While the career paths, duties and responsibilities of actuaries and data scientists tend to be intertwined, data science is highly unlikely to replace actuaries because both are important. To be successful as an actuary, one must actually pass a series of rather difficult exams that cover topics related to the work of an actuary, and the curricula and admission criteria for academic programs in actuarial science generally reflect this. Practicing actuaries who have taken a few years to complete their exams sometimes scoff at the limited extent to which they use their initial training in statistics and mathematics in their daily work. While a bachelor's degree is sufficient to become an actuary, the US BLS states that it takes 4 to 7 years for actuaries to obtain an associate level certification.
At a time when job security and employment prospects in many traditional white-collar occupations were affected by economic and technological turmoil, the actuarial profession stood out as an oasis of secure, stable and well-paid employment. Among all the other professions that data science has jeopardized with its evolutionary nature lately, actuaries have also begun to feel threatened. It can be safely said, for the foreseeable future, that actuaries are far from the danger zone created by the advancement of data science. Although the roots of actuaries date back to the 17th century and, back then, they didn't rely on any automated way of processing data, the field has evolved a lot since then.
No one can become a member of the American Academy of Actuaries without having a basic education that includes a firm command of statistics and a knowledge of the U. The fact that actuaries have a skill set that overlaps those of data scientists and a much more limited scope, there is much more confusion if both fields will eventually overlap. The objectives of actuaries are strictly limited to financial companies, but data science has no limits. In addition, actuarial education has expanded in recent years, moving from a curriculum based exclusively on exams to one that allows candidates to demonstrate their skills in practical data analysis to solve important problems.
Fundamentally, the emergence and success of data science as an occupational field and academic discipline is good news for actuaries. Data science can be a threat to some actuarial functions that require minimal human interaction and do not involve high-level financial knowledge. However, in any case, data scientists don't understand the underlying business principles that actuaries should have.
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