The demand for data scientists is ever rising. A report by Harvard Business Review suggests that the shortage of data scientists has become a serious constraint in certain sectors, leading the authors to claim Data Scientist as the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century.
Data Scientists carry out applied research to create innovative data-driven solutions to business problems. Usually, they work with large, complex, varied, and unstructured data sets that are not suitable for using traditional data analysis approaches and techniques. This programme is specifically designed to enable you to develop this in-depth technical knowledge that will allow you to discover new data-driven solutions.
To accelerate your learning, you will be exposed to theories, methods, tools, and technologies (including SPSS and Tableau software packages; MySQL, Python, R language or similar) relating to the design, development and testing of data science applications for business intelligence.
You will train and deploy distributed machine learning models using a cloud-based platform such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or AWS or similar and machine learning technology using TensorFlow. You will also be exposed to the fundamental concepts, principles, technologies, and techniques of big data analytics.
You will be able to apply this knowledge and skill in your context, and critically analyse the implementation and recommend future improvements. Recognising that information governance and cyber security are critical to the adoption and use of computing systems in businesses and organisations, you will also cover fundamental concepts, principles, techniques and tools of information governance and cyber security.
This Master’s programme has been designed to ensure that graduates will be equipped to work in a variety of careers in the IT industry or to progress to academic or research-orientated careers. Indeed, the qualification is designed to accelerate your skills and competence in a range of job roles, including roles in leadership and management such as:
Furthermore, this programme will prepare you to meet the educational requirements of the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT for the purposes of meeting the further learning academic requirement for registration as a Chartered IT Professional.
Upon successfully completing your course, you may undertake further professional development and training through Professional Pathways programmes. These are offered to our graduates for free, from our partner, QA. Find out more information on Professional Pathways and your eligibility.
The Advanced Practice version of this course offers you a valuable opportunity to deepen your knowledge and enhance employability in your specialist field. This will be through completing additional 60 credit Advanced Practice module after when you have completed 120 credits of taught modules. This module will provide experiential learning opportunities.
These can either be a 12-week work placement, group consultancy project, research group project, 12-week Professional Skills Practice, 12-week Enterprise Start Up or 12-week Multidisciplinary Innovation project. This experience gives you the opportunity to apply skills and knowledge acquired during the taught part of your programme and to acquire new skills and knowledge in an alternative learning environment. Specific learning will be defined in a personal learning contract.
The Advanced Practice programmes are structured as below:
| Sept-Jan | Jan-May | May-Sept | Sept-Jan | Jan-May | May-Sept | Sept-Jan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September starts | Semester 1 | Semester 2 | Summer break | Semester 3 | Advanced Practice stage | ||
| Professional Practices in Computing and Digital Technologies Project (Sem 1, 2 & 3) | |||||||
| January starts | Semester 1 | Summer break | Semester 2 | Semester 3 | Summer break | Advanced Practice stage | |
| Professional Practices in Computing and Digital Technologies Project (Sem 1, 2 & 3) | |||||||
| May starts |
Semester 1 | Semester 2 | Semester 3 | Advanced Practice stage | |||
| Professional Practices in Computing and Digital Technologies Project (Sem 1, 2 & 3) | |||||||
Applicants who are not graduates and do not hold professional qualifications of equivalent standing can also be considered for entry if they show evidence of strong motivation and capability for academic study and personal development (e.g. evidence of attendance at short courses) and/or suitable experience of working in areas which involve a significant amount of Information Technology.
Please note that if your qualifications are not in English, we might need certified translations in order to proceed with your application.
Masters Foundation programme
Alternatively, you may also be eligible for one of our Pre-Masters courses. These are pathway programmes designed specifically for students who require additional support to meet the entry requirements of their chosen Masters degree.
Pre-Sessional English and Study Skills
If you have IELTS 5.5 – 6.0, you may be eligible to join our Pre-Sessional English before starting this programme. This programme will help you develop language skills in a content-based approach to learning involving critical thinking, questioning, discussion, reflection and analysis.
All modules on this course are core and 20 credits unless otherwise stated
In this module, you will learn about the information governance and cyber security principles that underpin the management of an organisation’s information assets. You will critically analyse the key concepts, theories, standards and frameworks of information governance and security, including risk management.
It will enable you to evaluate an organisation’s current approach to information governance and cyber security. You will have the expertise to advise on the design and implementation of an appropriate strategy for managing an organisation’s information (ensuring all assets meet legal, regulatory, organisational and/or societal needs for information governance and cybersecurity).
In this module, you will develop new knowledge and skills in leadership in a digital context. You will conduct a self-analysis of your own leadership and team management competencies and identify strengthens and areas of improvements.
Leadership and team management capabilities are essential for your career development. They enable you to become competent at the visioning, development and deployment of technological strategies and responses to challenges and opportunities in complex operating environments.
In this module, you will develop a critical understanding of applied data science methods, techniques and tools. You will learn how to manage, manipulate and model data in its various forms and harness its potential for business intelligence.
We will look at scientific methods and the fundamental statistical approaches used for predictive modelling applied to real-world problem scenarios, using state of the art tools and technologies including the use of programming languages such as SQL, Python or similar, and tools such as Power BI, Tableau or similar.
In addition, we will investigate the visualisation of data and consider how the findings from data science projects can be communicated to various target audiences.
This module offers an immersive journey into contemporary computing topics essential for addressing complex challenges in both business and society. Through a diverse range of experiential activities, you will deepen your understanding and skills and cultivate innovative thinking to tackle real-world problems effectively.
The module commences with a residential activity designed to give you the opportunity to develop your leadership and team skills in order to complete a real project via a hackathon or other similar activities. As such you will go on to tackle a problem defined by a real business and use an applied research approach to work in a team and demonstrate leadership competencies.
This module empowers you to not only acquire theoretical knowledge but also to cultivate practical skills and competencies essential for success in the dynamic field of computing. By engaging in experiential activities such as (virtual) hackathons, boot camps, competitions, and conferences, you will emerge as agile, adaptive professionals ready to make meaningful contributions to business and society. This module is designed to enable you to rapidly develop new knowledge and skills and apply them to their business and technical challenges.
This module provides you with in-depth coverage of fundamental concepts and principles of big data and the analytical techniques and technologies used for big data analytics.
Big data analytics relates to the use of advanced analytical techniques applied to vast volumes of rapidly changing diverse data sets to gain knowledge, insights and uncover hidden patterns from data. Such insights and knowledge provide a competitive advantage to businesses and organisations and also help them inform their decisions to transform their businesses.
You will develop the ability to apply statistical and big data science techniques to large-scale data sets by using a unified analytics framework and programming environment such as Jupiter Notebook, VS Code, Google Collaboratory, or similar.
You will learn how to analyse large organisational data assets (including text and web data) and create data-driven solutions to real-world problem scenarios to advance the knowledge base used for business intelligence.
The module aims to provide you with a critical review of the theory and practice of machine learning on the cloud platform. You will critically analyse the capabilities of machine learning and apply its methods and techniques to discover patterns for trends analysis.
The module will introduce you to neural networks and their implementation. You will train and deploy distributed machine learning models using cloud-based platforms such as Google Cloud or AWS or Microsoft Azure, or similar. You will develop skills on how to apply supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning using cloud platforms and tools such as TensorFlow or similar.
This module is a 60-credit module which will be delivered across your programme (3 semesters) and is designed to build your confidence and capabilities as a postgraduate student, researcher and have the graduate skills to progress into high skilled employment or doctoral study.
Semester 1 and 2: Academic and Employability Skills
The main purpose of this strand is to develop your academic confidence including using the wide range of learning resources available to you, academic reading, writing and study effectiveness. You will also develop your ability to analyse and use the source material and develop your language and communication skills to a higher level.
In addition, through the learning tasks, a number of employability skills are developed, including life-long learning, professional and career development, communication skills, intercultural competence, collaboration, teamworking, digital and information literacy, critical thinking, ethical practice, reflection, self-management, decision-making, problem-solving, planning and organising. You will also develop employability skills (based on 7i graduate outcomes) and be encouraged to attend additional careers and employability workshops organised by our Careers Team.
Semester 2: Research Methods
The research methods strand will develop your knowledge and understanding of learning about identifying a business problem, undertaking a critical literature review, designing appropriate research methodology and developing a research proposal that will lead into the dissertation stage.
Semester 3
This will be a culmination of your knowledge and understanding of your Master’s degree in your chosen discipline. Specifically, you will work alongside an academic tutor to complete a major research project. This will include attending individual and group project supervision and guidance sessions in which you will develop further the skill required to complete a computing-related research enquiry.
You will learn how to identify a problem from your chosen pathways of study (e.g. Computing and Technologies) and then how to design and implement an appropriate research methodology to answer your research questions and fulfil your research objectives.
The course information displayed on this page is correct for the academic year 2024/25. We aim to run the course as advertised however, changes may be necessary due to updates to the curriculum (due to academic or industry developments), student demand or UK compliance reasons.
Please note that your tuition fees do not include the cost of course books that you may choose to purchase, stationery, printing and photocopying, accommodation, living expenses, travel or any other extracurricular activities. As a Northumbria University London Campus student, you will have full access to our online digital library with over 400,000 e-books and 50,000 electronic journals.
Information for international students
Northumbria University is committed to providing the best possible experience to all our students. To ensure you secure your place with us, we require our international students to pay a deposit towards their fees. More information can be found here.
Your tuition fees cover far more than your time in class with our expert academics, it covers the cost of providing you with excellent services and student experience.
If you are an international student and choose to study the full-time programme, you will be eligible for either our programme bursary or a country bursary, whichever is greater. High performing students may be eligible for an academic scholarship in addition.
Depending on the country you are from, you may be eligible for one of our country bursaries and/scholarships to help finance your studies.
All of our scholarships and bursaries are automatically applied when we process your application and our team will be able to confirm your eligibility.
London Cost of Living Bursary
Eligible international students will receive an automatic bursary for £1,334, covering one month’s living costs in London*, applied at the Conditional Offer as a fee discount. This bursary is effective for intakes in January 2025 and May 2025. This offer excludes Pre-sessional English, standalone Graduate Certificate programmes and sponsored applicants.
If you receive this bursary, you may still be eligible for additional bursaries and scholarships, these will be confirmed at the Unconditional Offer stage. Full maintenance costs still need to be evidenced when applying for your visa.
This bursary is only available for international students from specific countries. Please visit our Scholarships page for more information.
*As defined by UKVI
If you need to spread the cost of your tuition, you may be eligible for our payment plan.
If you are a UK/Home student, you may be eligible for a postgraduate loan of up to £10,000+ from the UK Government. Click here to find out more about the loan and whether you are eligible to receive it.
Enquire now to find out more information about the course, studying with us, the application process, and to ask any other questions you may have.
Once you’re ready to apply, you can apply online to study 1 year MSc Big Data and Data Science Technology. This method allows you to upload your supporting documents at the time of application and automatically receive your student application number.
Please note: For 2025 applications you will be redirected to the Northumbria website to select which intake you would like to apply for.
| Apply for 2025 |
|---|
| Apply for the 1 year MSc |
| Apply for Pre-Masters + 1 year MSc |
We strongly recommend that you submit your application as early as possible to allow you to complete all of the preparations needed to study your programme. After receiving an offer it can take time to arrange your finances and apply for your visa (if required) and it is important that you arrive in good time to enrol onto your course. Please refer to the Dates and Fees page.
You can check more information on how to apply here, including guidelines for the application forms.
At Northumbria University London we welcome applications from disabled students and are committed to ensuring an equal and accessible application journey. Your application will be considered on an equal basis to all other applications. Please contact us if you require any assistance. This website is continually optimised to adhere to accessibility best practice guidelines; tools to assist users with specific accessibility requirements have also been provided. More information is available in our accessibility statement.
Postgraduate
UK/Home Fee: £10,460
International Fee: £19,750
Minimum 2:2 honours degree, or equivalent in any subject
IELTS 6.5, with no single element below 5.5 or equivalent
Full-time classroom
1 year (up to 2 years with advanced practice)
Coursework
Available
Available
Available
January, May, September
Postgraduate
UK/Home Fee: £13,460
International Fee: £22,750
Minimum 2:2 honours degree, or equivalent in any subject
IELTS 6.5, with no single element below 5.5, or equivalent
Advanced practice
16-24 months
Coursework
Not available
Available
Available
January, May, September