While actuarial work is not confined exclusively to the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sectors, data science skills open opportunities for actuaries to boost their professional value and move their careers into other businesses and industries.
Many verticals show a demand for data science skills. Online recruiter Indeed sees a 30% increase in demand for data scientists year-on-year. But searches by data science job seekers grew at just 14% – which suggests a quantifiable supply-and-demand gap.
Three employment sectors that perhaps offer clear contrasts to finance are healthcare, automotive, and telecommunications.
Like the BFSI sector, healthcare is being disrupted by technologies driven by massive data sets being generated by diagnostic and treatment tech.
Data collected by patient monitoring systems informs treatment and preventative care programmes. Analysis of heart rate and breathing patterns, for instance, can detect slight changes in health indicators and predict possible disorders. Wearable technology, which monitors patients’ ‘health indicators’ 24x7, can collect up to 2Tb of data per-patient per-day.
Machine Learning algorithms, meanwhile, can detect and track common ailments, like coronary or respiratory conditions. Deep learning is used to read imaging data (x-rays, scans), and analyse it to reduce rates of diagnostic failure. All these applications need data scientists to be involved in some capacity.
Big Data analytics
As IFoA member Lisa Balboa notes, hospitals are using data analytics to forecast the number of patients likely to arrive at their doors in the coming week. Hospital managers use these predictions to adjust staffing and other resources to ensure anticipated patient demand is met.
With access to some of the biggest data sets, telecommunications companies are big proponents of Big Data analytics. As Springpeople notes, data from customer behaviours like SMS usage, video choices, social media activity, and past purchase patterns, enables telcos to offer targeted products and services. On the operational side, data scientists can also help monitor network activity to address performance issues.
With data storage costs down, and increased computer processing power with inexpensive analytics software tools, data analyst jobs have become much easier in the telecom sector, reports researcher Mind Commerce.
Machine Learning enables automotive manufacturers to discover new business models, finesse product quality, and optimise manufacture. Artificial Intelligence and data mining techniques are core to innovation in CAD modelling and simulation, analysis of procurement and logistical information. Data science also plays an integral role in the detection and remediation of production defects.
Other industries now hiring data scientists include agriculture, education, energy, manufacturing, media, mining, retail and travel.
What data science qualifications do actuaries need?
Actuaries realise that they operate in a discipline that’s ideal for the adoption of data science techniques, as the profession equips itself for the 2020s.
However, it’s critical that emphasis on qualificational and certificational attainment – the foundation of the actuarial profession – extends to the attainment of competences in data science.
The addition of data science to their skillsets will prove advantageous to actuaries, both in terms of greater career mobility, and the consolidation of their market value as actuarial professionals.
The maintenance of professional competences has always been core to actuarial practice, and this commitment is validated by Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Professional Skills Training (PST) schemes. Going forward, data science curricular will increasingly meet the requirements of actuarial CPD and PST.
In June 2019, IFoA President John Taylor announced that a certificate in data science will be made available to all members of the actuarial profession. They will be able to choose from a number of modules that cover data science disciplines – such as data visualisation, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – and can pick and choose from them. These module will be announced before the launch of the certificate.
“From this, actuaries will get a much greater appreciation of the art of the possible in data science,” President Taylor explains. “It won’t make them data science practitioners per se, but it will enable those certified to work more closely with data scientists. And the certificate will also have a currency with employers in evidencing the additional learning that actuaries have undertaken.”
Actuarial science and data science share many characteristics, such as data analytics and predictive data modelling; and so the undertaking of study-based attainments in the data sciences means that actuaries will already be familiar with some of the knowledge-acquisition necessary to make data science study part of their CPD/PST programmes and career progression.
Course-based data science qualifications broadly divide into those provided by professional associations (such as the IFoA and its partners), those from accredited academic bodies (like universities and academies), and those from vendors in the data science solutions market (notable examples are those from IBM, Dell, Microsoft and SAS).
The IFoA can help you find the courses to get you started. These courses are online, flexible, and sometimes cost-free. Each has value and provides a different perspective on data science in its many and evolving facets. You can also explore the options for an MSc, with several full- or part-time opportunities.
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Events calendar
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Sessional Meeting: Covid-19 and the Effectiveness of ERM Frameworks
Online15 August 2022The purpose of this research paper is to explore enterprise risk management lessons which can be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic in preparation for potential future pandemics as well as other “gray rhino” or “black swan” events. This paper is not intended to be an all-encompassing solution to the issues presented by Covid-19; rather, the content has been provided to help drive discussions regarding how risk management processes may need to evolve in line with the dynamic nature of the underlying risks that they sometimes need to capture.
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Planning your answers in the online examination format
22 August 2022This webinar will discuss good exam technique, including various approaches candidates can take in managing their time completing their exams in the online format.
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This session is for new candidates and existing candidates where we will be discussing the practical steps you need to take leading up your exam and on the day. We will be discussing how to testing the online exam platform, downloading and uploading your paper and key information from the Exam Handbook.
The exam webinar is for candidates, new to IFoA exams and returning candidates, sitting in the September 2022 exam session.
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Balancing the short – and the long – term: the challenges of being a “sustainable” NED
6 September 2022The role of Non-Executive Directors has become increasingly challenging and critical over the past few years.
Big picture thinking, Governance knowledge, Independent mindset, Ambassador potential and Energy and commitment: these are the essential skills sought in a successful NED, according to the Chartered Governance Institute (UK & Ireland).
In parallel, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria are increasingly key and used by investors to measure the sustainability and ethical impact of investing in an organisation.
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Is your ESG offering a misselling risk? This innovative concept can resolve that risk
7 September 2022This webinar will cover:
• Some background on the risks of misselling in an ESG context, including the DWS case
• Achieving positive impact is a strong antidote to the risks of greenwashing or ESG misselling, however this risks having a tension with fiduciary responsibilities
• This tension can be resolved with a concept called Universal Ownership
• Under Universal ownership, investors have an appetite to make a loss in order to achieve positive impact, and yet still have no compromise on their fiduciary responsibilities
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How do CDC pension schemes smooth members' pensions?
23 September 2022In the UK, the idea of collective defined contribution (CDC) pension schemes is gaining more attention with the launch of the Royal Mail CDC scheme, the first of its kind in the UK. Our recent research on CDC plans investigates the sources of the putative benefits of CDC schemes: the smoothing of pensions for members. Using an attribution analysis to burrow into the scheme design, the reason for the smoothing of members' pensions is explained and understood.
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The IFoA's Infrastructure Working Party, led by Chris Lewin, will present its new introductory guide to infrastructure investment, which will be published on the IFoA web-site prior to the webinar. Those readers whose institutions have already taken the plunge into infrastructure will know that it is a highly complex and diverse field of activity. This guide does not explore all the matters which investors take into account, but it does discuss many of the more important points, including the risks and past returns, benchmarking, and ESG and SDG considerations. Attendees will be invi
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Social Care Agenda
11 October 2022Social care reform has long been on the to-do list for successive governments over the last two decades. In February, the government’s proposed reforms to adult social care [including cap on care costs] was published. Against this backdrop of funding promise and rising National Insurance taxation, in this session we will debate the resilience of these new proposals, the impact of future demand for care services and what role for the insurance industry and the important role it has played in long-term care funding in other countries where public-private partnership works.
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Health – Our Greatest Asset
2 November 2022Health contributes to happiness at the personal, family, community and societal level. Health, importantly underpins all our economic security. This talk will explore the drivers of our health, the measurement of health and the steps we can take to improve health – most of which lie outside the NHS.
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GIRO Conference 2022
ACC Liverpool21 November 2022 - 23 November 2022
We are delighted to announce the return of GIRO as an in-person conference, giving you an opportunity to connect with actuaries in your practice area. Join leading experts to discuss key issues, emerging ideas, and new research across the General Insurance sector.
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Life Conference 2022
ACC Liverpool Kings Dock Liverpool Waterfront Liverpool Merseyside L3 4FP23 November 2022 - 25 November 2022
Life Conference returns as an in-person conference in 2022, giving you an opportunity to connect with your peers and fellow actuaries in your sector, in person. You will also hear leading experts discuss key issues, emerging ideas, and new research across the Life insurance sector.
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Mortality and morbidity risk varies by variables such as age, sex and smoking. In traditional actuarial experience analysis, these variables, and certain combinations thereof can be explored. However, with the wealth of data now available it is becoming increasingly challenging to identify the key drivers of experience and account for the interaction between different variables. A univariate approach often compares apples and pears, for example males are more likely to smoke and have larger policies than females. Likewise, variable interactions are missed unless specifically included.
