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Actuary

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Are you great with numbers? Do you love making predictions about the future? If you’ve got a statistically minded brain and want to use this in your career, a job as an actuary could be perfect for you.

Are you interested in working as an actuary? Explore the financial services jobs available to you right now.

What do actuaries do?

Actuaries use statistical information to determine the likelihood of an event and use this information to determine the type of financial product that can be offered to a client or customer. As an actuary, you could be working with insurance, determining whether providing a certain type of insurance to a customer is a safe bet. You could also be working with pensions, determining the amount of money they need to pay in to make the payout at the end worthwhile. Here are the tasks that you have as an actuary:

  • Meet with clients, customers and colleagues to discuss the work you’re doing
  • Analyse data using software and sometimes requiring low level programming knowledge if you’re using SQL rather than Excel
  • Make predictions based on the results of your analysis
  • Compiling your analysis and conclusions which you report to clients, customers or colleagues

Actuary career path

When working as an actuary, you often work in an insurance firm, consulting firm or for a bank. If you enjoy the predictive facet of actuarial work but want to work on a larger scale, you could progress to financial risk. If you prefer working with insurance, you could become an insurance broker. If you decide that working in actuary is perfect for you, here is the career path that you could follow:

Entry-level

You often begin your career as an actuarial assistant. This job is designed to teach you all the required skills for a career as an actuary. Most of your work is supervised by an actuary. They make sure the work you’re doing is accurate and meets the required standards. In the role, you calculate risks and probability, complete documentation and make graphs to demonstrate your predictions. 

Career progression

Once you’ve passed the actuarial exam and gained experience, you progress to a fully qualified actuary position. As an actuary, you’re responsible for data analysis and making conclusions on how the organisation should act on specific cases based on the results of the analysis.

Future career

With years of experience and a good track record, you become a senior actuary. In this role, you have the same responsibilities as a mid-level actuary. You’re given high profile or more complex clients, making your workload heavier. You may also be responsible for looking after junior colleagues like actuary assistants. This means signing off on their work and providing advice when they need it.

Actuary salaries

The actuary career path generally offers good salaries for skilled people in the field. These salaries depend on the organisation you work for, its geographic location and your skill level and experience. Here are the salaries that you could earn throughout your career:

  • In an entry-level position like actuary assistant, you earn between £30,000 and £40,000 per year
  • In a mid-level actuarial role, you earn between £40,000 and £70,000 per year
  • As a senior actuary, you earn an average of £90,000 per year which could extend to beyond £100,000 per year

Qualifications and training

Having the right education helps you impress any hiring manager. Here are the qualifications and training that you need to go into the actuary career path:

Education

Having an undergraduate degree is often a requirement for working as an actuary. Relevant degrees include actuarial science and accounting. Having a master’s degree isn’t usually a requirement but can give you more opportunities later in your career and open the door to higher salaries. A degree will teach you the theoretical background information that you need for the job, including how to use statistics and probability to make predictions. You can explore the courses available to you with this UCAS course search tool.

Other than having a degree, you can explore the apprenticeship opportunities for actuaries. Apprenticeships teach you the background required information that you need for the job whilst you work for an insurance firm or bank. This means you gain relevant skills and are taught to do the job by industry experts currently working in the field. Some apprenticeships include a degree option where you work for an insurance firm or bank whilst completing an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. Often, your tuition is paid by the firm, and you earn a modest salary. If you’re interested in doing an apprenticeship, explore the apprenticeships available now with the government’s apprenticeship search tool. You can learn more about actuary apprenticeships with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

To work as an actuary, you need to qualify through a professional exam. Degree courses in actuarial science often include the qualification as a part of the course. However, if you’re studying another degree and want to move into the career path or if you are doing an apprenticeship, you need to do the exam. Lots of actuarial assistants, an entry-level position, work towards these exams whilst working. You can learn more about the exam with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Work experience

Alongside your education, having some relevant work experience helps you secure an actuary job. Work experience teaches you the skills that you need for doing the job which many graduates in your position won’t have. It shows you what the working environment is like in an office and means getting a job after graduation is an easier adjustment than if you had no previous work experience. A great way of getting work experience is through an internship. You can explore the financial services internships available now and complete this module on converting an internship into a permanent job

Actuary skills

Combining your education with a great skill set helps you impress any hiring manager. Here are the skills you need to succeed as an actuary:

Hard skills

  • Probability. As an actuary, you use your knowledge of probability to make predictions about the likelihood of events and use this information to know how safe it is for the insurance firm or bank to make a commitment to a customer or client. Therefore, having a really good understanding of probability is important, making it a major requirement of the job. You get taught how to use probability in this way and modelling techniques as part of your education, but being able to apply them in a workplace scenario is part of the learning curve.
  • Programming. This is not a requirement of the career but can be useful. Being able to at least understand the basics of SQL, a programming language, helps you analyse big datasets and come to more concrete conclusions.

Soft skills

  • Multitasking. In the role, you should be able to switch between tasks, looking into multiple cases in a day without getting them confused. This requires good multitasking skills so you can do all your work without getting confused between it.
  • Problem-solving. You need good problem-solving skills to work as an actuary so you can thoroughly understand the results of your analysis and make solid conclusions about pensions or insurance.

Pros and cons of being an actuary

Like any career path, there are positive and negative factors about working as an actuary. Knowing these good and bad parts help you decide if it’s the right job for you in the long run. Here are the pros and cons of working as an actuary:

Pros

  • The job often allows for flexible working days
  • There is good career progression
  • Actuaries often earn high salaries
  • The role offers good job security

Cons

  • Some people find the work unsatisfactory
  • You might have overtime work to do around deadlines
  • It can be a stressful career if you’re dealing with how much to charge clients or customers

Actuary work-life balance

Actuary work usually includes standard office hours of 9am to 5pm on Monday to Friday. This could fluctuate depending on the size of your workload and whether you have any deadlines coming up. You don’t usually take the work home unless you’re working in life insurance where spending the day using minute factors to estimate the death of your clients and customers may bleed into your conversations or judgements about friends’ and acquaintances’ lifestyle choices.

Actuarial work is primarily office-based and requires spending large parts of the day looking at a computer screen. This can cause issues in the future for your health including back and eyesight problems. Making sure you maintain a healthy lifestyle beyond work including some appropriate exercise, stretching in a safe but effective way and making sure to look at objects further away than your computer screen periodically throughout the day can positively impact your health in the long run.

If you want to know more about the industry, complete this sector 101 module on insurance.

Typical employers hiring actuaries

As an actuary, you could work for an insurance firm, a consulting firm or a bank. Knowing the types of employers helps you explore your options and know who to target your applications to when you’re ready to apply. Here are the employers that could hire you:

Related jobs to actuary

  • Financial risk
  • Compliance
  • Internal auditor
  • External auditor
  • Financial advisor

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