I'm an actuary

[DadDadDad]

This is a bit niche, but a MNetter did PM me because their DS is interested in an actuarial career. So I'll watch this thread should anyone else want to ask.

Being an actuary is a (financially and intellectually) rewarding career if you are good at Maths (numerate degree) and have some interest in finance, economics and insurance (although all those you can learn on the job). Main employers are insurance companies and consultancies (including specialist pension scheme actuaries, the Big 4 accountancy firms).

And of course, you shouldn't put much trust in an anonymous stranger on the internet, but if I'm not genuine, you'd have to wonder why I've kept up this rather niche impersonation on MN for so many years. (Do an advanced search on actuary and my username!).

Anyway, here's a photo I took this morning - my actuarial qualification proudly hanging in the downstairs loo!

It’s really interesting to hear you career changed from teaching- that’s what I would like to do!

I’m a maths teacher, have an A at a-level (turns before A* was introduced) but only have half a maths degree as I did a joint honours. I have always wished I had become an actuary rather than gone into teaching so once I’ve had my baby next year and finished mat leave it’s something I will consider. Am I too old now to change? I’m 32!

another actuary excited to see the word in active topics here!

I worked in pensions, now in education.

Onebiteofeverything you're never too old! And a joint honours maths degree would be absolutely fine. The materials don't assume anything beyond A level. Most firms just like to see a numerate degree to show capability.

I did BSc in Theoretical Physics and MSc in Financial Maths.

However, it is a long slog. IME, there's two methods - sacrifice personal life completely and get it done quickly. Or try and juggle the two and take a bit longer. I took the second approach, got married, had a couple of sessions off etc and it took me 8.5 years. I had no exemptions, you may have one or two if your degree had stats. I suspect at your (our!) age you're more likely to have those pesky things like a partner, house, kids that force you into the second approach, so even if you got hired tomorrow you'd possibly be doing well to be qualified by 40.

However, the work as a trainee is still interesting and well paid (similar to teaching or better I'd guess) so it may well be worth it. An employer may well love your life experience and pragmatism. I used to get very frustrated with graduates!

Thanks Liv that’s really helpful. Yes I have a mortgage and a 2 year old and am expecting again in March so it’s not something I can throw myself fully into at the minute.

I am desperate for a career change next year though, I just can’t keep teaching any longer.

I don’t mind how long it takes to qualify as long as I’m enjoying the work and I’m getting a salary that covers the mortgage.

Yeah I know the feeling Onebiteofeverything - I'm on maternity leave ATM and need to start a PhD when I go back.

Best of luck if you decide to go for it.

I did my masters and a special needs

qualification a few years back so I’m used to studying again as an adult, but I’m sure doing it with children in tow is a whole different story!

I have a fantasy idea that you'd be more focussed on actually studying on study days. But it would be tough without evenings and weekends.

Onebite - your qualifications sound fine. 32 is not old! Your main issue will be location - are there any actuarial jobs near you?

If you are serious, you will probably find it useful talking to a specialist recruiter (like MsWarren upthread), as they tend to be the way in to insurance companies - not sure how it works with the consultancies.

You might get a feel (and find the names of some recruitment firms) if you look here www.theactuaryjobs.com/

Is it ever possible to get part-time training posts in this area? I'm interested in maths/tech related areas and contemplating ways I could get back to doing something in that direction (1st degree was maths/physics); however I'm now also a part-time violin teacher and I'd hate to give that up! Also older ...

I've grinned at the description of a teenager contemplating being an actuary - I met one of those at a maths camp we were both at once. His plan was to do actuarial studies in order to fund a serious attempt at professional golf...

Pythonesque - tough one. I think it's unlikely that an employer would take you into a graduate role on a part-time basis and pay for study, but maybe there's one out there who would come to a flexible arrangement.

I could suggest that you fund yourself to take one of the exams and show that you can do it, but I think that's a bit of a risk and I couldn't promise you that it would get you any further forward. What about throwing yourself full-time into actuarial work, getting a few years under your belt then going back to the teaching later?

Ah well, at the moment I've got a dozen students and if I stopped teaching them they might not find another similar teacher, so I do feel rather committed to them. Also I'm not sure I'm suited to full time anything, was very glad to go part-time in my previous career after my eldest was born. Variety seems to be one of the things I need ...

I might look into it in a bit more detail though.

Thanks! Obviously as a teacher I’m used to working evenings and weekends as that’s when I have to do my planning and marking.

Location could be an easy. I’m in the East Midlands but rural. Could be in Nottingham city centre in 30 minutes by train, Leicester in 50 minutes by car or London in 80 minutes by train (but the rail fare would be far too expensive!).

I’m not a recruiter actually - I’ve just done a lot of interviewing and cv triage for my employers because for some reason I’m the designated interviewer. I’d think that a part time trainee position would be tricky because most trainees are already only in the office 4 days a week. There are statistical/analysis jobs available which aren’t full-on student actuarial jobs though. It’s fairly common IME for people to start with one of them and then move to an actuarial post with a full study package once they’ve proved they’re worth the investment, but still tricky to get a part time job to start off with.

LivLemler - it's interesting what you say about the two approaches to study. When I started, like Onebite, I was used to working evenings and weekends, and had no children, so cracked on.

I took a bit of a break when child number 1 was born (remember studying General Insurance while sitting in NICU, a story for another time). With one exam left to qualify, my DW said if I failed it, I wouldn't be able to study at the weekend any more as she need help with our DS (fair enough)!

Fortunately, I passed. It had taken me three and half years to qualify. (My work ethic has slowed a bit since ).

Oh, sorry, MsWarren, I misinterpreted your earlier comment that you were involved in recruitment.

I can't believe this thread has made it on to the active conversations list! Too much exposure for an introvert like me.

By the way, I should explode a myth: while plenty of actuaries do tend towards introversion, there are plenty who are extravert, and we are all quite capable of looking people in the eye and giving coherent answers - we wouldn't be able to do our job otherwise.

DDD, I notice you mentioned calculus. Now, I do not have what would be recognised as a numerate degree but we DID do calculus for O level (so about 100 years ago) and it was never really explained to us what the point of it was - is there any point in you trying to explain to me?

Yeah I suspect now I'd be more focussed and slack much less. It just wasn't a priority, personally or professionally (small firm who didn't need any fellows but did need number churners). Right call for me to enjoy my 20s but I may well choose differently in my 30s. Actually, scrap that - I'm too lazy, I'd never start now!

Re actuaries in consultancies: I worked at a large firm (but as an accountant rather than an actuary), and they would generally only take people on full time but they let me move to part time after 15 months. They were happiest with it as an annualised days set up (so I worked full time some weeks and much more part time others) but were prepared to consider a proper part time set up. I was really surprised tbh as I was already out of the office regularly for study leave.

The actuaries were always so knowledgeable and helpful, putting up with my questions after I'd been tasked with auditing a complex pension scheme 15 months into my training! I think an actuary would probably have been another career I would have really enjoyed.

Well, that's a change of tack - what's the point of calculus? I'll take off my actuary's hat and dust down my old teacher's hat.

Calculus enables you to work with relationships where you want to work out rates of change, or aggregate changes when the rate of change is itself changing. That means it has uses in virtually every science but is used in economics, finance and probably a whole host of applications I'm ignorant of.

So, if you have an object falling near the Earth's surface, acceleration is 10 m/s^2, and it's easy to work out its speed if you assume that it is constant: 0 m/s to start with, 10m/s after 1 second, 20m/s after 2 second etc.

But now imagine a comet racing in from the far reaches of the Solar System towards the Sun. Gravity is changing as it travels (stronger as it gets nearer the sun), so the acceleration (rate of change of velocity) is itself changing with time, so you need calculus to work out the relationship between time, distance and velocity. In fact, I believe Newton developed calculus partly to address questions like this.

I don't use calculus at work, but it does underpin some of the economic models that we use, and I have had to understand and work with it in the past for actuarial work.

Exciting to see actuaries making it on to active convos, as all PPs have said.

My DD is training to be an actuary, after a maths degree. She is totally loving it, great prospects and enjoys the maths. Works for a small pensions firm, who are very respectful of work life balance, and are lovely colleagues.

Thank you! I have just told my 12 year old about this and he thinks it sounds like just the job for him!

DDD lovely calculus explanation there!

I love calculus, it’s my favourite area of mathematics. What I don’t like are vectors, but I would image you don’t see many of those in actuarial science?

Onebite - well you say that, but if you are combining a set of losses via a correlation matrix, then you are really dealing a little bit with vectors. And techniques like principal components analysis can be conceived as using vectors. But it's true, most actuaries don't do anything with vectors.

I'm another one who saw the word actuary in active conversations and had to come for a look.

I did an actuarial degree, but to be honest it was mostly the same syllabus as the maths degrees until 3rd and 4th year when it became more actuarial. At my university, you had the option to start doing a maths degree and switch to an actuarial degree at the end of 2nd year, so that may be an option for someone starting out and not sure if they really want to commit to an actuarial degree from outset.

At the time, another route was to do a maths degree and then after that do a one-year actuarial diploma which gave you exemptions from a lot of the early "maths-based exams. The diploma was the route my DP took and he took 6 years to qualify on top of his year diploma.

I initially got a job at a pensions company in a non-actuarial role. I started the exams a few years later, and certainly having some work experience was useful. I sat the exams for 8 years, I got quite far through but in the end there were two exams I just couldn't pass. I found the later exams easier than the earlier "maths based" which is maybe not the usual way round. I now work for a pensions company in a role where my actuarial knowledge is useful but spreadsheet work and macros is a much more important part of the job.

I would say to the PP, you are never too old, I worked with a colleague who started the exams after university, and then had a long break in between and went back to the exams in his 40's and qualified when he was 50.

Ooooh this is exciting! Not used to seeing anything actuary in the active topics!

I'm a trainee and so far I've only passed 6 out of the 15 exams. I only started about 3-4 years ago and came from maths education at university.

I'm married with a teenager and I definitely find it harder to put in the study time than my colleagues who are recently out of college and don't have the family life I do.

I love my job though so it's great to see people posting on this thread with questions for daddaddad.