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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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $106,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $65,000 at the lower end to about $161,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
7 to 10 years after high school, on the usual route.
$34,000 to $73,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$106,000
Lower end
$65,000
Upper end
$161,000
Job Bank's national median is $51 an hour, about $106,000 a year full time. Its low is $31.25 and its high is $77.33 an hour, for everyone in the group. Pay rises as you pass exams, and the FCIA (Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries) designation opens the senior jobs.
$56.41 an hour
The median in Manitoba, the highest of any province
Quebec ($51.98) and Ontario ($51.28), where most of the jobs are, come next. Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $40.11. Employers typically add a raise or bonus for each exam you pass.
Roughly, all in
$34,000 to $73,000
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.
No province licenses actuaries, and 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, Western, Toronto, York.
Quebec
Laval, Concordia, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), Montréal.
West
Manitoba, Calgary, Regina, SFU (Simon Fraser University).
In Quebec you reach university through a 2 year science program at CEGEP (public college), and three of the four accredited actuarial degrees are taught in French.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V math in the TS (Technical and Scientific) or SN (Science) sequence, plus Secondary V chemistry and physics. The Science program asks for all three.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year pre-university program at a CEGEP (public college). Concordia's actuarial program asks for Calculus 1 and 2, Linear Algebra, three physics, two chemistry and a biology course, all part of it.
Bachelor's in actuarial science
3 years
3 years after CEGEP. Accredited by the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) at Concordia in English, and at Laval, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) and Université de Montréal in French.
Co-op and the first exams
During the degree
Concordia offers paid co-op terms as an actuarial assistant, and its graduates are exempted from four preliminary exams of the SOA (Society of Actuaries) and CAS (Casualty Actuarial Society).
Associate, then fellow
Several years
The same national CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) path as the rest of Canada, earned while you work.
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
Paid work terms are how most students land their first actuarial job.
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.
The CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries), the only body that qualifies actuaries in Canada, has just over 7,500 members.
The University of Waterloo runs one of the best-known actuarial science programs in the country. It is accredited by the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries), so strong grades in certain courses count toward exams, and Waterloo reports that over 90% of its actuarial science graduates are 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 members around the world. You pick a track early.
Since December 1, 2024 the CIA (Canadian Institute of Actuaries) has let students in an accredited program join for free, with no annual fee. People qualifying another way join as paying candidate members.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Money and finance first, then the rest of the field. See every career in business and money.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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