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Computing (Software Engineering)
Specialise in the application of engineering to the design, development, and maintenance of software.
Specialise in the application of engineering to the design, development, and maintenance of software
Get industry recognition by achieving an accredited degree from the Institute of Engineering and Technology
Plan, conduct and write-up a programme of software development as part of a team
Course key facts
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Qualification
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MSc
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Duration
1 year
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Start date
October 2023
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Study mode
Full-time
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Fees
£21,000 Home
£39,400 Overseas
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Delivered by
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Location
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South Kensington
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Minimum entry standard 2023
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First class Honours in a subject with a substantial computing component
Course overview
Specialise in the application of engineering to the design, development, and maintenance of software on this Master's course.
You’ll explore key aspects of software engineering including computational finance, computer networks and distributed systems, and graphics.
The course examines emerging trends in computing and how these techniques can be adapted in industrial applications. Practical programming training using Prolog and Matlab will also be provided.
You’ll also enhance your project management and research skills on both individual and group projects.
For those looking to advance their knowledge of other areas of computing, we also offer specialisms in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Management and Finance, Security and Reliability and Visual Computing and Robotics.
Structure
This page is updated regularly to reflect the latest version of the curriculum. However, this information is subject to change.
Find out more about potential course changes.
You’ll take all of these core modules.
Core modules
Examine the tools and techniques that software engineers use on a daily basis to successfully build and maintain large software systems.
Demonstrate independence and originality on an individual project, specialising in an area of software engineering.
In addition to your core modules, you’ll choose between five and eight modules from Group 1 and up to three modules from Group 2.
Group 1
Study network and web security broadly from the network to the application layer and understand the main threats, attack techniques and defences relevant to cybersecurity and network security.
Analyse how performance engineering ensures computer systems are responsive, scalable, and efficient and explore the fundamental principles and techniques used to achieve these goals.
Unpick the key concepts, problems and results in distributed algorithms and gain practical experience of programming them.
Use separation logic to reason compositionally about sequential and concurrent heap-manipulating programs.
Become familiar with the concepts and techniques underlying privacy-enhancing technologies across a variety of areas.
Advance your knowledge of the concepts that enable the design and implementation of scalable distributed systems.
Assess techniques and tools for improving the reliability of software systems and discuss their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Deepen your knowledge of the themes and challenges of host-level native, web, and mobile security and privacy.
Analyse the foundational principles behind decentralised ledgers and apply them to current research in cryptocurrencies.
Learn how to design program analyses for classical and probabilistic programs and how to solve the resulting equations and constraints.
Develop intellectual and practical skills in the use of modal logics for knowledge representation and automated reasoning in artificial intelligence.
Discover how cryptographic techniques can be used to design and implement secure communicating systems for a variety of different needs and applications.
Assess the best decision algorithms for solving real-life problems arising in computer science, computational management and economics.
Group 2
Explore how images are formed, how they are represented on computers and how they can be processed by computers to extract semantic information.
Gain an in-depth understanding of the state-of-the-art of logic-based learning, starting from its key foundation concepts and principles before moving to more recent advances.
Understand basic concepts of computer graphics and familiarise yourself with the mathematical principles used for computer generated imagery, shading and light approximations.
Examine the approaches that enable the rapid and systematic design of custom computers and learn how to analyse the performance of a custom computer.
Develop a thorough understanding of high-performance and energy-efficient computer architecture as a basis for informed software performance engineering.
Assess modern techniques in realistic computer graphics and image synthesis, particularly image-based techniques for photorealism.
Understand the basic concepts of quantitative finance and financial engineering and build awareness of the major decision, hedging, and pricing problems in finance.
Learn how to describe the core principles of autonomous systems learning and calculate mathematical solutions to problems using reinforcement learning theory.
Discover how to describe the complexity classes associated with computational problems, and how to fit a particular problem into a class of related problems.
Explore the fundamental concepts and advanced methodologies of deep learning and relate them to real-world problems.
Develop a deeper understanding of optimal decision making models, algorithms and applications to engineering, finance, and machine learning.
Acquire the techniques and tools needed to devise and develop natural language processing (NLP) components and applications.
Discover why knowledge representation and reasoning are essential components of an intelligent system and are at the core of artificial intelligence research.
Examine how probability can be used to make decisions by a computer and advance your understanding of inference networks and linear and non-linear methods in statistical pattern recognition.
Learn how to design and implement modern statistical machine learning methodologies, as well as inference mechanisms.
Study an advanced computer science topic of your choice and plan, write and present a scientific report.
Gain insight into the different types of problems that exist in machine learning and the basic algorithms used to address them.
Engage with the emerging field of robot learning and discover how robots can acquire skills and control their bodies using machine learning techniques.
Explore the fundamental concepts and advanced methodologies of machine learning for imaging and relate them to real-world problems in computer vision and medical image analysis.
Explore the role of quantum computers in providing efficient solutions to problems that are currently computationally intractable
Professional accreditation
Our MSc Computing Master's degrees are professionally accredited by the IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) on behalf of the Engineering Council as meeting the requirements for Further Learning for registration as a Chartered Engineer. Candidates must hold a CEng accredited BEng/BSc (Hons) undergraduate first degree to comply with full CEng registration requirements.
Registering as a Chartered Engineer will help provide improved career prospects, industry status, and higher earning potential. It helps demonstrate your commitment to professional standards, the engineering profession and sustainable development.
Our accreditation agreement with IET runs through the 2022-23 academic year.
Entry requirements
How to apply
Apply online
You can submit one application form per year of entry. You can choose up to two courses.
If you are applying for a taught Master’s course, you will need to pay an application fee before submitting your application.
The fee applies per application and not per course:
- £80 for all taught Master's applications excluding those to the Imperial College Business School
- £100 for all MSc applications to the Imperial College Business School
- £150 for MBA applications to the Imperial College Business School
There is no application fee for MRes courses, Postgraduate Certificates, Postgraduate Diplomas or research courses, such as PhDs and EngDs.
If you are facing financial hardship and are unable to pay the application fee, we encourage you to apply for our application fee waiver.
Find out more about how to apply for a Master's course, including references and personal statements.
An ATAS certificate is not required for students applying for this course.
Teaching and assessment
Teaching and learning methods
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Lectures
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Tutorials
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Practical work
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Laboratory
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Group work
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Research project
Assessment methods
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Written exams
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Coursework
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Lab work
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Presentations and demonstrations
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Technical report
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Dissertation
Tuition fees
Home fee
2023 entry
£21,000
You should expect and budget for your fees to increase each year.
Your fee is based on the year you enter the College, not your year of study. This means that if you repeat a year or resume your studies after an interruption, your fees will only increase by the amount linked to inflation.
Find out more about our tuition fees payment terms, including how inflationary increases are applied to your tuition fees in subsequent years of study.
Whether you pay the Home or Overseas fee depends on your fee status. This is assessed based on UK Government legislation and includes things like where you live and your nationality or residency status. Find out how we assess your fee status.
If you're a UK national, or EU national with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you may be able to apply for a Postgraduate Master’s Loan from the UK government, if you meet certain criteria.
For 2022-23 entry, the maximum amount was £11,836. The loan is not means-tested and you can choose whether to put it towards your tuition fees or living costs.
Overseas fee
2023 entry
£39,400
You should expect and budget for your fees to increase each year.
Your fee is based on the year you enter the College, not your year of study. This means that if you repeat a year or resume your studies after an interruption, your fees will only increase by the amount linked to inflation.
Find out more about our tuition fees payment terms, including how inflationary increases are applied to your tuition fees in subsequent years of study.
Whether you pay the Home or Overseas fee depends on your fee status. This is assessed based on UK Government legislation and includes things like where you live and your nationality or residency status. Find out how we assess your fee status.
If you're a UK national, or EU national with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you may be able to apply for a Postgraduate Master’s Loan from the UK government, if you meet certain criteria.
For 2022-23 entry, the maximum amount was £11,836. The loan is not means-tested and you can choose whether to put it towards your tuition fees or living costs.
Your future career
Get the advanced training required to pursue a specialist career in software engineering.
A degree in Imperial Computing will open up a variety of career opportunities in other areas of IT and computing.
Graduates are sought after in roles such as application/web development, networking, AI, media, finance, robotics, and computer games.
Other potential career paths include chip design, cyber security, data management, bio-medical systems and transport.
Further links
Contact the department
- Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7594 8298
- Email: doc-mscadmissions@imperial.ac.uk
Course Director: Dr Anandha Gopalan
Visit the Department of Computing website.

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Terms and conditions
There are some important pieces of information you should be aware of when applying to Imperial. These include key information about your tuition fees, funding, visas, accommodation and more.
You can find further information about your course, including degree classifications, regulations, progression and awards in the programme specification for your course.
Programme specifications