Put a price on risk for insurers and pension plans. Years of exams, but you are paid well while you write them.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$106,000
Analyst writing exams
$65,000
Fellow, senior
$161,000
Job Bank's national median is $51 an hour, about $106,000 a year full time. Pay jumps with every exam you pass. Fellows at big insurers and consulting firms earn well past the top of this range.
$60,000 to $75,000
Actuarial analyst with a degree and 1 to 3 exams passed
Employers typically add a raise or bonus for each exam you pass, and give you paid study hours during the work week.
$150,000 to $250,000+
10 or more years in, or a chief actuary
The FCIA (Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries) designation is what breaks the ceiling. Consulting partners and chief actuaries at large insurers earn the most.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years of a cheaper bachelor's degree plus the first exam or two and study materials that you pay for before anyone hires you. The high end is five years including co-op at the top of the tuition range plus more self funded exams before landing a job. Employers almost always pay for exams and study materials once you are hired, and co-op terms are paid, so most actuaries finish with less debt than the length of the path suggests. Membership in the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) is a low cost student or candidate membership while you qualify.
Because you are hired before the exams are finished, most actuaries carry little debt beyond the degree.
Paid study time
Often more than 100 hours of work time per exam sitting.
Exam bonuses and raises
Standard in the industry.
Defined-benefit pension
Common at insurers and in government.
Hybrid work
Most actuarial teams work from home part of the week.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A math-heavy degree, then a long series of professional exams written while you work.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Top marks in math. Waterloo, the biggest program, admits from the mid-80s and up.
Bachelor's degree
4 to 5 years
Actuarial science, math or statistics. Co-op is close to essential. Programs accredited by the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) let strong grades count toward some exams.
First exams
During the degree
Most students pass one or two, usually probability and financial math, before graduating. Employers expect at least one.
Analyst job and more exams
3 to 6 years
Work at an insurer, pension consultant or bank while writing exams from the SOA (Society of Actuaries) or the CAS (Casualty Actuarial Society), plus Canadian modules.
Fellowship
About 7 to 10 years from high school
The FCIA (Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries) needs the exams, a professionalism course and 3 years of actuarial work experience.
Advanced Functions and Calculus and Vectors
Required for admission. You need to like this.
Data management or statistics
The core of the job.
Computer science
Actuaries code more every year.
English
You explain risk to executives who are not mathematicians.
The CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) is the sole qualifying body for the profession in Canada. You can work as an analyst without a designation, but signing an insurer's reserves or a pension plan's valuation legally requires a Fellow. The exams come from the SOA (Society of Actuaries) for life, health and pensions, or the CAS (Casualty Actuarial Society) for car, home and business insurance. On top of those, the CIA adds its own exams and modules on Canadian law and practice.
Ontario
Waterloo (the largest program in Canada), Western, Toronto.
Quebec
Laval, Concordia, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), Montréal.
West
Manitoba, Calgary, Regina, SFU (Simon Fraser University).
Things you don't need, but that help.
FCIA (Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries)
The finish line. Required to sign official actuarial opinions in Canada.
FSA (Fellow of the Society of Actuaries)
Life insurance, health and pensions track.
FCAS (Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society)
Property and casualty track: car, home and business insurance.
CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst)
Risk management across a whole company, including banks.
Programming
Python, R and SQL (structured query language) are used daily.
Excel at an expert level
Still the workhorse tool.
One exam passed before graduation
The difference between an interview and no interview.
Co-op terms
Waterloo reports over 90% of graduates employed within six months, and co-op is a big reason.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly at a computer. Pull claims or member data, build or update a model, check it, and write up what it says: how much an insurer must hold in reserve, what a pension plan will cost in 20 years, how to price a new product. Meetings with underwriters, accountants and executives. Exam-writers block off study hours in the afternoon. Consultants also juggle several clients and deadlines at once.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counted about 16,000 people working as actuaries in Canada in 2023, with a median retirement age of 62. The CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) has over 7,500 members.
The University of Waterloo runs the biggest actuarial science program in the country. It is accredited by the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries), so strong grades in certain courses count toward exams, and the school reports over 90% of graduates employed within six months.
Life, health and pension actuaries write exams from the SOA (Society of Actuaries). Property and casualty actuaries, who price car and home insurance, write exams from the CAS (Casualty Actuarial Society), which has nearly 12,000 members worldwide. You pick a track early.
Since December 2024 the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) lets people join as student or candidate members while they are still qualifying, which gets you into the profession's network years before you finish the exams.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.