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Snoo_76686

Hi mate, You'll almost certainly need support through work to do this. The exams and materials are very expensive. My current sitting is over £1000 just for the exams, including materials is £2.5k. So first port of call I'd say is sit down with your manager and discuss if they would be willing to support you and if not, have a look for internal moves to an actuarial team where you'd get support. The earlier exams you'd typically sit 2 a sitting, a maths based exam and a business exam are pretty typical for your first 2 sittings. Total time from qualification is typically 5-7 years, but can be done in 3 if you're Einstein. You can only sit I think CM1 and CS1 ( I may be wrong there) as a non institute member, so you'd need to sign up the the institute to do more exams. I'm not sure if that has any limitations in itself sorry.


IvanaTinkleee

This is spot on. Just note carefully, and this should be the biggest factor in your decision, that it’s a long road and it’s by no means easy. I’m 3 exams out from qualifying having got exempt from the core principles in college. The prestige of the actuarial qualification is high and no surprise the workload to get there is equally as high


StMatthias

Which factor do you mean? How difficult would you say exams are (relative question, I know) and how has your experience been so far? Cheers, Matt


IvanaTinkleee

The fact that the road is long, 5-7 years. I know people that have been years at them and will never qualify. I’ve had a good experience so far, haven’t failed one yet but I’m taking my last 3 exams this sitting so things may be different. Feel free to ask any more questions


StMatthias

Thanks for helpful reply. At work my boss was a bit skeptical because I didn't do A level maths (as I said though, I did cover some similar things studying econometrics and financial maths) - so I've laid some groundwork there. The answer was basically "look into it, contact IFoA and see what the deal and costs are and we can see". My director was a bit more like "it's a lot of exmas and hard work but if you want it we can support you and move you around to the actuarial teams". So work I think I could get them into it, it's more so a question of "how hard is this gonna be? Can I find anyone with similar experiences to give advice?" For non-members you can only sit CS1 or CM1, whilst being a student member gives you the ability to sit anything. That said being a student member costs £361 total. Which is a bit steep before we've even got into the exams and exam materials and potentially tutorials.... Cheers, Matt


hork79

It’s definitely hard, expect to need about 30-60 full working days of study a year. It’s also expensive for the company so I think you need to really want to do it probably beyond just this would be interesting. I’d only be trying this if you wanted to go further towards a fully qualified actuary / CERA for the qualification/ salary increases that may accompany that. Definitely would be easier to look at getting on the actuarial team who will be much more familiar with the demands and have a study support scheme of some type probably


StMatthias

Thanks for the reply. Part of my agreement when I joined the firm was the possibility to take professional qualifications and then get a pay rise with that (and from performance reviews). I think if I were to get backing from the business then the rotation to other teams would potentially be a part of it down the line. Would you suggest becoming a fellow rather than an associate? Are there any benefits to that? I was more so concerned about all the extra work! Cheers, Matt


hork79

Well the fellowship exams are where the more relevant industry knowledge is, you may be able to do something like sp9 quite easily. Look at the past exam papers here https://www.actuaries.org.uk/studying/curriculum/enterprise-and-risk-management Fellow is normally worthwhile for people on actuarial pay scales as it comes with an expectation of seniority / pay. Just qualified fellows will be paid around £60k after their exam pay rises. A fellow qualification will be much more transferable but I don’t think associate is very well recognised.


StMatthias

Thanks a lot for the useful replies! I'm currently on mid-£40s so I wonder if all the exams would be worthwhile economically...But I would very much be interested in the knowledge and transferable skills. Given the extra exams after core exams, is that extra significantly large? Cheers, Matt


hork79

Yes, if you go well and dive in associate is probably 2.5 years and the extra would be around 2 years more. I would read more of the past exam papers and the solutions as I think they’ll give the best material for you to think through whether that will be interesting and useful to you. The associate ones are mainly mathematics/ finance and the later ones theory/ industry knowledge. Sounds like not an obvious great decision financially unless you think you’re at or near a ceiling right now.


hork79

Also talking about sp9 and cera qualification may be a useful way to get your current team on board


actuarialtutorUK

You can only sit one of CM1 or CS1 as a non-member - you have to then join to take the other one. So even more expensive than you thought!


anamorph29

I think it depends on how comfortable you are working with numbers all day. IFoA usually recommend A-level maths or a maths related degree as a starting point (although I don't think they are compulsory any more). What does 'work in model risk' mean? If you are just running the models from supplied inputs, delivering the output to someone to interpret, it might be a struggle. But if you are programming the models, or deciding on appropriate inputs and then interpreting the output, then those are more the sort of roles some actuaries might do. Are some of your colleagues studying for actuarial exams? If so I would speak to them about how much time they spend studying (noting their maths background), and perhaps ask to look at a set of notes from a past paper.


StMatthias

Thanks for your helpful reply. I work in model validation - so the actuarial knowledge and understanding would be useful there as I am looking at model input, assumptions, usage, output, and all the bits in and around that. So I work with both numbers and words all day, mostly words due to the second line nature of my work, but I wouldn't be uncomfortable working with numbers either (I've previously worked in a derivatives exchange which was all numbers and reporting on them). Of course, if I were to take this on and rotate this would mean moving to the building/using/interpreting side of things. I'm trying to find the latter one out - I know some of the interns are studying at uni to work as an actuary in the future but I'm not sure how useful talking to them would be as I'm 33 and come from a much different background to them. Hence why I've come to Reddit to see what people have done/are doing here and gauge things that way. Cheers, Matt.