About 300 jobs are to be axed by Norwich Union following a shake-up of its IT operations.Maintenance and IT development workers based in a number of sites across Norwich are amongst those to lose their jobs as the insurance giant looks to cut costs.

About 300 jobs are to be axed by Norwich Union following a shake-up of its IT operations.

Maintenance and IT development workers based in a number of sites across Norwich are amongst those to lose their jobs as the insurance giant looks to cut costs.

NU said the shake-up follows a review of IT across the business and was aimed at improving efficiency.

The insurance giant said a number of major IT projects were coming to an end and many IT support services have been centralised.

Some of the job cuts will be achieved though natural staff turnover, redeployment to other Aviva group businesses and voluntary redundancy.

However the company has admitted because many of the roles are highly specialised that there will be significant numbers of compulsory redundancies.

The cutbacks will see the numbers employed in IT on the company's Norwich sites reduced from around 1,400 to 1,100 by next March.

Jobs are being lost at a number of sites across Norwich, including the company's new offices on the Broadland Business Park.

As well as the job losses in Norwich, another 85 IT roles will also be lost in Perth.

The announcement comes less than two weeks after 140 job cuts were unveiled by the insurance giant as part of multi-million pound cuts to the NU marketing budget.

Earlier this year Andrew Moss, the new chief executive of NU's parent company Aviva, revealed his new One Aviva strategy, which focused on improving performance across the group.

Sean Egan, chief information officer at NU Insurance, said: “A number of significant projects, such as the integration of RAC into Norwich Union are now nearing their natural end and we therefore no longer need to maintain or upgrade old systems and services.

“We're also in the process of transferring all administration onto one single platform across the business, which will reduce the number of IT systems we use.

“We are operating in an increasingly changing environment and these changes will achieve greater effectiveness across our IT operations.

“We understand that this is a difficult time for our people and our priority now is to work through the detail of these changes and support those staff affected by today's announcement.”

NU currently employs about 6,900 staff in Norwich following the transfer of 650 workers to SwissRe on October 1 under a deal which will see the Swiss company handle administration for more than three million life and pensions policies.

In August NU's parent Aviva said profits at its general insurance and health business were down 34pc to £560m in the six months to June 30, after weather-related claims of £235m.