This course, offered by the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Economics, allows you to specialise in modern quantitative finance and computational methods for financial modelling, which are demanded for jobs in asset structuring, product pricing as well as risk management. Skills that you will acquire include the ability to: • analyse, critically evaluate, and apply methods of computational finance to practical problems, including pricing of derivatives and risk assessment • analyse and critically evaluate methods and general principles of computational finance and their applicability to specific problems • work with methods and techniques such as clustering, regression, support vector machines, boosting, decision trees, and neural networks • analyse and critically evaluate applicability of machine learning algorithms to problems in finance • implement methods of computational finance and machine learning using object-oriented programming languages and modern data management systems • work with software packages such as MATLAB and R • work with Relational Database Systems and SQL You will be taught by world-leading academics. Research in Machine Learning at Royal Holloway started in the 1990s, at which time V Vapnik and A Chervonenkis (the inventors of Support Vector Machines) were both professors here. We have developed both fundamental theory and practical algorithms that have fed into the analytics methods and techniques that are in use today.
Demand for data scientists is buoyant, in the UK and worldwide, with salaries much higher than other IT professions and at least double the UK average full time wage. Our graduates have an excellent track record of finding jobs at the end of (if not during) their studies.
We bring several companies to our campus throughout the year, both for fairs and for delivering advanced topics seminars, which are an excellent opportunity to learn about what they do and discuss possible placements or jobs.
Together with the Royal Holloway Careers Service, we offer you workshops and one-to-one coaching that prepare you to find a placement or a job and lead a successful career. In addition, the department has a dedicated administrator and an academic who coordinates and oversees placements and job opportunities.
Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £12,500
The fee for your year in industry will be 20% of the course fee for that academic year.
EU and international students tuition fee per year**: £25,500
The fee for your year in industry will be 20% of the course fee for that academic year.
Other essential costs***: There are no single associated costs greater than £50 per item on this course.
How do I pay for it? Find out more about funding options, including loans, grants, scholarships and bursaries.
and ** These tuition fees apply to students starting their course on a full-time basis in the academic year 2027/28. Students studying on the standard part-time course structure over two years are charged 50% of the full-time applicable fee for each study year.
Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase all postgraduate tuition fees annually. For further information, see fees and funding.
* These estimated costs relate to studying this particular degree at Royal Holloway during the 2027/28 academic year and are included as a guide. Refers to specific individual items of £50 or more, and excludes accommodation, commuting, food, books/other learning materials and printing costs.
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