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Blog If you qualified as an actuary in the UK any time in the last quarter-century, there is one thing we all share: the “orange book.” For me, the “Formulae and Tables for Actuarial Examinations” was a constant companion through university, the professional exams and sometimes even for my work on defined benefit pension schemes. This year, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries is retiring that iconic volume. The change marks the end of an era and invites a bigger question: what era are we entering?
Actuary 1.0, a Day in the Life of a Calculator
My placement year in 2011 was my first taste of the actuarial world. Back then, the actuary’s desk was a landscape of paper, a scientific calculator, and the undisputed king of the office: Microsoft Excel.
By 2011, actuaries had adapted to the seismic shift brought about by the Pensions Act 2004, as most schemes went through their second or third valuation cycle. The Pensions Act 2004 expanded the profession’s remit dramatically. The old Minimum Funding Requirement was gone, replaced by a far more demanding regime of scheme-specific funding, recovery plans, and s179 valuations for the newly formed Pension Protection Fund.
Actuary 1.0 was a Microsoft Excel expert, able to build complex models from scratch and automate processes using VBA. As good as those models were, like any complex spreadsheet they were often fragile, sometimes opaque, and almost always came with a high chance of human error. Actuary 1.0’s favourite tool also created a significant vulnerability.
For many schemes, particularly smaller ones with limited budgets, the actuary’s time was almost entirely consumed by just producing “the number”. There was little time or budget left for the strategic advice they now desperately needed, such as discussions on journey plans, investment risk, or employer covenant. The output was a static report, not a strategic conversation.
Actuary 2.0, a Day in the Life of a Consultant
When I joined the profession as a graduate in 2014, my first major project was migrating clients from those Excel models onto Mantle. It was immediately clear that this wasn’t just a system migration; it was a complete transformation of the actuarial process.
Because the pension management platform enables integrated administration processes and actuarial calculations, the painful and time-consuming process of data checking and migration is minimised. The data is live and trusted. Cloud processing means that valuations take minutes rather than needing to be left to run overnight.
Actuary 2.0’s time is freed up to focus on having strategic conversations with clients rather than producing “the number.” Advice that had once been affordable only for the largest schemes became available to all.
Using interactive dashboards, we can sit with trustees and model ‘what-if’ scenarios in real-time, exploring the impact of different investment strategies or contribution plans. We can have meaningful, proactive conversations about Integrated Risk Management and monitor a scheme’s journey plan against its long-term goals, rather than just reporting a static position every three years.
We no longer just deliver a number. We help clients understand what it means and what to do next.
Actuary 3.0, a Day in the Life of a Strategist
As we look ahead 25 years to when the next tables book might be due, it’s clear the pace of change is only accelerating. We don’t even have to look that far into the future to see the next wave of change. The Pension Schemes Bill is set to fundamentally alter the landscape for DB schemes, demanding an even more strategic approach from actuaries.
The conversation with trustees is no longer just ‘How do we get to buyout?’. It’s now a multi-faceted strategic discussion: Should we run-on to generate more surplus? Could that surplus be used to enhance member benefits or be returned to the sponsor to invest in their business? Is a superfund a better fit for our risk profile? Answering these questions requires a level of strategic modelling and advisory skill that goes far beyond the old world of pure calculation.
This new strategic complexity is where the future of our profession lies, and it will be powered by technology. What will the “2050 tables book” look like? It won’t be a book at all. I believe it will be a set of professionally endorsed APIs that feed live data on systemic risks (like climate change or longevity volatility) directly into platforms. The actuary’s job won’t be to look up a factor, but to interpret the output and apply their professional judgment to the scheme’s specific circumstances.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will handle the next layer of work. They won’t just automate calculations; they will perform complex data analysis, enhance assumption setting, and run predictive models.
Actuary 3.0 will be a true strategist. Data science literacy and AI ethics will be non-negotiable skills. Most importantly, Actuary 3.0 will need the ability to communicate the output of these incredibly complex models into a clear strategic narrative for clients.
Get in touch
Mantle relative to many legacy platforms can transform the experience for The orange book on my shelf stands for mastery of calculation. Its retirement signals our shift toward mastery of strategy, communication and judgement.
If you would like to talk about freeing your team from number-crunching and shifting the focus to strategy, get in touch. Contact us at enquiries@mantleservices.com or visit our website www.mantleservices.com for further information on our innovative pension software.
