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Finance & accounting · Analyzing & Problem-solving

Actuary: what the job actually is

Using maths and statistics to put a price on risk, so an insurer or pension plan knows what it can afford to promise.

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Actuary: quick facts

Actuary salary in Ontario: the median pay is $51.28 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is moderate. The job usually needs a university degree.

Median pay in Ontario
$51.28 an hour
Pay range (low to high)
$38.46 to $77.33 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Moderate
People working in it in Ontario
7,700
Usually needs
Usually a university degree

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 21210. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • Estimating how likely bad things are (a car crash, a death, a market fall, a pension fund running short) and what they would cost, so that a company can set a price or a promise it can actually keep.
  • Most of the work is building and checking models in spreadsheets and code, then writing up what they say and what they cannot say, for people who did not study maths.
  • Employers are mostly insurers, pension and benefits consultants, and government bodies that oversee them. The day looks different in each: pricing car insurance is not the same as valuing a pension plan.
  • A note on the data: Job Bank groups actuaries with mathematicians and statisticians, and the wage and outlook figures on this page are for that wider group, not for actuaries alone. Actuary is a well-known job in search results, but the official statistics do not isolate it.
  • Becoming an actuary is an exam-and-credential process run by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA). It runs alongside your first jobs, not before them.

A Tuesday

What a normal day looks like

Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.

  1. 8:30 — In, coffee, check whether the overnight model run finished or fell over. It fell over. Find the one cell that changed.
  2. 9:00 — Team check-in on a pricing update. Somebody asks whether the new claims data is clean. It is not entirely, and you are the person who knows where.
  3. 9:30 — Rebuild one assumption: how long people with a certain policy keep it. The answer moves the whole result a little, and you need to know how much.
  4. 11:00 — Write three paragraphs explaining the change to someone in sales who needs one sentence. Cut it to one sentence.
  5. 12:00 — Lunch at the desk, with a study guide propped against the monitor, because an exam is in a few weeks.
  6. 13:00 — A reviewer finds an error in last quarter's workbook. It is yours. Fix it, document it, say so plainly.
  7. 14:30 — Meeting with an underwriter or a pension plan administrator who disagrees with the result and wants to know why. You explain the method, not the answer.
  8. 16:00 — Run the numbers again with the corrected data. Compare to last time and write down every difference you cannot explain yet.
  9. 17:30 — Home, or not: study for the exam. Most people in the first years of this career have an exam date on the calendar.

Honestly

Who loves this, and who should not do it

The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.

You may like this if
  • You like maths that gets used on something real, and you are happy to show your working to someone who will check it.
  • You can sit with a spreadsheet or a script for hours and be curious about why a number moved.
  • You do not mind exams. You can study on evenings and weekends for years and treat it as part of the job.
  • You are comfortable saying 'this is the best estimate and here is how wrong it could be' rather than giving a single confident answer.
  • You can explain a technical thing to someone who does not want to hear the technical part.
You may hate this if
  • You hate exams. The credential route is a long series of them, taken while you work, and failing one means sitting it again.
  • You want to be creative with the problem rather than precise. Most of the work is checking, documenting and being right about boring details.
  • You dislike being the person who tells people their plan costs more than they hoped. That is a frequent conversation.
  • You want a job with a clear start and finish to the day. Study time follows you home, especially early on.
  • You dislike sitting at a screen most of the day. The work is mostly desk, model and meeting.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Take maths seriously in high school

    The CIA's route starts at university, and the maths is the entry ticket. Get strong at calculus, functions and data management in Grades 11 and 12 so you have choices when you apply.

  2. Enrol in an actuarial science programme the CIA accredits

    The CIA's Pathway 1 starts with enrolling in a CIA-accredited actuarial science programme at a university and joining the CIA as a student member. Check the CIA's list for which Ontario schools hold accreditation before you apply.

  3. Work the ACIA steps while you study

    On the CIA's Pathway 1 page the steps are: orientation module, ACIA Module 1 after first year, ACIA Module 2 in your final year, finish the degree with the CIA-mandated courses, pass the ACIA Capstone Exam, complete the Professionalism Workshop, and apply for membership.

  4. Work toward the FCIA

    After the ACIA, the CIA asks for a specialty track (two modules and three exams), an Advanced Professionalism and Leadership Course, 36 months of experience within six years including 12 months of Canadian experience in the last three years, and an application. Other routes exist for people with credentials from other actuarial organisations; read the CIA's pathway pages.

  5. Know what the credential is and is not

    Job Bank lists the wider mathematician and statistician group as not regulated in Ontario. The CIA pages we read describe membership designations, and we did not find a statement on title protection, so ask the CIA directly if it matters to you.

Where this comes from: Canadian Institute of Actuaries — Pathway 1 to the ACIA and FCIA · Canadian Institute of Actuaries — Qualification pathways · Job Bank — Mathematicians and statisticians requirements in Ontario

The money

Actuary salary in Ontario

Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.

$38.46
Low (hourly)
$51.28
Median (hourly)
$77.33
High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 21210. Reference period 2023-2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.

Source: Job Bank — Actuary wages in Ontario

Where it is heading

The outlook for the next three years

Job Bank publishes a three-year outlook for every job in every province. It is the closest thing to an honest forecast, and it moves, so read it as a weather report rather than a verdict.

Ontario, 2025-2027

Moderate3 out of 5 stars

  • Employment growth will lead to a moderate number of new positions.
  • Not many positions will become available due to retirements.
  • There are a small number of unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation.

What that rating means: how many openings Job Bank expects in Ontario for this kind of work against how many people are likely to be looking — not whether it is a good job. A “limited” rating means more competition for each opening; it does not close the door, and it can change before you are ready to walk through it.

What is changing in this work

  • Emphasis on the use of large bodies of data ('Big Data') to inform decision-making should bode well for mathematicians, statisticians and actuaries
  • Significant changes in business operations, including finance and insurance services, are expected to add job prospects to forecast and prevent operational risks
  • Demand for actuaries usually depends on activities in employee benefit consulting firms, risk management departments in various companies, and life, property and casualty insurance providers

Who hires for it

  • A variety of industries, but leading share with insurance carriers
  • Management consulting and scientific research firms
  • Federal government departments.
7,700
people work in this job in Ontario
48%
are women (48% across all jobs)
5%
are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Mathematicians, statisticians and actuaries job prospects in Ontario (NOC 21210). Outlook updated by Job Bank on 10 December 2025; read by us on 5 October 2026.

Before you leave school

Things you can do now

  • Take the strongest maths courses your school offers in Grades 11 and 12, and data management if it runs.
  • Learn some programming on the side, because modelling is done in code and spreadsheets and nobody will teach you from zero on the job.
  • Ask a guidance counsellor which Ontario universities offer actuarial science and what their admission averages are, before Grade 11 option choices lock in.
  • Join the maths club or a contest team if there is one. It is the cheapest way to find out whether you like hard problems with a right answer.

Test it

Do this before you decide anything

Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.

Price a risk yourself and see if you enjoy being wrong by a known amount

About 75 minutes
  1. Pick something you can count: how many times your bus is late in two weeks, or how many shots out of ten you make from the same spot. Record 20 observations in a spreadsheet.
  2. Work out the average and write one sentence: 'if I had to promise a number for next week, I would say X, and I could be off by Y.' Note how you decided on Y.
  3. Repeat with another 20 observations and compare. Did your first answer hold? Write down what you would change about your method.
  4. Read the CIA's Pathway 1 page and write down the one step that sounds most dull to you and the one that sounds most interesting.

What it tells you. If you enjoyed arguing with your own estimate and wanted more data, that is the habit this job runs on, and the exam burden will feel like effort toward something. If you found it tedious to be uncertain, or the dull step on the CIA page was most of the list, think hard before committing to a route with years of exams.

Better than any article

Questions for somebody who does this job

Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.

  1. “How many exams or modules did it take, and what did the study do to your evenings?”
  2. “What is the most useful thing you do that is not maths?”
  3. “What would you tell someone who loves maths but hates sitting exams?”
  4. “How much of your day is explaining versus calculating?”
  5. “What kind of employer would you choose now, an insurer, a pension consultant or a regulator, and why?”
  6. “What did you not understand about the job before you started?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Sometimes. Experienced actuaries consult independently, mostly on pensions, benefits and small insurers, but it takes a recognised credential, years of experience and a reputation first. It is not a first-job business.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does an actuary make in Ontario?

The median pay for an actuary in Ontario is $51.28 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $38.46 to $77.33 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for an actuary in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as moderate for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment growth will lead to a moderate number of new positions. Not many positions will become available due to retirements. There are a small number of unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation. A lower rating means more competition for each opening, not that no one is hiring.

What do you need to become an actuary in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work usually needs a university degree. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Take maths seriously in high school; Enrol in an actuarial science programme the CIA accredits; Work the ACIA steps while you study.

Where does an actuary work in Ontario?

A variety of industries, but leading share with insurance carriers. Management consulting and scientific research firms. Federal government departments. (Job Bank.)

How many people work as an actuary in Ontario, and how many are women?

Job Bank counts about 7,700 people working in this job in Ontario. 48% of them are women, compared with 48% across all jobs. That describes who does the work today, not who can.

Not sure this is the right list to be reading

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Parent of a teenager weighing this up? Career coaching for teens gets them talking to people who do the work, anywhere in Ontario.

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Wages and training requirements change. Every figure on this page is linked to the body that publishes it, and the review date above says when we last checked. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.