Solving tomorrow's challenges: a career in the actuarial sector

Actuaries work with companies and government departments to help them forecast long-term financial costs and investment risks. And with the UK actuarial sector booming, there’s no doubt it’s an exciting place to be!

But what skills do you need to succeed in the sector and what makes it stand out from others?

We caught up with Alina Frost, Graduate Actuarial Associate at APR – Actuarial Solutions, for a peek into the actuarial profession including the advice she’d give to young people interested in exploring it further…

1. What excites you about your sector?

The actuarial world is always adapting to meet new challenges - ranging from pandemics to catastrophic natural disasters to cyber-attacks and more! It’s our role to ensure that companies remain financially strong to withstand these events, while also treating customers fairly.

As actuaries work with data, we analyse these challenges with the aim of understanding their nature and quantifying their impact. The evolving nature of this sector is what I find most exciting because you’re always problem solving.

2. What top three skills do you need for a career in your sector? 

a) Great mathematical skills

An actuarial career is highly numerical and can be applied in a multitude of ways, for example, building models and using statistical analysis. These numerical skills are applied within a business and real-world context, which often means that the maths used is more practical and less abstract.

Often, the real world does not operate how we expect, so statistics are really useful in deciding how much we can trust our data and models. The outcome of these models and statistical analysis can result in key business decisions being made, meaning the work we do has meaningful impact to businesses and customers.

b) Clear communication skills

Actuarial work can be highly technical, particularly as some models can be extremely complex. Actuaries have a range of stakeholders with differing knowledge; these may include policyholders, actuarial managers, Chief Financial Officers or regulators. These stakeholders rely upon the results of your model, so communicating the key messages at an appropriate level is vital to help them make informed decisions.

c) Attention to detail

When we are working with models, there are often a lot of inputs, calculations, and outputs. Sometimes this makes it difficult to notice numerical figures that do not match what is expected. Having great attention to detail is an underrated skill to have as an actuary. It involves justifying why a calculated or inputted value is expected by considering different factors, for example the underlying calculations, experience, and future expectations.

3. What do you want young people to know about your sector?

An actuarial career offers a wide variety of work depending on your interests and strengths. You can work across different industries like insurance, pensions, and investment and within sectors, such as General Insurance and Life Insurance. There are also a range of teams to get involved in (e.g. Pricing, Reserving, Reporting). Whether you enjoy coding, speaking to customers, or building complex models, there is something for everyone.

4. What's a piece of advice you'd give to a young person thinking about a career in your sector?

I think that building your software skills is a great differentiator. A lot of models rely on different tools (Excel, SQL, R, Python etc.). I personally recommend starting with Excel as this is widely used across the industry. Getting comfortable with the functions and syntax will help you read, build, and update models. Take the time to become proficient with at least one. When you learn one tool, the skills are easily transferrable to another - so don’t feel the pressure to learn them all at once. Experiment with what makes your calculations more efficient and what makes your models more readable. 

If you are or know a young person looking for direct insight into the actuarial sector, alongside paid work experience and employability skills training, learn more about our Data Driven Futures programme and apply today!