In this story, Edd Collins, Managing Director in WTW’s Retirement team in the UK, shares his perspective on building a meaningful career in pensions. From the variety of work to the opportunities to grow and lead, Edd reflects on what makes the team’s work impactful and why WTW is a place where actuaries can shape careers that keep moving forward.
What will you do as a Pension Actuary at WTW?
We work with a variety of clients, typically a mix of pension scheme trustees and sponsors, helping them manage the risks and opportunities associated with their pension scheme. This can be discussions on funding and use of surplus, insurance or superfund transactions, or new pension designs to improve pension adequacy such as Collective DC or CDC schemes.
What makes someone a great fit for this job?
We’re looking for people who are curious, who want to continue to learn and develop themselves, and who enjoy building long-term relationships with their clients.
What’s one thing that sets WTW apart from other companies in the industry?
The range of different sizes of pension schemes we work on is unparalleled. It gives our team a great blend of opportunities to get involved in some of the innovations I mentioned earlier on the larger clients. Our colleagues can also step up and take greater ownership on some of the smaller clients.
Why should someone consider starting their journey with us right now?
It’s an exciting time – there’s a lot of change and opportunity at the moment in UK pensions, and WTW are best placed to take advantage of that. We advise more of the largest and most complex DB pension schemes than anyone else, which provides a fertile ground for innovation and growth that then feeds down across the rest of our clients and the broader industry. Some of those areas of innovation include the current debate on run-on and approaches to the use of surplus, our OneDB proposal for smaller pension schemes and our work on CDC. There’s also our £20bn+ DC master trust LifeSight, and our work on longevity swaps, where we have advised on many industry firsts.
Any advice for someone considering applying to our open roles?
Our people are at the heart of everything we do, and we’re looking for people who add to our culture. If you can demonstrate your enthusiasm for the role and a desire to work with others to deliver great work for our clients, that will stand you in good stead.
- Career Growth and Development
- Experienced Professionals
