With all the different accountancy qualifications to choose from, it's important to research the differences between them. A key factor to realise, however, is that the different branches of accountancy do point to different career paths, although they are all broadly related.

Opportunities

Actuaries are statistical experts who apply their specialist knowledge to the real world, especially finance. Actuaries make financial sense of the future. This does not mean they can predict the winning lottery numbers. Rather, they are highly skilled problem-solvers, business analysts and consultants who specialise particularly in long term financial risk.

The rewarding and challenging nature of an actuarial career was first revealed to me some years ago, between sips of coffee with an actuary who was then a director at New Ireland Assurance. After some further investigation of my own, I discovered that (among other things) actuaries use their extensive mathematical repertoire to quantify and control financial and actuarial risk.