Normally a minimum of an upper second-class UK Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard. Relevant discipline is any science including social sciences, engineering or any humanities subject.
Risk and disaster reduction is crucial for organisations as navigating an increasingly uncertain environment. Public, private and third‑sector bodies must strengthen resilience to protect communities and future generations. On this MSc you explore crises driven by natural hazards, technological and systems failures, public health emergencies and violent conflict, and you learn why these events matter for infrastructure, services and livelihoods.
You study how disasters and their impacts emerge from the interaction of social, environmental, institutional and technical factors, developing a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates physical and social science. You learn what is known about hazards, examine current research and uncertainties, and translate scientific evidence into practical risk reduction. You gain quantitative skills to measure and model risk, including exposure, hazard and vulnerability components, and fragility curves that show how hazard intensity relates to damage.
You focus on vulnerability and resilience in people and systems, assessing social vulnerability, exposure and systemic fragilities that produce unequal impacts. Communicating complex concepts to diverse stakeholders is central: you practise framing technical findings for policymakers, communities and technical audiences so evidence informs decisions. You study barriers to disaster risk reduction and approaches to overcome them, and learn how to apply plans to manage emergencies.
On this course, you develop the multidisciplinary skills needed to understand and address complex risk and resilience challenges. You learn how to assess and mitigate risk during fieldwork and crisis‑management deployments, and how to strengthen business continuity and supply‑chain resilience in organisational settings. You gain experience with catastrophe risk modelling and digital techniques relevant to public health, alongside qualitative and quantitative approaches for analysing vulnerability, exposure and systemic impacts.
You also build wider professional capabilities valued across sectors, including critical thinking, communication, project management and the ability to work effectively in cross‑cultural and interdisciplinary teams. Through your independent research project, you develop strong analytical, organisational and problem‑solving skills, as well as confidence in designing and delivering evidence‑based work.
Graduates of the Risk, Disaster and Resilience MSc progress into roles across risk reduction, resilience planning and crisis‑focused sectors. These can include roles international development, humanitarian response, consultancy, reinsurance, catastrophe modelling, business continuity and public policy.
According to the Graduate Outcomes survey carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), looking at the destinations of graduates in the 2018–2024 cohorts, 75% of graduates were in highly skilled work.