UK insurance giant Norwich Union is to outsource 500 IT jobs, the majority of which are likely to go offshore according to the firm's chief information officer (CIO).

Alex Robinson told Computing he expects 70 per cent of the 500 outsourced IT roles will go to India.

The insurance company will outsource a range of IT activities from application development to support and systems management functions.

Robinson confirmed at least 75 per cent of the jobs will be outsourced to third party suppliers Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro, both Indian companies. 

'We're following a strategy of moving a 40 per cent portion work offshore and retaining a critical mass of people in-house with knowledge and understanding of the particular skills we think are core to the insurance industry,' said Robinson.

The announcement is part of a wider move which will see the loss of 4,000 roles across the UK by the end of 2007, approximately half of which are anticipated to be through compulsory redundancies.

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Further reading:

5,000 UK IT jobs per year to go offshore

Unions push for offshore compensation scheme