The MSci is what is known as an integrated Masters award, which is where you begin an undergraduate course, but instead of completing it with a BSc (Hons), you do an extra year of study at level 7 (Masters level). It gives you an opportunity to enhance your knowledge and skills, improving your employability over your peers who have only done a BSc. Integrated Masters are recognised by employers and the computing profession as adding value beyond the normal BSc. The MSci aims to lay the foundation for successful graduates to become the future technical leaders and innovators within computing. If you're interested in how computers work or you'd like to learn more about using micro-processors to control devices - anything from robots to cars - Computer Science could be for you. The area of software development for all applications from desktop computers to embedded systems is a growing area of computing that demands good technical skills in programming as well as an understanding of hardware and software systems and their interactions.

Employability has been built into this award for many years and can be particularly demonstrated in the Level 5 Professional Computing module which exists to improve the student’s chance of gaining employment by improving on their soft skills such as group working, presentation skills, legal understanding, CV creation skills as well as other topics that are introduced during the year. The idea is by minimising the soft skills that need to be learnt at the start of any employment then you reduce a company’s costs and so increase the student’s chance of gaining career orientated employment. These skills are reinforced by the use of real world assignments in many of the modules including Advanced Programming Languages, Systems Programming with C++ at level 5 and also In Real Time System and Safety Critical Systems at level 6 where the assignments are based upon problems encountered by the staff when they were in industry. Students on Sandwich awards also have the opportunity to undertake 48 weeks work with a company in the IT industry, this is currently seen as the best way to full time employment as it is effectively a 12 month interview. Many of the skills new graduates learn are acquired during the placement year. It also gives the student the chance to choose a Final Year Project that is relevant to the industry they have been working in and to apply some of those skills into their final year work. A survey over a 5 year period showed that around 25% of students who did a placement were offered a job by that company.