So You Want to be an Actuary? Great Choice!
Actuaries are central to the success of any insurance company. They develop/revise the products and establish/account for the reserves. Actuarial work is very technical and requires a strong aptitude for mathematics and statistics. A high percentage of actuarial students enter the profession with undergraduate degrees in mathematics, statistics, engineering, or actuarial science. However, these types of degrees are certainly not required.
There are over 31,000 accredited members of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and 9,000 accredited members of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), worldwide. Of course, there are also many thousands of actuarial students pursuing accreditation by the SOA, CAS or Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA). CIA membership stood at over 5,000 in 2017.The actuarial profession is expanding around the world and generally speaking, the demand for actuaries is greater than the supply, except perhaps at the entry-level. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of U.S. actuaries is projected to grow 20 percent from 2018 to 2028.
Why Actuarial Science is Always Ranked So High
The actuarial career is regularly rated by business publications as one of the best careers in the U.S. and Canada. Why? The short answer is favorable supply and demand characteristics. Experienced actuaries are in short supply relative to the demand by employers.
This leads to an enviable degree of employment security and high compensation levels. Most actuaries also enjoy an attractive work-life balance, though decidedly much more so, after they have completed their actuarial exams. In today’s employment market it is hard to ask for much more than that.
Check Out the SOA Explorer!
SOA Explorer is an easy-to-use, interactive tool that helps you find SOA members, employers, universities/colleges, actuarial clubs and jobs by geographic region. You can quickly search by location throughout the world with Google MapsTMÂ technology.