Actuary salary in California

Official occupation: 15-2011 Actuaries · Reference period May 2025 · Data updated · Confidence 95/100

The median actuary in California earns $130,510 a year, within 3% of the United States figure of $130,000.

It ranks 13th of 36 states with a published figure.

Pay is widely spread: the top 10% earn at least $219,490, 2.6 times the $83,510 that marks the bottom 10%.

With 1,280 jobs and a location quotient of 0.41, the role is less common here than in the United States as a whole.

For context, the median across all occupations in California is $58,240, so this role pays 2.2 times the local typical wage.

Published figures

Published and derived pay figures
MeasureCaliforniaNational
Median annual pay Observed$130,510United States: $130,000
Mean annual pay Observed$145,330United States: $141,480
10th percentile Observed$83,510United States: $78,570
25th percentile Observed$101,600United States: $97,680
75th percentile Observed$188,390United States: $170,650
90th percentile Observed$219,490United States: $215,100
Median hourly pay Observed$62.75United States: $62.50
Employment (jobs) Observed1,280
Jobs per 1,000 employees Observed0.07
Location quotient Observed0.41
Difference from United States median ($130,000) Derived+0%
Rank among 36 states Derived13
Ratio to California all-occupation median ($58,240) Derived2.24×
90th / 10th percentile ratio Derived2.63

Nearby in the ranking

  1. 11. Virginia$131,900
  2. 12. Wisconsin$131,640
  3. 13. California$130,510
  4. 14. Oregon$130,380
  5. 15. Missouri$129,220

Largest cities in California: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno (GeoNames). Figures are for the whole state, not individual cities.

More pay data

Source, method and data quality

  • Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 (Public domain (U.S. Government work)). Reference period: May 2025. Updates: Yearly (spring release).
  • Observed figures are copied from the published table without adjustment. Derived figures (rankings, ratios and differences) are calculated by us from those observed figures. No figure on this page is modeled or estimated.
  • Relative standard error (PRSE) published per estimate.
  • Confidence score: 95/100. Based on the published sampling error and job count. We only publish region pages scoring 60 or more that have at least 6 observed figures.
  • Place hierarchy from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Data last updated: .
  • Full method: methodology.