Actuary Salary in Chicago, IL 2026,
$113,730 Median | BLS + Market Data

Chicago actuaries earn a BLS median of $113,730/yr, or $54.68 an hour, across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro, with a published band from $79,640 to $209,260. That is 12.5% below the US median for the occupation, which reflects the metro's very large intake of early-career analysts rather than weak pay for credentialed actuaries. BLS counts 1,560 actuaries in the metro.

No — the metro median sits 1.5% below the Illinois statewide figure, and both sit below the national one. Illinois's actuarial employment is almost entirely in this metro, so the two figures describe substantially the same market. Among peer metros Chicago sits below Dallas at $127,690, Austin at $122,550 and Denver at $120,440, and above San Diego at $107,890 and San Antonio at $102,560.

Because of who gets counted. A published median describes everyone in the occupation locally, and Chicago's actuarial community includes an unusually large cohort of graduate analysts working through the early examinations. Metros with smaller actuarial workforces tend to have proportionally more credentialed staff and fewer trainees, which lifts their medians. The better measure of what this market pays a qualified actuary is the upper part of the band — the 75th percentile at $163,690 and the 90th at $209,260, both well above the national median.

More than any other factor, and more mechanically than in most professions. Employers here attach defined salary increases and cash bonuses to each examination passed, alongside paid study time, and progression to Associate and then Fellow is the recognised route through this band. It is also slow: the full ladder commonly takes seven to ten years alongside full-time work. The compensating fact is that the ladder is transparent — an analyst in this market can see what each step is worth before deciding whether to take it.

Three groups. The metro's large life, health and property-casualty insurers, several of which run their national actuarial functions from here or from the suburban corridor. The global actuarial consulting and benefits firms, whose largest US practices sit in this region — this is the segment that reaches the top of the published band. And a growing set of reinsurance, insurtech and risk-analytics employers. The breadth matters: an actuary in this metro can change employer and even practice area without changing city, which is not true in most actuarial markets.

This page shows a median 12.5% below the national figure alongside a 90th percentile of $209,260 — the two facts are the same fact. A metro that trains a disproportionate share of a profession will always publish a median dragged down by trainees and a ceiling pushed up by the senior people the cluster retains. Read separately, the median looks like bad news and the ceiling like good news. Read together, they describe a market with an unusually complete career ladder inside one city. For someone entering the profession, that is close to the ideal shape.

At 5.85% of national employment in the occupation, this metro is one of the most actuarially concentrated in the country. That cluster exists for historical reasons — the insurance industry's Midwest base and the growth of national benefits consulting practices here — and it sustains itself through the local university pipeline and the density of employers willing to hire pre-credentialed analysts. The practical value of concentration is optionality: life, health, property-casualty, pension, reinsurance and consulting employers all recruit here, so a change of specialism does not require a move.

Projected national growth of 21.8% is exceptional, and it is driven by demand for actuarial technique outside its traditional home — predictive modelling, climate and catastrophe risk, health cost analytics and enterprise risk management. In this metro that demand shows up as insurers and consultancies competing for the same credentialed people, which is why the upper part of this band has stretched. It also raises the value of programming and statistical modelling skill alongside the examinations, particularly for analysts who want the property-casualty and analytics side rather than traditional valuation work.