Statistics & Data Science - Online

Course Overview

The programme in Statistics and Data Science is a part-time course delivered fully online over three years and consisting of three component courses: a Postgraduate Certificate in year 1, a Postgraduate Diploma Top up in year 2 and Masters top up in year 3. These can be taken on a continuous basis or with interruption to the student’s course of study.



The programme provides a broad introduction to the statistical ideas and methods relevant to data gathering and analysis in a wide variety of research areas as well as business and administration. The intention is to provide students with a practical grasp of statistics based on a sound knowledge of the underlying ideas and concepts. To this end, all the material is presented in the context of practical examples from a wide range of applications.



There is only one route to enter the programme. Applicants are admitted directly to the one year part-time Postgraduate Certificate. Entry to the Diploma course is only by progression after completion of the Postgraduate Certificate. The Diploma takes 2 years part-time in total. Entry to the Masters course is only by progression after completion of the Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma courses. The part-time Masters takes 3 years in total to complete. The intermediate stages can be completed consecutively without any interruption to the student’s study or may be completed with interruptions as students may collect their awards at each stage and return to the Masters programme rescinding their award/s with the lifetime of the programme.



Is This Course For Me?

• This part-time programme is intended for graduates of disciplines, other than statistics, who want to develop and deepen their knowledge of statistical methods for solving problems involving data arising in business and industry, in public service agencies or in research.

• The Certificate provides an introduction to the principal statistical methods that are used in business and industry, as well as providing background to the principles of learning from data. It also provides an introduction to some of the non-statistics elements in data science.

• The Diploma deepens and extends this to more advanced and technical statistical methods and introduces further non- statistical components of data science.

• The Master in Science adds a dissertation, to be completed in the third year, in close collaboration with a supervisor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics.

• Graduates of the programme should be well placed to apply the ideas and methods to which they have been introduced in their own work.

Postgraduate Certificate students take 4 modules across their 1-year part-time online studies: Introduction to statistical concepts and methods; Implementing statistical methods in R; Regression; Foundations of data science 1.



Postgraduate Diploma (top up) students study online part-time for 1 further year and take 6 modules: Foundations of data science 2; Advanced linear models 1; Introduction to experimental design; Advanced linear models 2; Time series; Multivariate analysis.



Masters (top up) students study online part-time for 1 further year and take only 1 module, the Dissertation.

Admission Requirements

Any Bachelor’s degree, some knowledge of mathematics (high school level/introductory level university module is sufficient), the College’s PG English language requirement if necessary.

Closing Date: 31st July 2025

1 year (P.Grad.Cert part-time)

2 years (P.Grad.Dip part-time)

3 years (M.Sc. part time)

Next Intake: September 2025

Career Opportunities

The course is often taken as continuing professional development for people who need statistics to advance their career, or to move into a career where data analysis is an important aspect. Completion of the Diploma or Masters course offers the opportunity to move to data analysis careers or a a more technical data science programme.