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If you are considering a career in finance, you may be wondering about the difference between an accountant and an actuary. Both can be important and rewarding careers that draw on mathematical skills. Both require a good deal of education and testing in order to become certified or professionally recognized. Accounting is a broader field and a more common one, as about 190,000 accountants are at work in the U.S. as compared to about 22,000 actuaries. Read on to discover some of the other differences between the two jobs.
What Accountants and Actuaries Do
A professional accountant generally has a background in mathematics and takes an exam in order to become a certified public accountant (CPA). Although you may be able to do some accounting work without that designation, if you are going to be in the field long term it’s important that you get that certification, which is considered the standard. Accountants work with companies, government organizations, or individuals to compile and manage important financial data. The field is broad since accountants may work as consultants or for large or small businesses and organizations, and there is a wide range of specialized accounting services, including taxes, internal audits, or managerial accounting.
Actuaries work much more specifically within the field of insurance. They are essentially statisticians whose work helps insurance firms make important estimations about risks. For instance, an actuary can use statistics to make predictions about how much a company might have to pay out in the event of a certain catastrophe or other scenario.
Education, Training, and Job Outlook
Both accountants and actuaries need a strong background in mathematics. Once they have begun working, they will need to prepare for exams that will provide them the certification and recognition they need. Although the accounting field is broad, there is only one set of exams to become a CPA, which may take a number of months to prepare for and take. A lot of states require a certain level of education (at least a college degree) before you can qualify for the CPA exam. Actuaries have an even longer road ahead of them to become recognized professionally. Some of the coursework required to even take the exams is very specific. Two organizations offer certification processes, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS). It can take several years for someone to take and pass all of the exams required, although happily many companies will pay for the training and exams you need to become a full actuary. You may not make as much initially, but the certification will pay off.
Both accountants and actuaries have strong job outlooks, with growth for actuaries being especially high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The actuary field is in a decade of strong growth where over 5,000 jobs are in the process of being added. That’s a higher growth rate than in the accounting field, but growth there is expected to stay strong too. The main difference between an accountant and an actuary lies in the type of financial work you will end up doing and the amount of time it may take to become fully certified. However, both jobs offer the opportunity of a rewarding career.