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WTW

Retirement Trainee Actuarial Consultant Intern Review

at WTW

Internship (1 Month+)

Actuary

Reigate

Review Submitted: August 2025

Overall Rating

5 /5

The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!

5/5 - Overview of Role
5/5 - Skills Development
5/5 - Support and Guidance
5/5 - Company Culture
5/5 - Overall Experience
5/5 - Future Career Prospects

Overview of Role

Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.
I often calculated transfer values and pension amounts for scheme members. I also helped produce new or updated documents—like emails and Word files—based on regulatory changes or client requests. Although direct client communication was limited (and many interns don’t have any), I still contributed to client-related work.
The first two weeks were mostly training. I had no client work in week one and only a little in week two. Still, you stay busy because there’s a lot to learn—especially the software and the training programme, which covers the maths behind calculations, annuities, revaluations, pension increases, tranching, and more. Pensions are more complex than they seem.
From week three, training gradually slows down, but it continues throughout the internship. There are regular webinars and a two-day in-person training event for all retirement interns across the UK in week three.
There were also a few ongoing non-client tasks. Most were minor, but one was important: the “Know Your Project” presentation. For this, you explore a client project your team worked on—reading documents, asking questions, and reflecting on your own contributions if relevant. Mine was about an actuarial valuation.
We also did a couple of group intern projects, like creating a fun newsletter (mostly pictures) highlighting people’s achievements, summer social events, and other bits and pieces. We even had to plan a social event ourselves.
Finally, there is shadowing which is often really interesting. I was fortunate to do lots of shadowing on CDC as WTW is really spearheading its development in the UK given that they consult for the Royal Mail CDC scheme (first of its kind in the UK).
Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?
Plenty of responsibility from week 2 onwards as I was set real client work. There is a framework to review your work to make sure it is correct for clients. This is first and foremost to keep excellence and not as a critique of your abilities as an intern. For example the same framework applies to all team members. You will likely make small mistakes from the get go in particular about formatting deliverables and that is fine. Its about how you improve based on the feedback which matters but its still completely fine to be making mistakes at the end of the internship. Also, some calcs are way easier than others depending on how complex scheme rules are for some clients so its a mixed bag.
Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was
5/5

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?
Yes absolutely. Of course developed all the obvious soft skills. More interestingly developed so much knowledge on pensions. I'd recommend getting a good idea of the concepts around pensions before starting as learning the technical content of pension becomes much easier and you can get an idea of how everything ties in. You don't need to worry about learning the maths before joining or any of the software nor excel as you learn it naturally on the job and there wouldn't really be a way to learn such things on your own. The concepts to learn are as follows: Guaranteed minimum pensions, CETV, Actuarial valuations, how mortality applies to pension schemes, how DB schemes are structures (trustees, sponsors, actuaries, investment managers, consulting both for trustees and corporate), learning a little about CDC as they are not as complex as they let on, accrual, pension increases, annuities.
How would you rate the training provided during your experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of personal / soft skills during the experience?
5/5
Please rate how these skills have helped you in your career development
5/5

Support and Guidance

How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?
More than plenty. Everyone is super nice and well equipped to answer questions you have. Never feels like a burden to ask questions and my only regret was not asking more.
How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?
5/5
How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?
5/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?
Super friendly. Clearly surrounded by super smart people but there is not much of a feeling of being out of place. Working on big clients you think it will all be really formal in the office but that's not usually the case you can feel comfortable to be yourself while working.
How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?
5/5
How would you rate the social opportunities?
5/5
How would you rate the diversity initiatives?
5/5
How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?
5/5

Overall Experience

To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?
9.9/10 - surprisingly enjoyable for what is at the end of the day, work. Good variety of work. Never too stressful. Plenty of social events (perhaps even too many on a couple of weeks).
Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship
5/5
Please rate how your experience met your expectations
5/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend WTW to a friend?
Yes
What advice would you give to others applying to WTW
For the application: be yourself they value that an it has an impact on your application as its o/w difficult to fake. Research pensions and about CDC as there may be interview questions about current topics in the industry. Finally, Just try your best. There is some luck at play in an application and the best thing you can do if you are not taken on is to keep applying else where.
For the job: Ask questions and dont be afraid to say that you didnt quite understand. Ask people for work if you are less busy (more likely to be the case at the end of the internship).

Future Career Prospects

Please rate the future employment prospects at WTW
5/5
Did you receive an offer to return as a graduate?
Waiting to hear
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