Finance

Overview

Our MSc Finance gives you the opportunity to develop specialist expertise across the discipline to enable you to proceed to professional and managerial careers in finance, both in business and the public sector.

Overview

Throughout this master's programme, you’ll gain relevant skills and knowledge, making you highly sought-after upon graduation, and giving you access to employment and further education and research opportunities.

During this degree, you’ll develop a systematic understanding and knowledge in the area of finance. You’ll acquire a critical awareness of current issues in both the academic discipline and professional practice. You’ll learn to understand and evaluate a comprehensive range of research techniques used in the area of finance, and how these are put into practice, in order to create and interpret knowledge. Throughout the programme, you’ll develop critical thinking and analyses, as you evaluate relevant academic research, professional research and pronouncements and financial media articles.

You’ll learn the core theories and concepts in finance; understand and use a range of analytical techniques, including the analysis of a company’s financial statements or the application of models to value financial assets; evaluate methods of empirical research and findings; and develop practical knowledge of financial markets and institutions, and financial decisions within companies. On top of the core learnings. you’ll have the opportunity to choose an optional course to customise your learning and develop your specific subject interests. Your Finance dissertation will allow you to build upon your subject interest, by carrying out an original research project at the forefront of knowledge.

The programme is designed to provide the knowledge base and the analytical and research skills necessary for employment or doctoral study in finance. You’ll also develop key transferable skills, including teamwork, communication and presentation skills to prepare you for lifelong learning and personal development in the financial services sector.

As Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University is situated on the edge of Edinburgh, you’ll have excellent links to the financial sector of Scotland’s capital city, and the UK’s second-biggest financial and economic hub. Edinburgh is a major centre for fund management and is home to two of the world’s largest banks. You’ll also benefit from our close ties to the London Stock Exchange and Bloomberg, which can provide you with excellent industry-focused learning opportunities.

Our Expertise

Your learning will be informed by the expertise of our research-active academics whose work covers four key areas:

Your learning environment

The MSc Finance programme is taught through a combination of lectures and tutorials, allowing you to get to know and build relationships with the teaching staff and academics. You will be assessed by coursework, exams, and your dissertation, and will receive support and feedback throughout the programme.

During your studies, you’ll benefit from and have access to our state-of-the-art facilities, including our professional-standard Bloomberg Trading Room with 12 Bloomberg Terminals to enhance your employability with data skills. These Terminals are equipped with industry-standard software that provides live financial data and trading tools to the world’s leading banks and corporations.

Outside of the classroom, you can join Heriot-Watt’s Business Society which holds regular social events and provides networking opportunities and insights into career prospects in Economics, Business, Finance, and other relevant industries.

Customise your learning

You’ll learn seven core courses and can focus on the area of finance that interests you the most by choosing an optional course from: Emerging Financial Markets; Coding for Social Science Applications in Python; and Advanced Valuation of Financial Markets. This gives you the opportunity to customise your degree to match your specific interests or career pathway by selecting a specialist course option.

In semester three, you’ll explore in-depth your chosen area of Finance through your dissertation. You will be required to demonstrate your mastery of the subject area by developing new insight from the analysis of valuable primary research.

You can choose whether to study the programme full-time, part-time, or by course. This flexibility allows you to fit your postgraduate studies around your lifestyle. You can begin the programme either in January or September, based on your availability, and the full-time course will last 12 months full-time or 24 months part-time. If you decide to study part-time, you register for two courses per semester and progress to the dissertation at the end of your second year.

You may have the opportunity to Go Global on our Inter-Campus Transfer. Opportunities for postgraduate study abroad are assessed on a case-by-case basis and if you are interested in studying at our Dubai campus or Malaysia campus for a semester or longer, you should contact the Go Global Team.

Industry

We work closely with the industry to ensure our course content is up-to-date and reflects the current and emerging needs of the industry and employers. You’ll gain the right blend of knowledge, practical skills, and soft skills to set you up for life after graduation.

Heriot-Watt University is named Bloomberg Experiential Learning Partner (ELP), a programme designed by Bloomberg to recognise universities that are leaders in experiential learning. 

Our partnership with Bloomberg, and the achievement of ELP status, is a mark of our innovative approach to connecting our teaching experience with real-life practical applications. Being a Bloomberg experiential learning partner allows Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Business School to better integrate industry-leading data, research, news and analytics into our curricula.

The Bloomberg Trading Room at Heriot-Watt University is unique in Scotland and enables students from different disciplines of business to better understand different aspects of markets, business behaviours and economic trends. It enables: