Actuarial Science (Taught)

The MSc in Actuarial Science at Strathclyde has been developed to give students wishing to move into the actuarial profession a strong foundation in the statistical concepts, models and techniques used in actuarial calculations, their computer implementations, and the financial and economic contexts of these calculations.

The programme is an innovative cross-faculty alliance between the Strathclyde Business School and the Faculty of Science.

The course is designed so that students with a strong aptitude for mathematics and statistics, but who have not studied these topics in detail in their undergraduate degree, can gain the necessary skills to move into the financial industry. It's intended as a conversion course, teaching material in statistics, economics and finance, and does not currently include specialist actuarial mathematics content (which will be studied in the actuarial professional examinations).

Our Actuarial Science Masters produces graduates well equipped to apply for trainee actuary positions. Students reaching a sufficiently high level in core classes will be eligible for exemption from two of the professional examinations of the IFoA, namely CS1 and CB2.

Compulsory core modules taken by all students

Principles of Finance
Foundations of Probability & Statistics
Inference & Regression Modelling
Fundamentals of Macroeconomics
Fundamentals of Microeconomics
Actuarial Science Summer Project

Students are advised to take Spatial Statistics for the purposes of exemption from the IFoA professional examination CS1 and choose further modules to make up a total of 60 credits of taught modules in Semester 2.

Behavioural Finance
Fixed Income Analysis
Equity Analysis
Statistical Machine Learning
Portfolio Theory & Management
Risk Management for Banks
Financial Econometrics
Financial Stochastic Processes
Quantitative Risk Analysis
Risk Analysis & Management
Spatial Statistics

With the approval of the Course Director, you may substitute other classes offered by the University for one or more of the optional modules listed above. In particular further relevant options are available in Economics and Computer Science, including Machine Learning modules.

The form of assessment varies from class to class. For most classes the assessment involves both coursework and examinations.