Advanced Computer Science with a Professional Placement Year

The ‘with a Professional Placement Year’ programme provides the opportunity to undertake a 7-10 month experience as an IT professional for students who successfully find a suitable placement.

The MSc Advanced Computer Science with a Professional Placement Year will offer you exposure to key topics that are driving emerging technological developments and trends.

Computer Science is one of the fastest moving academic disciplines and the outcomes of research and innovation in this field are likely to have a significant social impact.

The subject spans all aspects of modern life, and this programme offers you the opportunity to apply new skills and advanced techniques to the area of your choice, whilst allowing you to demonstrate that you are at the forefront of your discipline.

Core to this programme is the opportunity to further develop the scope of your problem solving skills by studying advanced programming languages and programming paradigms, and to gain knowledge and skills across a breadth of topics in Computer Science.

You will choose to study optional, research-led modules that allow the freedom to build a distinctive personal portfolio of skills and knowledge.

This is a specialist Masters degree programme which will require strong technical, mathematical and programming skills from day one of the course.

You will apply for a paid 7-12 month professional work placement to be undertaken on completion of the taught phase of the program. This provides valuable work experience to develop your IT Professional skills.

Distinctive features

The distinctive features of this course include:

• A degree designed for computing graduates who wish to differentiate themselves further through an advanced mastery of the discipline.
• In addition to coverage of core advanced computer science topics, you may select from a range of research topics in which to specialise (
• The opportunity to undertake a paid professional work placement to further develop your IT skills
• You will undertake an individual research project and complete a dissertation under the supervision of a member of academic research staff. The topic for this will be driven by your own interests.
• You will be provided with a laptop during induction week that will remain with you throughout the duration of the course.