Apologies for the long post. Lots more detail below, but my basic questions are:
- what is the rough difference in salary between someone with no (actuarial) experience and no exemptions, and someone with no experience but has passed CM,CS,CB exams 1 and 2?
- how much would quantitative, analytical but non-actuarial experience count for someone entering the industry in a later stage?
- any general advice for someone converting later in their career?
I want to train to become an actuary, but am quite a few years into my career. Even if actuaries are generally better paid than those in my current sector (I’m a researcher/analyst for a charity basically) because I’d inevitably be going from a relatively senior to a relatively junior role, I’ll probably end up taking a significant pay cut. My plan to mitigate this has been to do as many exams as possible in my current job, in the expectation that this would reduce the amount of time I’d be working at a lower salary, and that there is probably a salary increment for each exam passed.
Hence questions 1 and 2. I’m betting on the idea that someone who has passed lots of exams and has years of experience (even if non-actuarial) would start at a significantly higher salary than someone fresh out of Uni
and progress much quicker into less junior roles.
Am I roughly right? Or should I just bite the bullet and try and find a trainee position now, accepting that there is not much I can do to mitigate the drop in salary so no point incurring the costs of exams myself?
(On the salary increment, that obviously relies on the increment being higher than the cost to me. I think that is almost certainly true though, so far I’m doing OK taking a bare bones approach, and I’ve worked out than on average, I can do the above 6 exams for at around £450 per exam (given reading material, student membership fee and exam cost and assuming no failure), some of which has been incurred already. I'm less sure about the others given different structure. Given all the tutorship and study days advertised, I’m guessing it costs companies far more, so even if not all is reflected in salary increments, enough would be for it to be worth it if I’m confident of passing on my own. )
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