The Impact of AI and BPA on Actuarial Career Paths

In case you missed it, we recently launched a new Spotlight Report focusing in on the world of Actuaries.

With Actuary talent in the financial services industry experiencing steady growth over the last 12 months (a 3% rise compared to the previous year according to data from LinkedIn), this is clearly a job role that is only going to remain in high demand.

But will Actuary career paths start feeling the effects of factors like artificial intelligence (AI), or even the rapid expansion of the UK Bulk Purchase Annuity (BPA) market?

In this short blog we’ll get stuck into what a typical Actuary career path looks like and discuss the potential impacts of AI and BPA on this role.

Let’s get stuck in!

What does a typical career path look like for an Actuary?

When it comes to career paths, these can vary between sectors. Most Actuaries start their careers straight out of university, and normally have a strong background in maths, statistics or finance. In their first graduate jobs they’ll be spending time getting stuck in with training and undertaking the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) exams, before moving into more independent analyst type positions.

With Actuaries, career progression is very much tied to the completion of the IFoA exams, which can take up to 8 years to fully pass all the stages. Once fully qualified, many Actuaries tend to follow a more specialist track and move into areas within the financial services industry like pensions, general insurance, investments or risk management.

Does the rise of BPA shape what Actuaries specialise in?

The UK BPA (Bulk Purchase Annuity) Market is currently going through a rapid expansion, alongside regulatory developments like the Solvency UK reforms. And this is impacting Actuarial recruitment across key sectors like the life insurance sector and may even be shaping what an Actuarial candidate decides to specialise in as they travel along their career paths.

For example, our data is showing that demand is the strongest for an Actuary candidate (qualified or mid-career) that has BPA experience in areas like pricing, transaction support, longevity risk modelling and capital optimisation with employers increasingly seeking candidates who can combine traditional technical skills with data science and digital capability.

So, with this evolution of demand, we might expect Actuary candidates to seek out specific experience on their road to qualification to ensure they stand out from the crowd with their ability to support BPA transactions.

What impact will AI have on an Actuary career path?

Our Horsefly Analytics research is suggesting that on an ‘AI Impact Scale’, Actuarial roles have a score of 49, meaning this is a role that’s set to be “moderately” affected by AI.

While the rise of artificial intelligence brings with it opportunities to move some tasks over to automation, it is certainly not set to replace the traditional Actuary.

Instead, it’s set to transform the profession and prompt the need for Actuaries on their road to qualification to upskill themselves in data science and AI technologies, which they may not previously have considered.

Looking to find out more?

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Actuary market, and want to dive a little deeper into these career path trends and how they may align to your talent strategies, then why not check out our full Report which is chockers full of market-leading salary data and industry trends. Just fill out the short form below.

If you have any further questions on this topic or are looking for a bit of help in expanding your team then please do get in touch with George Mohan on [email protected]