverage falls. Our view is that the people who should look hardest at volunteering are those with long service, because the statutory formula rewards years, and those whose skills map cleanly onto the parts of the market still hiring. Nobody outside asset management should assume they are safe by staying quiet. Senior staff may also want to read our piece on high earners in the UK layoff wave before weighing an offer.

Here is what to do this week.

• Ask in writing whether your role is in scope and request the voluntary package terms, including how enhanced pay is calculated.
• Work out your statutory minimum using your age, service and weekly pay, so you know how much of any offer is genuine enhancement.
• Split the package into its tax free redundancy element and its taxable notice and holiday pay before comparing it with staying.
• Contact Unite or the Management Consultative Forum and ask what the consultation timetable is.
• Ask whether suitable alternative roles in protection, annuities or workplace pensions are open to you, because the trial period rules protect your redundancy rights while you test an alternative job you are offered.

For insurance and pensions job seekers outside the company, the takeaway is the reverse. L&G's retail business still has live listings in Cardiff, and anyone who leaves through this scheme may be applying to the same employers you are. If you are applying for pensions and annuities roles in the coming months, be ready for more experienced competition and lead with specific product knowledge.

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People Also Asked

Q: How many jobs is Legal & General cutting?

A: The group plans to cut around 1,000 jobs, about 10% of its staff, by the middle of 2027, starting with a voluntary job reduction programme for UK workers, and compulsory redundancies are not ruled out.

Q: Is Legal & General's asset management business affected?

A: No. Asset management is excluded from the job cuts because it went through its own restructuring last year, so every other part of the group is in scope.

Q: How much statutory redundancy pay can a UK worker get?

A: For redundancies on or after 6 April 2026, weekly pay is capped at £751 and the maximum is £22,530, with service counted up to 20 years. A voluntary scheme can pay more than this, so check the written offer.

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