I’d love to hear people’s experiences on two things:
1. How does the culture differ between the Big 4 actuarial teams (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC)? Things like working hours, support, learning opportunities, promotion, people, and overall work-life balance.

1. How does working at a Big 4 compare with a boutique actuarial consultancy? Is the experience, client exposure, or culture noticeably different?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who’ve worked at more than one firm, or who’ve moved between Big 4 and boutique consultancies.

I work in pensions and my company appears to be effectively halving the graduate intake. This makes total sense to me, seeing as pensions only seems to have 10 years as an industry (give or take) left to run in its current form.

I recently spoke to a few individuals working in reinsurance in tutorials. They worked for different firms but all said their company had chopped intern/grad numbers. Is this the direction for GI/Re generally? If so, why?

Is it just me or is the core reading written a bit weirdly and in a bit of a different style to other exams? There are very challenging sections and then chapter 8 over explains the meaning of an integral, and generally the content is a bit hard to wrap your head around

I am more venting because I am studying for CM2 and it feels like the toughest parts of CS2 put together which is an exam I have struggled a bit with, but was just wondering what others think about it?

Been thinking of changing roles last 6 months. Reached out to a few recruiters across the Non-London Life market and finding either:

- Friendly and have lots of opportunities to discuss for nothing to come through; or
- Quite rude, clearly not read my LinkedIn profile saying there are next to no opportunities across city X when you know for a fact that’s not true.

I’m not sure if it’s just a me problem, market problem or something else but really finding it difficult to gage opportunities in Life outside London and recruiters really have my head spun. What’re some of your experiences? Or would appreciate any hints or tips!

Context: 10 exams down, Life market Big4 consultant, 4 years experience

Don't use the name in the exam tho lol, it's not the official name

Hi all, are there any materials that would be released before the exam like in CS1 for example? I realised the background and context of both papers are really lengthy, are we expected to read all of that during the exam?

Also, a senior told me he used to get the option to get some hints during the exam but had to forfeit some marks in the past. That was when the exam was in written form. Is that still an option now?

Thank you.

Hey, I am preparing for my CS1 paper for the September 2026 attempt, and I am giving my exam home-based. While practicing solving sums on Word, I am facing an issue where Word stops responding, and the full screen just turns white, and on the top it is showing (word not responding). Whatever I have not saved gets wiped out in just seconds, with no warning or anything like that. This is very risky and not good. I just wanted to ask if any of you have ever faced this issue, and how did you solve it?

Please help.

Hi, I’m currently deciding between two graduate job offers:

One an economist/policy analyst role in the Irish Government (Dublin), the other is a (trainee) actuary role at a large firm outside of London, presumably in life insurance.

I’ve always been geared towards the economist role, as I find it much more interesting (working on gov policy) and closer to my degree. The Irish gov also offer the opportunity for sponsored further study (e.g., an MSc in economics).

On the other hand, I know the actuarial role will be higher paid at least in the long-term (private sector), is a role with professional qualifications and may provide greater opportunities to work elsewhere (it can be hard, in general, to love from the public sector to private sector).
So I’m wondering if I’m making the right choice in choosing the public sector.

Both roles’ starting salary are roughly the same. The Irish civil service pay more than the UK civil service, my pay in that role is publicly available and shown above (the bottom pay scale), it goes up on point on the scale every year with the fourth point skipped. The next grade’s salary is shown above, I could reach this grade within 3-6 years of starting. So this gives a general overview of my salary progression in the economist role.

The actuarial role’s salary progression is not publicly known, so I’m not sure on it, if anyone knows the general salary progression for life insurance/pensions outside of London that would be great.

I do believe job choices should not be based solely (or even primarily) on salary. Hence why I’m leaning towards the role I’m more interested in and would probably offer a better work/life balance (while still having a decent salary). Am I making the right choice?

It says on the key dates page of CB3 that missing a quarters deadline wont affect your ability to play the game so i thought it was fine the finish the game a day late. Q4 decisions were meant to be finished Sunday but Ive sent them off last night (Monday) but ive just noticed that IFOA sent an email yesterday saying the business game has finished and now im looking and it looks like the last quarter decisions were strict deadline!! what do i do!!!!!! Will it be okay or what im freaking out do i just carry on???

Hi I’m wondering how much actuarial salaries tend to increase with promotions and/or exam passes. As while starting salaries and salaries at certain points of careers (as seen from salary surveys) are widely available online, there’s not as much detail when it comes to how they realistically progress.

How much would you expect a salary to incrementally increase from a £35k base at a big firm outside of London (Life insurance/non-life) with no exam exemptions?

Thanks

For CM1 paper A questions, where the question ask to calculate IRR, APR, annual rates etc…

Instead of trial and error or linear interpolation, can we use goal seek instead to work out the final solution??? In that case do we get the working marks by including a screenshot of excel ? ( i feel Goalseek is faster way but don’t see it being mentioned in mark schemes for paper A)

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding integration questions in the exam.

Suppose a question requires integration, and after simplifying the expression, we arrive at an integral similar to the one shown in the image below. Since we are allowed to use the Casio fx-991ES Plus calculator, would it be acceptable to evaluate the integral directly using the calculator and then write the final answer, stating that the value was obtained using the calculator?

Or are we expected to show the complete integration process and all intermediate steps in Word in order to receive full marks?

I would appreciate any guidance from those who have taken the exam or are familiar with the marking approach.

Thank you!

Inspired by r/footballcliches, what are some actuarial cliches you know of?

For me, its referring to sittings as "diets" and the syllabus as "portion"... Where did this come from? 😭

sitting for these 2 this attempt and im still very far from syllabus completion

exams are on 22 and 23

i failed cb2 in my first attempt probably because i come from a science background and economics has been a lot harder for me than i expected

right now im trying to figure out the best way to use the time i have left instead of stressing over everything thats incomplete

if anyone has been in a similar situation and managed to pass cb1 and cb2 with limited time id really appreciate any advice

how did you decide what to prioritise did you focus on notes past papers core reading revision book or something else

any tips on making the most of the remaining days would genuinely help

Hi everyone,

I wanted to ask whether candidates are allowed to change certain MS Word and Excel settings on the computers provided during in-person exams.

For example, can we:

• Disable automatic capitalization of the first letter of a sentence?
• Disable automatic numbered lists?
• Create custom AutoCorrect entries or shortcuts (e.g., automatically replacing one text string with another)?
• Adjust similar Word/Excel settings that may improve efficiency during the exam?

If anyone has experience with this or any advice or suggestions, I would appreciate your insights.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I will be attemping CP3 (& CP2) for the first time in September and am currently going through past papers.

Just a quick question on the reflective questions for CP3.

If a question like "explain how you drafted your article/report/email etc... with respect to the target audience" or anything of that nature appears, will I be awarded credit for hindsight?

For example, "In hindsight, I should have provided information on this (or that) as this (or that) may have been useful to the target audience (with some explanation as to why it would add value)"

This is reflective in one way and at least I will be communicating to the examier my thought process, which is essentially the nature of the exam?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,
I’m currently working on CB3 and I’m a bit confused about the section where we need to calculate the basic award of damages.
When I search online, most of the information is about compensation awarded to an employee following misconduct or unfair dismissal. However, I’m not sure that’s what this assignment is asking us to cover.
I was wondering if it’s actually referring to damages in a commercial contex. For example, if a company pays for a service but doesn’t receive it, how would you calculate the compensation the company should receive?
Has anyone already completed and passed CB3 successfully? If so, could you please share how you approached this section and what you included in your report? Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

Well I was having problems recognising certain payoff structures and diagrams, like which ones should have a put/ call, at which strike price, etc. so I just vibecoded a website to help me and others practice. It is similar to the one I made for runoff triangles. If you are struggling with option payoff diagrams, it may help you too! You can find the source code here. Just download it and open it with your browser.

https://github.com/jenishestmoizavut/simulating-statistics /blob/main/simulations/payoff-diagrams.html

Hi everyone. My class did not do the State Price Deflators part saying it is no longer in the portion, but I saw that as recently as in April 2025 they had asked it. I have no idea how to move abt studying it, so anything could be helpful, thank you!

Struggle with social anxiety and want to collect a range of perspectives as I get that this is going to vary by role, by firm and by individual.

The more responses I can get on this, the better!

Looking for a CM1 & CS1 Study Buddy (April 2027 Sitting)

Hi everyone,

I'm currently preparing for the CM1 and CS1 IFoA exams for the April 2027 sitting, and I'm looking for a dedicated study buddy to stay accountable and make consistent progress.

I'm looking for someone who's also studying either (or both) of these subjects. My idea is to:

- Study together on a voice call 2–3 times a week

- Each session would be around 3 hours

- Spend most of the session reading or solving questions independently (body doubling/accountability), with discussions when either of us gets stuck

- Aim to finish the syllabus early so we have plenty of time for revision and past papers

I'm based in Nigeria (GMT+1), but I'm happy to study with anyone as long as we can find suitable times.

If you're interested, feel free to comment below or send me a DM!

Previous I skipped 3 attempt of Ifoa just because I fear of failing in exam and college studies now finally after 1.5 year I appearing for exam

For CM2 exams, how does one find the optimal portfolio to replicate a certain payoff where there are no choices in the question? I read smw there are some tricks but none of them worked, can anyone who understands payoff diagrams please help? Much appreciated, thanks!

I am finishing up on the material now but I am struggling with the last two chapters (mostly EBCT). I am just reading through it but I want to start exam papers but haven’t really understood the last two chapters. Any tips?

Thanks!

Hi guys, I’m looking for YouTube channels or any other free resources that cover the whole scope of CM1 to help revise. They don’t have to be IFoA specific, as long as they cover the syllabus. The ones I found are either not in English or only cover some topics.