Location
Finlaison House, 15-17 Furnival Street, London EC4A 1AB / Edinburgh Government Hub Queen Elizabeth House, Edinburgh EH8 8FT (Hybrid – Remote)
About the job
Summary
The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) is a non-Ministerial Department that provides actuarial advice to governments and organisations in the public sector both in the UK and globally. Our mission is to support effective decision-making and robust reporting within the public sector as the first-choice provider of actuarial and specialist analysis, advice and assurance.
The UK government has a long-standing history of supporting overseas development, and more recently the UK, together with other donor countries, have sought to improve outcomes across the world by promoting greater use of pre-positioned finance for disasters.
GAD has a key role to play in advising government and other related organisations in understanding how best to finance these risks. It is an evolving space with a wide range of different stakeholders and actuaries can make a real difference through expert analysis and advice.
We are looking for an actuary who can join our team and bring in additional expertise on disaster risk financing. This can include expertise gained through working with sovereign risk pools, development banks, reinsurers and catastrophe modelers amongst others.
Job Description
You will play a key role in shaping GAD’s work in this area, through both the delivery of advice as well as the continued development of the team’s broader expertise. You will also be involved in the delivery of actuarial advice across a broader range of issues facing UK government from within the Insurance and Investment team. To achieve this, you will need to strengthen relationships with our clients, foster the development of colleagues and be able to adapt to a range of different issues requiring actuarial expertise.
GAD’s disaster risk finance clients include the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the Centre for Disaster Protection, and the World Bank. Recent projects include:
- Developing an approach and model to simulate drought risk indicators in sub-Saharan African countries
- Pricing review of a livestock insurance program
- Quality assurance of proposed arrangements including an anticipatory action trigger for drought protection, insurance arrangements for food transport in a war-affected area, and review of reinsurance arrangements for a risk pool.
- Development of online interactive tools for better understanding of the risk of losses occurring from natural disasters. The tools analyse data to estimate financial needs, and then test DRF strategies against those needs.
More broadly, GAD’s Insurance and Investment team has clients across government, and provide expert actuarial advice on contingent liability management, model quality assurance, insurance arrangements, climate change, as well as expert modelling.
Responsibilities
Please refer to the job description for more information about the role and the assessment criteria.
Behaviors
We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Delivering at Pace
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Changing and Improving
- Communicating and Influencing
Benefits
As well as competitive salaries, we offer a substantial package of benefits:
- 25 days annual leave per year, increasing to 30 days after 5 years’ service. In addition we offer 9 days public and privilege days leave per year (pro rata for part time staff)
- Generous defined benefit Civil Service pension scheme
- Family-friendly policies such as help with caring responsibilities, special leave, generous paid maternity, paternity and adoption leave
- Access to employee assistance programme and occupational health
- Community volunteering programme, the opportunity to join a trade union, and discounted membership of local and national sports and social groups
- A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
- Salary advances for travel costs, including annual season tickets and cycle-to-work schemes
- Complimentary Bupa health check for permanent staff
Things you need to know
Security
Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check
Selection process details
Application deadline: 1200 hrs on 31 October 2022
Shortlisting: W/c 31 October 2022
Interviews: TBC
Interview location: Remote