Salary in London

[km389]

Hi all,

I’m nearly qualified with CA2 and SA2 left, 5 years experience. I’m wondering what salary is achievable in London? And how big is the London premium?

 

[dimitris13]

hi,
london premium compared to what? across UK or continental europe?
I think it depends on the type of company (consultancy, or life insurer) and the type of job you are looking for (valuation /modelling/risk actuary )
D

 

[km389]

I’m in Dublin I think salaries here are more in line with other parts of UK.

 

[Viki2010]

I'm under impression that there is more premium in GI than in life or pensions. Correct me if I'm wrong London premium in life insurance is not much. For someone without CA2 and SA3, you would be looking at a offer around 55-57K. What's the premium compared to your current salary?

 

[km389]

I work in life, 4 years modelling and 1 year reporting.

That’s an around a 20% increase!

 

[Viki2010]

May seem like a lot upfront, but the London costs are much higher. Worth considering renting and commuting cost pm for your situation and whether you end up financially the same or worse off.

 

[Skull]

I started my career as an actuarial analyst 6 years ago in London after completing BSc in Mathematics. The package was 30k. All well and good so far. I remember seeing great actuarial salaries back then (qualified actuaries making 100k with ease).
Move the clock 4.5 years, passed all CTs, failed CA1 countless times, my salary moved to 40k and I was doing machine learning, gams and all sorts of algorithms at work.

Then one day I had a call from a recruiter who told me that my salary is way too low for what I do and I should move away from actuarial. Best decision of my life! 18months in my new job in banking and I make 80k+ pa.

I personally would not consider actuarial career right now. Salaries are not what they used to be!!! People come from different countries where qualifying as an actuary is much easier than in the UK, which clearly drives the salaries down... The institute does nothing to fix this....

 

[dimitris13]

hi ,
coming from another country doesnt always mean that it is easier to qualify. There is almost nowhere the study package that UK companies offer in terms of study leave (and working hours) so this should be taken into account.
In any case the actuarial profession - in the traditional form- is in decline .

 

[Viki2010]

I started my career as an actuarial analyst 6 years ago in London after completing BSc in Mathematics. The package was 30k. All well and good so far. I remember seeing great actuarial salaries back then (qualified actuaries making 100k with ease).
Move the clock 4.5 years, passed all CTs, failed CA1 countless times, my salary moved to 40k and I was doing machine learning, gams and all sorts of algorithms at work.

Then one day I had a call from a recruiter who told me that my salary is way too low for what I do and I should move away from actuarial. Best decision of my life! 18months in my new job in banking and I make 80k+ pa.

I personally would not consider actuarial career right now. Salaries are not what they used to be!!! People come from different countries where qualifying as an actuary is much easier than in the UK, which clearly drives the salaries down... The institute does nothing to fix this....

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting to hear people's perspective. What is it that you do in banking? That definitely pays better than a newly qualified FIA in London in life insurance. The salaries for actuaries in London in life are too low compared to GI or other fields.

 

[Null]

I started my career as an actuarial analyst 6 years ago in London after completing BSc in Mathematics. The package was 30k. All well and good so far. I remember seeing great actuarial salaries back then (qualified actuaries making 100k with ease).
Move the clock 4.5 years, passed all CTs, failed CA1 countless times, my salary moved to 40k and I was doing machine learning, gams and all sorts of algorithms at work.

Then one day I had a call from a recruiter who told me that my salary is way too low for what I do and I should move away from actuarial. Best decision of my life! 18months in my new job in banking and I make 80k+ pa.

I personally would not consider actuarial career right now. Salaries are not what they used to be!!! People come from different countries where qualifying as an actuary is much easier than in the UK, which clearly drives the salaries down... The institute does nothing to fix this....

Thanks for speaking out skull. This is my point. These exams are such a waste of time and while you made a good move, I unfortunately didn’t. I fell for the IFoA’s Professionalism and look where I ended up.

Thanks also for confirming that people from outside of the uk are taking Actuarial jobs as fully qualified actuaries when their qualification didn’t take them long to do. The IFoA are facilitating this rather than fixing it.

So it took you 4.5 years and you just completed the CTs? What would be your realistic estimation of qualification time?

 

[Skull]

Thanks for speaking out skull. This is my point. These exams are such a waste of time and while you made a good move, I unfortunately didn’t. I fell for the IFoA’s Professionalism and look where I ended up.

Thanks also for confirming that people from outside of the uk are taking Actuarial jobs as fully qualified actuaries when their qualification didn’t take them long to do. The IFoA are facilitating this rather than fixing it.

So it took you 4.5 years and you just completed the CTs? What would be your realistic estimation of qualification time?

I managed to knock out the CTs in 3 sittings (18 months, failed only ct2 once). Then spent 2 years on CA1 (failed 3 times) and ST8 (failed once) with no luck at all and in my last year did not sit any exams (I was mainly applying for jobs and interviewing).

My biggest problem was that I did not have MSc or PhD which would've helped me to land a good role in a Hedge Fund.

 

[Skull]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting to hear people's perspective. What is it that you do in banking? That definitely pays better than a newly qualified FIA in London in life insurance. The salaries for actuaries in London in life are too low compared to GI or other fields.

I started in a derivative pricing model validation and then moved on to risk model implementation. The knowledge that I gained from CT8 was very useful. I code around 70% of my time, hence coding is very important too

 

[KevinB]

So it took you 4.5 years and you just completed the CTs? What would be your realistic estimation of qualification time?

Allowing for fails a committed student with no exemptions can qualify in 6-7 years. It can be done in 4 if most exams are passed first time. Something like the below allows for a generous amount of fails and assumes they take the smaller exams CA2, CA3, CT9 alongside the main exams
CTs in 5 sittings or 2.5 years
CA1 in 2 sittings or 1 year
STs in 4 sittings or 2 years
SA in 2 sittings or 1 year

With exemptions it can be done much sooner, if you come out of university with your CTs, and pass CA1 in your first year you only have 3 exams (ignoring CA2, CA3 which don't require as many hours studying) left to qualification at the age of 22 or 23, that's an extra motivation in itself knowing you are close to finish line.

 

[Null]

hi ,
coming from another country doesnt always mean that it is easier to qualify. There is almost nowhere the study package that UK companies offer in terms of study leave (and working hours) so this should be taken into account.
In any case the actuarial profession - in the traditional form- is in decline .

Even with the study package, you have no time for yourself. The average qualification time is 8 years or more with many people taking much longer. 82% of women give up after 7 years. It is inappropriate.

Now I suggest everyone goes to buy the FT as there is an interesting article there about the IFOA... I suspect there will be more in the media in these next few days...

 

[Null]

Allowing for fails a committed student with no exemptions can qualify in 6-7 years. It can be done in 4 if most exams are passed first time. Something like the below allows for a generous amount of fails and assumes they take the smaller exams CA2, CA3, CT9 alongside the main exams
CTs in 5 sittings or 2.5 years
CA1 in 2 sittings or 1 year
STs in 4 sittings or 2 years
SA in 2 sittings or 1 year

With exemptions it can be done much sooner, if you come out of university with your CTs, and pass CA1 in your first year you only have 3 exams (ignoring CA2, CA3 which don't require as many hours studying) left to qualification at the age of 22 or 23, that's an extra motivation in itself knowing you are close to finish line.

I’m sorry Kevin. This is just not true. The IFOA previously quoted 3 years. Then after being ticked off by the advertising standards authority they changed it to 3-6 years. On Facebook and Twitter they said 6.5 years but just for 12 exams. Before there were 15 and now there are 17. If you look at the membership statistics, 1/3 of people aged 35-40 haven’t qualified. Many more have given up. The 6/7 years figure probably includes all sorts of shortcuts like foreign qualified people who have zero exams to take or people with exemptions. You’re an actuary. Do the maths.

Read the FT if you want to know what is going on at the IFOA.

And think about why there is nothing published in the Actuary Magazine....

 

[Viki2010]

I started in a derivative pricing model validation and then moved on to risk model implementation. The knowledge that I gained from CT8 was very useful. I code around 70% of my time, hence coding is very important too

Very interesting. Do you code in C++?
I think it's the programming skills that can boost the salary as opposed to FIA.

 

[Viki2010]

Allowing for fails a committed student with no exemptions can qualify in 6-7 years. It can be done in 4 if most exams are passed first time. Something like the below allows for a generous amount of fails and assumes they take the smaller exams CA2, CA3, CT9 alongside the main exams
CTs in 5 sittings or 2.5 years
CA1 in 2 sittings or 1 year
STs in 4 sittings or 2 years
SA in 2 sittings or 1 year

With exemptions it can be done much sooner, if you come out of university with your CTs, and pass CA1 in your first year you only have 3 exams (ignoring CA2, CA3 which don't require as many hours studying) left to qualification at the age of 22 or 23, that's an extra motivation in itself knowing you are close to finish line.

I've seen people being stuck on CA1 or CA3 for 2-3 years.

So you never know how quickly you can qualify and can't plan your life/ finances.

 

[KevinB]

I’m sorry Kevin. This is just not true. The IFOA previously quoted 3 years. Then after being ticked off by the advertising standards authority they changed it to 3-6 years. On Facebook and Twitter they said 6.5 years but just for 12 exams. Before there were 15 and now there are 17. If you look at the membership statistics, 1/3 of people aged 35-40 haven’t qualified. Many more have given up. The 6/7 years figure probably includes all sorts of shortcuts like foreign qualified people who have zero exams to take or people with exemptions. You’re an actuary. Do the maths.

Read the FT if you want to know what is going on at the IFOA.

And think about why there is nothing published in the Actuary Magazine....

The reality is not many people do all the exams these days, for someone with exemptions the qualification time probably is 3-6 years. It's 10 years since i started and i just did my last exam in April, i've never failed an exam more than once but it's taken me so long partly because i got disillusioned at how far i was from finishing in my mid 20s and stopped them for a few years.

I agree with you there are inconsistencies between how hard people have to work to get their FIA which is frustrating and doing all the exams through the IFoA is by far the hardest route. It can be made easier by :

• Coming from an EU country and using an MRA
  
• Get full exemptions from university. Some uni's even let you repeat exemption subjects to get the exemption a second or third time.
  
• Use the IAI to get more attempts at an exam
  
• Do FAP modules rather than CA1

Some of these are the price you pay to have a portable qualification and i have benefited from this, as i'm now working in North America. I must admit if i knew of some of the above when i started i would definitely have utilised them. Null i think you waste too much energy complaining about the IFoA. These exams have frustrated me as much as anyone but at the end of the day one day I will be qualified and it will be a distant memory.

 

[Null]

Very interesting. Do you code in C++?
I think it's the programming skills that can boost the salary as opposed to FIA.

If I hadn’t spent all this time doing exams, perhaps I’d know how to code...

 

[Skull]

Very interesting. Do you code in C++?
I think it's the programming skills that can boost the salary as opposed to FIA.

I mainly code in Python and R.
Unfortunately Python and R do not have type-safety nor good unit testing frameworks, memory management is another big issue. But for small tasks they will always be my preferred choice.
If speed is an issue I would prefer to use a low level language e.g. Java, C#, C++ but then it takes longer to code.

 

[almost_there]

Allowing for fails a committed student with no exemptions can qualify in 6-7 years.

IFoA have stated this as average qualification time. (They previously falsely claimed it was 3-6 years and amended it following an Advertising Standards Authority probe). I believe the IFoA average of 6-7 years is also understated if they use travel time from date joined IFoA to qualification date for those who had Uni exemptions...