Put a price on risk. A math degree, a long ladder of exams, and one of the best paid desk jobs in the country.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$130,000
Entry analyst
$78,570
Fellow or chief actuary
$215,100
The national median is $130,000 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $78,570. That bottom tenth is already above the median pay of most careers on this site, which is the whole point of the exams.
About $78,000
Bottom tenth of the published range
Employers hire on exams, not grades. Passing one or two of the early exams before you graduate is what gets the first interview, and each further exam passed usually comes with a raise written into your contract.
$215,100
Top tenth of actuaries
Be An Actuary, the careers site run by the two actuarial societies, says experienced Fellows can earn $150,000 to $250,000 a year. Chief actuaries at large insurers sit above that.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a bachelor's degree done cheaply, two years at a community college then two years at an in-state public university, plus the one or two exams you sit before anyone hires you. The high end is four years at out-of-state public tuition. The long list of actuarial exams looks frightening but most of it lands on your employer: once you are hired, firms usually pay the fees, buy the study manuals and give you paid hours to study. That is why this career takes seven to twelve years without costing seven to twelve years of money.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year for Pell Grant money and federal loans. Once you are hired, the expensive part of this career is paid for by your employer.
Paid study time
Typically 100 hours or more of work time a year set aside just for exam study.
A raise per exam
Most employers publish a fixed pay step for each exam you pass. It is one of the clearest pay ladders anywhere.
Retirement savings with a match
A 401(k) plan where the employer adds money on top of yours. Actuaries tend to understand these better than anyone.
Remote and hybrid work
The work is analysis and writing, so it travels well.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You get hired after four years. You are fully qualified closer to ten.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus and statistics if your school has them, plus any programming course. Strong grades matter for university entry, not for the exams.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Actuarial science, mathematics, statistics or economics. Sit the first one or two exams while you are still a student.
Internship and first job
During and after year 4
A summer internship at an insurer or a consulting firm is the normal way in. You are now paid, and studying on the side.
Associate level
3 to 5 years of work
Pass the early exams, finish the Validation by Educational Experience requirements in economics, finance and statistics, and take the professionalism course.
Fellow level
3 to 5 more years
The advanced exams in your chosen track. Fellowship is the top credential and it is what people mean by fully qualified.
Calculus
Required for every actuarial degree and assumed by the first exam.
Statistics and probability
This is the actual subject matter of the job.
Computer science
Python and SQL (the language used to pull data out of databases) are everyday tools now.
Economics
Counts toward the Validation by Educational Experience requirements later if you take it again at university.
English
Actuaries spend a lot of time explaining risk to people who do not do math.
No state licenses actuaries the way it licenses nurses or engineers. Your credential comes from a professional society. The Society of Actuaries covers life insurance, health, retirement and investments. The Casualty Actuarial Society covers property and casualty insurance: cars, homes, storms, liability. It has close to 12,000 members worldwide. Each runs its own ladder of exams to an Associate level and then a Fellow level. Insurance regulators in many states require a credentialed actuary to sign certain filings, which is what gives the credentials their teeth.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Property and casualty
Car, home, storm and liability insurance. Priced through the Casualty Actuarial Society exams.
Life and annuities
How long people live and what that costs an insurer.
Health
Medical costs and insurance plan pricing. Growing fastest.
Retirement and pensions
Making sure a pension fund can pay people for 40 years.
Enterprise risk
Everything a company could lose money on, not just insurance.
Programming
Python, R and SQL (the language used to pull data out of databases). The job has moved from spreadsheets to code.
An internship
The single strongest thing on an entry level resume in this field.
Clear writing
Actuarial reports are read by regulators and executives. Being readable is a promotion skill.
Patience
You will study for exams most evenings for years. People who like that thrive here.
The tools actuaries use now overlap heavily with data science: predictive models, machine learning, large messy datasets. The Casualty Actuarial Society has a whole exam on predictive analytics. That means the skills move sideways easily. Actuaries who leave insurance often go to technology companies, banks or consultancies, and they take the exam credentials with them as proof of rigor.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning: pull data, build or update a model, check whether last quarter's assumptions held. Midday: meetings with underwriters, claims staff or a client, translating what the model says into something they can act on. Afternoon: writing. Reports, memos, regulatory filings. Then, for several years of your life, an hour or two of exam study. It is a quiet, desk-based, deeply analytical job.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Department of Labor counts about 33,600 actuaries in the whole United States, with roughly 2,400 openings projected over a decade. Compare that with more than a million accountants. Scarcity is part of why it pays.
Actuarial exams are famously hard and people routinely sit the same one twice. Nobody in the field treats a failed exam as a disqualification, because almost everyone has one.
The Casualty Actuarial Society has nearly 12,000 members and handles car, home and liability insurance. The Society of Actuaries handles life, health and retirement. You pick a side early and the exams diverge from there.
The Department of Labor projects employment of actuaries to grow 7 percent or more between 2024 and 2034, which it classes as much faster than average. Insurance is getting more complicated, not less.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.