eFinancialCareers

It’s a niche requirement to say the least, but if you’re a project manager with actuarial experience you could be sitting on a gold mine.

A push by life and pensions firms to update legacy systems and improve data integrity and transparency, combined with a consumer appetite for more sophisticated pensions products like Self-Invested Personal Pensions (Sipps), has driven increased demand for IT project managers with actuarial knowledge.

The skills are extremely difficult to find, and what’s more candidates often don’t know their worth, say recruiters.

“A lot of these roles are regional,” says Simon Walker, director of recruiters Project Partners. “These guys could have been in the same position for 10 years, earning between £40k and £46k, but when they look out onto the contractor market, they could be pulling in £600 to £1k a day. This rate has gone up from £350-400 only a couple of years ago.”

Dave Pye, chief executive of Highams Recruitment, agrees: “If you’re earning £45k in, say, Bournemouth, you might think it’s a decent salary. But then they look onto the contractor market and their eyes are opened to the jump they could receive.”

And what’s more, you’re not exactly going to find a typical project manager trying their hand at being an actuary – one of the most gruelling mathematical qualifications out there. Senior actuaries can earn in excess of £100k, according to Computer Economics Limited and Remuneration, so actuaries need a decent financial incentive to switch across to an IT role.

“There’s an arms race between life and pensions providers,” says Walker. “If anyone with actuarial experience and project management skills is sitting on a position, they could be missing out on a very lucrative role.”