Graduate Programme 2015

KPMG
London - United Kingdom
S: Competitive

About the programme

Acting as an expert adviser to the insurance industry, our Actuarial team helps organisations to manage financial risk. Here, you'll be given the chance to use detailed analysis of past events to create accurate models of the future - and crucially, advise on their financial implications.

If you're a numerate graduate who enjoys the challenge of communicating complex concepts, this programme can offer the opportunities you need to achieve
Professional Qualifications and a successful career in insurance.

It's a highly technical role, best suited to graduates who are numerate, extremely ambitious and able to communicate complex ideas to non-specialists. Our Actuarial Graduate Programme is a great opportunity to build a varied career, gain the Actuarial qualification in three to five years, benefit from a range of training options and help our clients to solve complex business challenges.

Key Skills Required

We look for graduates who are highly numerate - and probably studying a numerically based honours degree or post graduate degree in a numerical subject (for example, Engineering or Physics). You'll also need to be motivated to qualify as an Actuary and ideally be someone who might previously have considered investment banking or other similar roles.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Within Actuarial, there are two different areas which you could join: Life Actuarial Services and General Insurance.

Life Actuarial Services

Life Actuarial Services provides advice to the Life Insurance industry, who in turn provide investment related products (such as endowments or insurance bonds) or protection products (such as term assurance policies or critical illness cover).

Our advice often relies on complex mathematical techniques and covers a wide range of issues including strategic planning, transactions, risk optimisation, process transformation and strategic investment allocation. Joining over 100 other Life Actuarial professionals, you'll develop a broad set of skills as you advise on various practical business issues and work with UK and overseas clients such as life insurance companies, retail banks, investment banks, venture capital firms, industry regulators and reinsurance companies. We often work in a project management capacity, or directly alongside the client's actuarial team.

General Insurance

General Insurance covers the spectrum of business and personal risks, with types of insurance ranging from standard car and house to more exotic insurances covering satellites, oilrigs or hurricane damage. Changing regulations, new products and developing markets mean that nothing stands still in this challenging and demanding business area.

The General Insurance Actuarial team advises general insurance companies, reinsurance companies, Lloyd's syndicates, banks and corporations on a wide range of issues. These include start-ups and close-downs of insurance businesses, transactions, risk modelling, capital management liability valuation and catastrophe modelling.

Qualifications you'll work for

From day one you'll be on a structured path towards gaining a professional qualification, studying towards the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' exams on subjects including:

- Financial mathematics and modelling
- Probability and statistics
- Financial reporting and economics
- Actuarial risk management
- Life and general insurance

Exams are held twice a year, and you can sit as many papers as you like in one sitting. At KPMG we encourage and reward quick qualification and expect our students to qualify in three to five years. Studying is primarily undertaken by a correspondence course; you will also receive internal support from KPMG and attend external tutorials. You will need a high level of commitment.

Our Requirements:

As a general rule, you'll be expected to meet the following requirements:

- Minimum grade A GCSE* Maths
- Minimum grade A GCSE* English Language
- Minimum of 340 UCAS Tariff points*
- Minimum 2:1 in a numerate degree
* or equivalent

Please note, that we only consider a candidate's 'top' 3 A-level grades and do not accept General Studies.

Job summary