The Computing courses are held wholly within the Department of Computing. The MEng courses are of four year duration and lead to the MEng Honours degree of Imperial College and the Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute (ACGI).

The BEng course is of three year duration and leads to the BEng Honours degree of Imperial College and the Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute (ACGI).

Programme Structure

Our Computing degree programmes are designed to ensure that you will have detailed exposure to both the theoretical and practical aspects of Computing. At Imperial we see Computing as an engineering discipline where the emphasis is on building complex computer-based systems that work and are fit for purpose.

In the first two years, there is a carefully planned programme of practical laboratory work where you will solve problems of gradually increasing size and complexity. Each problem is designed to teach a specific aspect of Computing and, at the same time, provide exposure to a range of software and hardware platforms and tools appropriate to the problem. The emphasis throughout is on instilling transferable problem-solving skills and independent learning, rather than on the teaching of specific technologies.

The mathematical foundations of computing, which includes various topics in discrete and continuous mathematics, is taught through a series of core modules in the first two years. Follow-on modules in the third and fourth years allow you to apply the knowledge and skills gained to build and reason about complex systems, with key drivers being correctness, usability, security, reliability and performance.

In the third year you will undertake a group project, which will provide you with experience of what it’s like to work as part of a team. You will also have the opportunity to work with external companies and collaborators as part of the project.

At the end of the Spring term of the third year you will embark on a full-time, paid industrial placement which finishes just prior to the start of the final year.  

In the final year you will undertake a major individual project spanning around eight months. This presents an exciting opportunity for you to apply the technical skills you have learnt throughout the course, including research and presentation skills, under the supervision of an academic adviser. The topics covered by individual projects vary enormously, from the very theoretical to the very practical. Many projects are aligned directly with the Department’s cutting-edge research activities.

Students graduate with exceptional practical skills and with the ability to apply their extensive knowledge of key Computing principles to the engineering of complex systems that are fit for purpose, and also to academic and industrial research.

BEng vs MEng

The department offers both a three-year BEng programme and four-year integrated Master’s MEng programme in Computing. Both degree programmes involve substantial group and individual project work. The MEng programme has the added benefit of an industrial placement, and in your final year of your programme you will be able to choose from a range of Master’s level elective modules and gain further exposure to cutting-edge research problems in computing.

Computing Courses

UCASCoursesLength
G400 BEng Computing 3 years
G401 MEng Computing‌ 4 years
G700 MEng Computing (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) 4 years
GG47 MEng Computing (Visual Computing and Robotics) 4 years
G402 MEng Computing (International Programme of Study)‌ 4 years
G501 MEng Computing (Management and Finance)‌ 4 years
G600 MEng Computing (Software Engineering) 4 years
G610 MEng Computing (Security and Reliability)‌ (new for 2019 entry) 4 years