Actuarial Consulting Pensions: Graduate Programme

 

Main characteristics

Location

Manchester, Manchester

Company

Aon

Employment type

Permanent

Category

Accounting

Job summary

Join Aon as an actuarial consulting pensions graduate, and discover how our global team of specialists help businesses make smart choices about their employees' pensions - now, and into the future.

As a market leader in actuarial consulting, Aon has been advising companies and trustees on their defined benefit pension schemes for over 60 years. Our Actuarial Consultants specialise in advising our clients on those schemes to help them manage the associated financial and operational risks, now and in the future.

Right now, UK companies have more invested in pension schemes than the rest of Europe combined. But, has each individual company set aside enough to meet their pensions' obligations in twenty, thirty or even forty years' time?

As the market leader in actuarial consulting, at Aon we're here to advise our clients on their defined pension schemes, helping them to manage the associated financial and operational risks. As an Aon graduate, you'll work alongside the best and brightest in the industry, earning as you learn - what better way to launch your career?
Locations
Birmingham, Bristol, Epsom, Farnborough, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, St Albans
Entry requirements: Educated to degree level with a 2:1 or equivalent qualification in a numerate/semi-numerate discipline and a B or above in Maths A-level, or equivalent
Strong commercial awareness, lots of ambition and an enthusiastic approach are important
Applicants for the longevity modelling analyst roles (read on for more on these specialist roles) should also possess a strong mathematical capability, with experience in numerical modelling (e.g. with Excel/VBA, R, Matlab, C#, C++, .Net) beneficial but not essential
The role
As an actuarial colleague, you'll find that no two days in the office are the same. You'll work on a range of client teams with colleagues who advise either the trustees managing the pension scheme, or the company that provides it.

Our aim is for you to develop into a trusted advisor for your clients as soon as possible. We'll help you do this by developing both your technical and consulting skills - including your understanding of key calculations, communication techniques, project management and networking. Throughout your career with Aon, you'll continually improve your commercial awareness and professionalism - which will help you grow into a successful consultant.
Responsibilities Regular assessment of the financial position of pension schemes
Identify and implement ways for trustees and companies to reduce the risks in relation to their schemes, including longevity risks, investment risks and inflation risk
Make calculations relating to the pension scheme for the company's financial accounts
Make calculations with respect to individual pension scheme members' benefits
Day-to-day management of the pension scheme
Estimate pension protection fund levies
Manage corporate transactions - i.e. when a merger or acquisition of companies takes place, the liabilities of the companies' pension schemes need to be taken into account in the deal
The final close-down of the schemes when risk is passed to a third party

You'll be given opportunities to work on a range of projects, gaining early exposure to clients to support your development. You'll also have the chance to be involved in one of our world-class specialist teams.
Specialist team: longevity modelling:
Within our actuarial department, we have best-in-class specialist teams. One of these teams, the longevity modelling team, has graduate opportunities for 2020 based in Birmingham and Manchester.

Aon is the UK's leading longevity risk adviser, helping pension planners, insurers and reinsurers understand how long their pensioners are likely to live and how variable this could be. This helps them decide how much money to set aside, and whether it makes sense to insure against the risk of increasing life expectancy.

The advice of our longevity modelling analysts underlies the largest risk hedging transactions executed to date in the UK and overseas. Join our team of expert analysts, and you'll help to deliver the highest quality advice to our clients. In return, we'll give you everything you need to become an expert yourself, with training on our modelling approaches, cutting-edge tools and computer programming techniques.

As a member of our longevity modelling team, your responsibilities will involve:
Supporting our market leading longevity modelling and providing advice, in relation to longevity deals (where we may be advising pension plans, their sponsors, insurers or reinsurers)
Developing our proprietary longevity modelling to maintain Aon's technical lead
Creating and maintaining the cashflow models that back large-scale longevity swaps
Supporting the wider Aon consulting population in relation to longevity
Building longevity expertise within the risk settlement group and the wider Aon group

This role is slightly different to the standard pensions consulting role - you'll be involved in more technical modelling work and helping to develop our internal models and analytical tools, as well as supporting the delivery of the advice we provide to our clients.
Training and development
At Aon, all roles include plenty of on-the-job experience. As a graduate, you'll also get involved in technical and consulting workshops. These will give you the skills you need to provide innovative solutions that meet our clients' needs, as well as building your confidence and experience through proactively managing client relationships.

As your career progresses, you'll have access to a variety of interactive training sessions - these are designed to supplement your experience, and help you develop into a skilled consultant.

We want you to be as successful as possible, so we'll fully support your study towards professional qualification as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. To support you as you study for your exams, you'll receive paid study leave, plus an extensive range of study and tuition materials.
After the graduate programme, what's next?
Once you've completed the formal graduate programme, you'll continue to receive lots of support at Aon. As well as the interactive training sessions we've mentioned above, you'll have the chance to explore different career paths. You may choose to specialise in advising trustee clients, or corporate pension scheme sponsors. There's also the opportunity to join and develop a role in one of Aon's specialist teams, like the industry-leading risk settlement group. Whichever route you choose, we'll provide support and training at every step, giving you the tools you need to build an exciting career at Aon.
Downloads
graduate-brochure.pdf Graduate brochure