Actuary

Actuaries use math and statistics to price insurance and pensions and to work out how much money a company must set aside for future claims. Much of the day-to-day work is building and running models on large data sets, the kind of work computers keep getting better at. So far, though, AI is a light presence in the job. In a 2025 survey of 518 members by the Society of Actuaries, most said they spend less than five hours a week using or learning AI tools, and about a quarter of those with 10 years of experience or less said they don't use it at all. Among those who do use it, the top barrier they named was regulation and compliance risk. The SOA's summary: AI is "widely recognized but not yet deeply integrated into most actuarial workflows." A 2025 Microsoft Research study that measured how much of each job's tasks AI chatbots can help with put actuaries near the middle of 785 jobs.

What keeps this from being lower is the job market for new actuaries. BLS sharply cut its outlook this year. It now projects 9% growth from 2025 to 2035, still much faster than the average for all jobs, but down from 22% in its previous projection, and about 1,500 openings a year instead of about 2,400. BLS's job outlook page doesn't say why, so we can't tell how much of the cut is AI. Either way, fewer openings means tighter competition for new graduates, and the routine modeling and data work that AI speeds up is the work junior actuaries are hired to do. The exam system and the professional sign-off actuaries give on reserves and rates protect the profession, but, as our rubric says, protections like licensing slow the change rather than stop it. That is a 3.

What would change this score. If insurers start running routine pricing and reserving with AI and fewer junior staff, or BLS cuts its outlook again, this goes to 4. If the next SOA surveys show AI use growing without entry-level hiring falling, 2 becomes possible.