Actuarial Science with an Industrial Placement - MSc

Students spend a year (minimum 44 weeks) period doing paid work in an organisation outside the University, in an industrial, commercial, public sector, or similar setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have developed and studied earlier during their degree course.

The Assessments required for this module should provide evidence of the subject specific and generic learning outcomes, and of reflection by the student on them as an independent learner.

The placement work they do is entirely under the direction of their industrial supervisor, but support is provided by the CEMS Employability and Placements Team or a member of the academic team. This support includes ensuring that the work they are being expected to do is such that they can meet the learning outcomes of this module.

Participation in the placement year, and hence in this module, is dependent on students obtaining an appropriate placement, for which support and guidance is provided by the CEMS Employability and Placements Team. It is also dependent on satisfactory achievement in their academic studies.

Students who do not obtain a placement will be required to transfer to the appropriate course without an Industrial Placement.

Find out more about MAST7801

Students spend a year (minimum 44 weeks) doing paid work in an organisation outside the University, in an industrial, commercial, public sector or similar setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have developed and studied in the earlier stages of their degree course.

The work they do is entirely under the direction of their industrial supervisor, but support is provided by the CEMS Employability and Placements Team. This support includes ensuring that the work they are being expected to do is such that they can meet the learning outcomes of the module.

Participation in the placement year, and hence in this module, is dependent on students obtaining an appropriate placement, for which support and guidance is provided through the CEMS Employability and Placements Team. It is also dependent on satisfactory achievement in their academic studies.

Students who do not obtain a placement will be required to transfer to the appropriate course without an Industrial Placement.

Find out more about MAST7805

The aim of this module is to provide a grounding in the principles of modelling as applied to financial mathematics – focusing particularly on deterministic models which can be used to model and value known cashflows.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CM1 – Actuarial Mathematics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT7009

The curriculum covers parts of the professional curriculum of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries syllabus CS1, and it introduces (and revises for some students) the essentials of probability and classical (frequentist) statistical inference.

Probability: review of elementary probability, concept of random variable, discrete and continuous probability distributions, cumulative distribution function, expectation and variance, joint distributions, marginal and conditional distributions, generating functions and transformation of random variables.

Statistics: sampling distributions, point estimation, method of moment and maximum likelihood estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, association between variables and linear regression.

Find out more about MACT7290

The aim of this module is to provide a grounding in the principles of modelling as applied to actuarial work – focusing particularly on deterministic models which can be used to model and value cashflows which are dependent on death, survival, or other uncertain risks. The module will include coverage of equations of value and its applications, single decrement models, multiple decrement and multiple life models. This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CM1 – Actuarial Mathematics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT7350

The aim of this module is to introduce students to core economic principles and how these could be used in a business environment to understand economic behaviour and aid decision making, and to provide a coherent coverage of economic concepts and principles. Indicative topics covered by the module include the working of competitive markets, market price and output determination, decisions made by consumers on allocating their budget and by producers on price and output, and different types of market structures and the implication of each for social welfare, the working of the economic system, governments' macroeconomic objectives, unemployment, inflation, economic growth, international trade and financial systems and financial crises.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CB2 – Business Economics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT8190

The aim of this module is to provide a grounding in mathematical and statistical modelling techniques that are of particular relevance to survival analysis and their application to actuarial work.

Calculations in life assurance, pensions and health insurance require reliable estimates of transition intensities/survival rates. This module covers the estimation of these intensities and the graduation of these estimates so they can be used reliably by insurance companies and pension schemes. The syllabus also includes the study of various other survival models, and an introduction to machine learning. This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CS2 – Actuarial Mathematics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT8250

This module provides an introduction to the principles of corporate finance and financial reporting. It is intended for students of Finance and Actuarial Science.

The syllabus introduces and develops the concepts and elements of corporate finance including a knowledge of the instruments used by companies to raise finance and manage financial risk, introduces the concepts and techniques of financial accounting and enables students to understand and interpret critically financial reports of companies and financial institutions including financial statements used by pension funds and insurance companies.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CB1 – Business Finance published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

This is a dynamic syllabus, changing regularly to reflect current practice.

Find out more about MACT8260

The aim of this module is to provide a grounding in the principles of modelling as applied to actuarial work – focusing particularly on stochastic asset liability models. These skills are also required to communicate with other financial professionals and to critically evaluate modern financial theories.

Indicative topics covered by the module include theories of financial market behaviour, measures of investment risk, stochastic investment return models, asset valuations, and liability valuations.

The additional 4 contact hours for level 7 students will be devoted to applications of the principles of financial economics and asset and liability modelling to complex financial instruments.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CM2 – Actuarial Mathematics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT8350

The aim of this module is to provide a grounding in the principles of modelling as applied to actuarial work – focusing particularly on the valuation of financial derivatives. These skills are also required to communicate with other financial professionals and to critically evaluate modern financial theories.

Indicative topics covered by the module include theories of stochastic investment return models and option theory.

The additional 4 contact hours for level 7 students will be devoted to applications of the principles of option pricing techniques, valuation methods and hedging techniques for complex financial derivative concepts.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CM2 – Actuarial Mathematics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MACT8370

This module is split into two parts:

1. An introduction to the practical experience of working with the financial software package, PROPHET, which is used by commercial companies worldwide for profit testing, valuation and model office work. The syllabus includes: overview of the uses and applications of PROPHET, introduction on how to use the software, setting up and performing a profit test for a product , analysing and checking the cash flow results obtained for reasonableness, using the edit facility on input files, performing sensitivity tests, creating a new product using an empty workspace by selecting the appropriate indicators and variables for that product and setting up the various input files, debugging errors in the setting up of the new product, performing a profit test for the new product and analysing the results.

2. An introduction to financial modelling techniques on spreadsheets which will focus on documenting the process of model design and communicating the model's results. The module enables students to prepare, analyse and summarise data, develop simple financial and actuarial spreadsheet models to solve financial and actuarial problems, and apply, interpret and communicate the results of such models.

Find out more about MACT8400

This module covers aspects of Statistics which are particularly relevant to insurance. Some topics (such as risk theory and credibility theory) have been developed specifically for actuarial use. Other areas (such as Bayesian Statistics) have been developed in other contexts but now find applications in actuarial fields. Indicative topics covered by the module include Bayesian Statistics; Loss Distributions; Reinsurance and Ruin; Credibility Theory; Risk Models; Ruin Theory; Generalised Linear Models; Extreme Value Theory. This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subjects CS1 and CS2 – Actuarial Statistics published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Find out more about MAST5010

Stationary Time Series: Stationarity, autocovariance and autocorrelation functions, partial autocorrelation functions, ARMA processes.

ARIMA Model Building and Testing: estimation, Box-Jenkins, criteria for choosing between models, diagnostic tests for residuals of a time series after estimation.

Forecasting: Holt-Winters, Box-Jenkins, prediction bounds.

Testing for Trends and Unit Roots: Dickey-Fuller, ADF, structural change, trend-stationarity vs difference stationarity.

Seasonality and Volatility: ARCH, GARCH, ML estimation.

Multiequation Time Series Models: transfer function models, vector autoregressive moving average (VARM(p,q)) models, impulse responses.

Spectral Analysis: spectral distribution and density functions, linear filters, estimation in the frequency domain, periodogram.

Simulation: generation of pseudo-random numbers, random variate generation by the inverse transform, acceptance rejection. Normal random variate generation: design issues and sensitivity analysis.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CS2 published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. This is a dynamic syllabus, changing regularly to reflect current practice.

Find out more about MAST6390

Introduction: Principles and examples of stochastic modelling, types of stochastic process, Markov property and Markov processes, short-term and long-run properties. Applications in various research areas.

Random walks: The simple random walk. Walk with two absorbing barriers. First–step decomposition technique. Probabilities of absorption. Duration of walk. Application of results to other simple random walks. General random walks. Applications.

Discrete time Markov chains: n–step transition probabilities. Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. Classification of states. Equilibrium and stationary distribution. Mean recurrence times. Simple estimation of transition probabilities. Time inhomogeneous chains. Elementary renewal theory. Simulations. Applications.

Continuous time Markov chains: Transition probability functions. Generator matrix. Kolmogorov forward and backward equations. Poisson process. Birth and death processes. Time inhomogeneous chains. Renewal processes. Applications.

Queues and branching processes: Properties of queues - arrivals, service time, length of the queue, waiting times, busy periods. The single-server queue and its stationary behaviour. Queues with several servers. Branching processes. Applications.

In addition, level 7 students will study more complex queuing systems and continuous-time branching processes.

This module will cover a number of syllabus items set out in Subject CS2 published by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. This is a dynamic syllabus, changing regularly to reflect current practice.

Find out more about MAST8360