With Actuarial Mathematics you will cultivate skills and competences in mathematical statistics, mathematical finance, and quantitative risk management with a special emphasis on the application towards insurance and pensions. Actuarial mathematics is relevant in an uncertain world, where the mitigation of risks is central to sustainability and human well-being.
The programme is offered in English.
To apply for admission to the master's programme, you must be enrolled in or have completed either a qualifying bachelor's programme or another relevant Danish or foreign degree programme which the admission board asess fulfil the adacemic requirements.
You apply for admission through the application portal.
Below you can read more about the admission requirements for the programme including which documents you must upload along with your application.
You must meet a number of admission requirements, to apply for the master’s programme. You can read about the various admission requirements below:
You have legal right of admission, if you hold a bachelor’s degree in:
As an applicant with legal right of admission, you are guaranteed a place if you apply by the deadline. You can wait up to three years to exercise your legal right of admission from the time you complete your bachelor’s degree until you start your master’s degree.
If you have completed one of the following bachelor’s degrees and meet the language requirement - English B – you automatically fulfil all the academic admission requirements.
From the University of Copenhagen:
If you hold a bachelor’s degree, a professional bachelor’s degree or an equivalent qualification from a Danish or international university not listed above, you are eligible for admission if the programme includes the following:
You must also meet the language requirement for English B.
As part of your application, you must include a number of documents, which vary depending on your educational background.
Below, you can see what documentation you need to enclose your application.
If you have a legal right of admission to a master’s programme, you must upload the following documents with your application:
If your study programme automatically meets the admission requirements, you must upload the following documents with your application:
f you have another Danish or international education, you must upload the following documents with your application:
There are two application deadlines for Danish applicants and applicants from within the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
The application portal opens on 16 January. You will receive a reply by 15 May.
The application portal opens on 15 August. You will receive a reply by 10 December.
There are two application deadlines for applicants from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
The application portal opens on 15 November. You will receive a reply by 13 March.
The application portal opens on 15 August. You will receive a reply by 10 December.
Find information about available places on the study programme, as well as the distribution of students admitted last year.
| Admission statistics Actuarial Mathematics 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Available study places | 50 |
| Admission statistics Actuarial Mathematics 2025 | |
|---|---|
| Admitted (of which have start in February) | 59 (15) |
| Admission distribution (legal right/other) | 92% / 8% |
| Applicants | 87 |
| Age average | 24 |
| Nationality (dk/international) | 98% / 2& |
Students with a legal right of admission are always admitted. In the table above, you can see the distribution between legal right of admission applicants and other applicants for the most recent admission.
What is a legal right of admission and how long does it apply?
If there are more qualified applicants than the available study places, after applicants with legal right of admission are allocated, applicants will be prioritised according to the following criteria:
The documentation requirements depend on your applicant category. Select the category below that applies to you and find out what documents you need and how to apply for admission.
Starting in 2028, you can apply for focused 1-year master’s degrees, 2-year master’s degrees, and several new types of degrees for working professionals, combining study and relevant work.
The new master’s opportunities are relevant for you if you wish to apply for a master’s degree from 2028.
To apply for a master’s degree, you must apply before the application deadlines.
| Application deadline | Applicants | Study start |
|---|---|---|
| 15 January at 23:59 | Applicants with citizenship outside the EU, EEA, and Switzerland | September |
| 1 March at 23:59 | Applicants with citizenship within EU, EEA, and Switzerland (incl. applicants with legal right of admission) | September |
| 15 October at 23:59 | Applicants with legal right of admission | February |
In addition, there are other deadlines you should be aware of. Including the deadline for accepting your study place.
If you are a citizen of a country outside the EU, EEA, or Switzerland, you must pay the application deposit and tuition fee.
If you want to apply for admission to a master’s degree or to apply for re-admission, study change, transfer, or re-enrolment at the University of Copenhagen, you must apply through the application portal.
Once you have submitted your application, you can follow the application in the application portal.
See the guide to the application portal
Read more about applying for re-admission, study change, transfer, and re-enrolment
Your bachelor’s degree is the basis for assessing if you meet the admission requirements for the master’s degree.
In the curriculum you can see how many ECTS credits from other courses can be included in addition to your bachelor’s degree. These courses must be completed before you complete the bachelor’s degree. Courses completed between your bachelor’s and master’s degree cannot be included in the assessment.
If you choose to study actuarial mathematics, you will be engaged in the development and application of mathematical, statistical, and economic tools. These tools can be used to measure, model, manage, and mitigate insurance risks.
As an actuarial mathematics student, you will be studying two overarching topics intensively:
The MSc programme includes compulsory coursework in various types of actuarial mathematics and financial theory. There is also a large elective part where you can focus on one of these areas, or perhaps in related mathematical, or statistical problems.
You can focus your mathematical skills even further in the master's thesis where you work at a scientific level with an insurance-related problem. The thesis project will often be based on a practical insurance-related problem. In some cases, the thesis is carried out in cooperation with an insurance company.
Do you want to turn theory into experience or explore the world while you study?
As part of your programme, you can use some of your elective courses to gain hands-on or international experience by doing an project in practice or choosing to study abroad.
Compulsory courses: 45 ECTS
Restricted elective courses: 15 ECTS
Elective courses: 30 ECTS
Master's thesis: 30 ECTS
One block each year equals nine weeks of study and 15 ECTS. The table is primarily for guidance and may be subject to revision.
| Block 1 | Block 2 | Block 3 | Block 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematical Finance | Quantitative Risk Management | Restricted elective course | |
| Statistics in Insurance | Topics in Life Insurance | Restricted elective course | |
| Block 1 | Block 2 | Block 3 | Block 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elective course | Elective course | Thesis | |
| Elective course | Elective course | ||
You are obliged to choose at least two restricted elective courses from the list below. Click on each course for a detailed description.
* the course is not offered in the academic year 2025/26
If you are more interested in the academic content, regulations, and examination requirements, you should consult the curriculum, which serves as the legal foundation for the programme.
There is both a curriculum specific to each degree programme and a general curriculum that applies across the faculty.
Please note that curricula are often revised annually. Any new versions will be published no later than during the spring semester.
Upon completion of the master’s programme, you will obtain the title Master of Science in Actuarial Mathematics.
You should pursue an MSc in Actuarial Mathematics if you enjoy working with numbers in an applied setting. You will, among other things, work with damage insurance, life insurance, insurance economics, insurance accounting, and insurance law. In short, you learn to apply mathematics and statistics to mitigate risks and improve human welfare.
A graduate in Actuarial Mathemathics has the competences to:
As an actuarial mathematician you could be hired to work for:
Your work will be to solve statistical problems and deal with risk theory in relation to various types of insurance. Additionally, you can be employed in public administration, supervisory authorities, or within higher education.
The field is experiencing robust growth, in part due to the orientation towards the rich theory of mathematical finance. This is also a response to the reorientation that practical insurance is experiencing due to, for instance, the integration of banking, credit, and insurance activities.
Further reorientation of the actuarial profession has developed as a result of changes to the risk landscape in which catastrophe, including climate change, is becoming a more and more prominent concern.
Marie is an MSc graduate in Actuarial Mathematics and now work as an actuary at Codan Insurance. Please note: The video is subtitled in English – you can enable captions in the player window.
Nichlas works as an actuary at Danish pension company Danica Pension. Please note: The video is subtitled in English – you can enable captions in the player window.
High quality education in English, a flexible study structure, excellent facilities, an international study environment, attractive and green campus areas, and the opportunity to experience life in Copenhagen, the cool capital of Denmark. These are some of the qualities about studying at Faculty of Science (SCIENCE) at University of Copenhagen that you can expect.
Throughout the year, various social activities are arranged for all SCIENCE students and for international students specifically. These activities include:
Students live in residence halls outside campus or share a flat in the Copenhagen area. You will find that the relatively small size of Copenhagen makes it easy to get around, even by bike.
The Actuarial Mathematics programme is primarily based at North Campus.
The University’s North Campus is centrally located. It is home to scientific, pharmaceutical and health science research, and neighbour to the Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), Metropolitan University College, and Fælledparken.
Exciting building activities are going on at the campus areas at the moment, including the construction of a new Natural History Museum. Furthermore, North Campus is part of a coherent district of science, health and interdisciplinarity – Innovation District Copenhagen – which is being developed these years.
You can read more about campus life at the university here:
Read an interview with Marianne, MSc student at Actuarial Mathematics.
That’s a good question. You have to have a flair for and an interest in mathematics, which I do.
And someone once told me that doing Actuarial Mathematics was a way to study mathematics without ending up as a mathematics teacher. That got my attention, because I never wanted to teach.
But I had no idea what I was getting into. Before you start, they tell you that the dropout rate is 50%, but you have no idea why it is so difficult, or what an actuary actually does.
Well, it took me 2-3 years to work out – partly through my student job. An actuary is someone who works with mathematics, probability calculations and statistics, and who likes to predict and analyse the world (e.g. economic trends) – and assess risks.
No. But I knew I liked to solve mathematical problems. And I liked studying it and was good at it. But mathematics in upper secondary school is something else altogether. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the theoretical level involved in studying actuarial mathematics.
In upper secondary school, you might spend a few hours reading a long chapter in a mathematics textbook. But here I found that it was okay to spend four hours reading and understanding just one page! It’s okay to immerse yourself, and for things to take a really long time.
It’s really great that on the master’s programme you are taught things that relate more to the real world and that are more insurance-oriented. The first subject we did on the master’s programme was non-life insurance. We were given a dataset related to maritime claims and had to process this using a computer and try to predict the future claims scenario and fix an insurance premium.
I can do a PhD. I’m thinking about doing that. I’m also thinking about going abroad and working with reinsurance. In the field of reinsurance, you work with foreign companies. I’ve also thought about getting a permanent job in an insurance company. There is no unemployment, unless people have chosen to be unemployed.
Yes, I worked for a small non-life insurance company. This really opened my eyes to what an actuary does.
I have also taught as a student instructor for the past three years. This is like investing in your own knowledge, because you have to go over what you learned earlier in your studies in order to help other students understand it. It is actually by teaching that I’ve grown my academic competence the most.
Fifty students embark on the bachelor’s programme each year. The drop-out rate is just over 40%, and most of those who finish continue directly on in the master’s programme, where they are joined by a group of international students. So 25-30 people enrol on the master’s programme each year.
This is due to the shock of how mathematics-intensive the programme is. Some people switch to the Economics programme, where there is not nearly as much mathematical analysis, and the content is more application-oriented. On the Actuarial Mathematics programme, we spend more time creating the formulas than using them. We are more focused on making the ‘machine’.
The degree programme has taught me what ‘tough love’ is. It has been a tough programme, but I’ve put a lot of time into the social side and participating in academic events. It’s easy to create a social network at the university, because everyone here is very focused on making it work. There are lots of events, fun nights etc.
More than anything else, yes. I never thought I would end up being so happy with my studies and the university. It sounds over the top, but that’s how I feel.
Yes, I would recommend it to anyone who finds mathematics exciting. You don’t have to be a genius – but you do need to think mathematics is fun. And you have to want to work within the financial sector, deal with money and work with matters that are important to the Danish economy. Actuarial work is constantly evolving in step with society – you need to realise that.
When I started on the programme, I met fellow students who said “Do you realise how much money we can make in the future?" My advice is: Don’t do Actuarial Mathematics for the money! It’s simply too hard if your only motivation is stable and solid finances later in life.
Since this interview, Marianne has graduated and currently works as an actuary at Lægernes Pension & Bank (a pension fund for doctors).
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Teaching takes place at North Campus, located close to Fælledparken. The Niels Bohr Institute, Panum, and the Maersk Tower are all part of the campus.
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