Data Science MSc

This programme aims to equip students with a solid grounding in data science concepts and technologies for extracting information and constructing knowledge from data. Students will study the computational principles, methods, and systems for a variety of real world applications that require mathematical foundations, programming skills, critical thinking, and ingenuity. Development of research skills will be an essential element of the programme so that students can bring a critical perspective to current data science discipline and apply this to future developments in a rapidly changing technological environment.

Large data sets are now available in almost all modern activities, and the ever growing amount of data requires new and innovative technologies and well equipped data scientists. The demand for data scientists in the UK has grown exponentially in recent years. Despite rapid expansion by the universities in the past few years, it has been predicted by multitude studies that the industry will continue to experience supply shortage of data scientists.

The programme focuses on three core technical themes: data mining, machine learning, and visualisation. Data mining is fundamental to data science and the students will learn how to mining both structured data and unstructured data. Students will gain practical data mining experience and will gain a systematic understanding of the fundamental concepts of analysing complex and heterogeneous data. They will be able to manipulate large heterogeneous datasets, from storage to processing, be able to extract information from large datasets, gain experience of data mining algorithms and techniques, and be able to apply them in real world applications. Machine learning has proven to be an effective and exciting technology for data and it is of high value when it comes to employment. Students will learn the fundamentals of both conventional and state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, be able to apply the methods and techniques to synthesise solutions using machine learning, and will have the necessary practical skills to apply their understanding to big data problems. We will train students to explore a variety visualisation concepts and techniques for data analysis. Students will be able to apply important concepts in data visualisation, information visualisation, and visual analytics to support data process and knowledge discovery. The students also learn important mathematical concepts and methods required by a data scientist. A specifically designed module that is accessible to students with different background will cover the basics of algebra, optimisation techniques, statistics, and so on. More advanced mathematical concepts are integrated in individual modules where necessary.