You could take a degree before applying to join a company's management training scheme. Most subjects are accepted but you may have an advantage if you study:

• business management
• financial services
• marketing
• maths

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

• 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, for a degree

You may be able to get into this job by doing an insurance professional higher apprenticeship, or degree apprenticeship for senior insurance professionals.

These take between 24 to 36 months to complete with a mix of workplace learning and study.

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

• 4 or 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) and A levels, or equivalent, for a higher or degree apprenticeship

You could start as an insurance technician, underwriter or junior account handler and work your way up through training and promotion.

You could study for qualifications from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).

The CII qualifications offer study units relevant to the insurance areas you specialise in, for example marine, commercial or general insurance. Examples of qualifications include:

• CII Level 3 Certificate in Insurance
• CII Diploma in Insurance
• CII Advanced Diploma in Insurance

You'll need:

• customer service skills
• the ability to sell products and services
• to be thorough and pay attention to detail
• the ability to use your initiative
• persistence and determination
• patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations
• excellent verbal communication skills
• maths knowledge
• to be able to use a computer and the main software packages confidently

In your day-to-day tasks you could:

• build good working relationships with brokers and other agents
• be responsible for several business accounts
• promote new insurance products and work to sales targets
• set up meetings to pitch and develop new business accounts
• work with insurance underwriters to adapt policies
• set up claims handling and support teams for new policies
• monitor team sales performance
• develop marketing literature
• make sure that all business meets strict financial services industry rules

You could work in an office or from home.