Postgraduate Taught
Renowned postgraduate masters programmes in Business Informatics, Systems and Accounting
Our postgraduate programmes provide a first-class education in business informatics, systems and accounting. These areas cover a wide range of subjects including financial and accounting management, information management and business technology consulting.
They attract students from a wide range of backgrounds, providing them with highly employable knowledge and skill sets demanded by information intensive organisations worlwide.
Our postgraduate programmes
Our students come from a diverse range of backgrounds including Business, Management, Accounting, Arts, Humanities, Health, Social Science, Engineering and Science, with basic IT knowledge and skills. Our postgraduate masters programmes are designed to add to your existing qualifications and provide you with the necessary theories and skills to pursue a successful career in your chosen field.
Applicants demonstrating outstanding academic merit are eligible to apply for our Scholarship/Studentship awards. This award scheme is reveiwed each year and is for students who demonstrate both a financial need and academic merit.
If you would like further information, or to come and meet us, please email us at bisa@reading.ac.uk. We can arrange a convenient time for you to visit us and explore our beautiful parkland campus. Alternatively, we can put you in touch with our programme advisor, who can be easily contacted by email or telephone.
For general information, please download our brochure Master's Degrees in Information Management (.pdf)
MSc Programmes
MSc Accounting and Financial Management
Taught by faculty with wide-ranging interests in the field, and whose professional experience ranges from working for smaller organisations to the 'big four' accounting and professional services firms, you will gain a well-rounded knowledge of both theory and practice.
The ability to effectively interpret and make decisions based on accounting and financial information is a valuable tool for a manager in any organisation, regardless of its size or the sector in which it operates. This masters programme equips you to understand how and why companies report on their financial performance and position in the way they do and places an important emphasis on analysing real-world financial situations faced by business organisations. You will also develop an understanding of how financial information is used for decision making purposes and how the subsequent outcomes are effectively communicated and evaluated.
MSc Accounting and Financial Management focuses mainly on these two areas, whilst MSc International Management and Accounting explores management in a broader context looking at the role and impact of the individual within an organisation and other factors affecting a firm ranging from strategy to human resources.
MSc Business Information Management
This programme focuses specifically on information management and information processing within business organisations. This degree bridges the gap between specialised business, management or information systems courses, and aims to develop competent business information managers.
MSc Business Technology Consulting
This programme combines academic and practical technical skills, and involves direct support from Capgemini, one of the world's largest consultancy companies. This unique programme is limited to 20 students and aims to enhance knowledge, expertise and professional experience via a systematic plan to develop competent business technology consultants for employment within multicultural and managerial environments. Capgemini involvement ensures students gain access to the latest business technology and consulting frameworks. All successful students gain accreditation status as a Certified Architect (from Capgememi UK PLC). Scholarships are available, and Capgemini intends to employ 3-5 top performers annually.
MSc Information Management and Systems
Management and Systems addresses the growing need for professionals with interdisciplinary knowledge and informatics techniques (i.e. concerning the creation, management and use of information in commercial and scientific domains), and encourages students to incorporate taught informatics skills with their existing domain knowledge and experience.
MSc Informatics (Beijing)
The MSc Informatics programme is taught in Engish by University of Reading staff at the Beijing Institute of Technology (China). Similar in structure to the MSc Information Management and Systems programme it addresses the growing need for professionals with interdisciplinary knowledge and informatics techniques. The MSc Informatics course is run over 18 months, yet provides both home and overseas students a affordable way to combine postgraduate study with international travel, language development, and life and work experience.
MSc International Management and Accounting
Taught by internationally-renowned faculty, it provides an opportunity to combine advanced studies in management with financial reporting and focuses on effectively managing the strategic objectives of multinational organisations in the 21st century.
This masters programme will develop an essential understanding in key areas such as international business strategy, the management of people and the role of ethics in international management, alongside an advanced knowledge of accounting and financial reporting in a global context. It will equip you to understand how and why companies report on their financial performance and position in the way they do and places an important emphasis on analysing real-world financial situations faced by business organisations.
MSc International Management and Accounting explores these two areas in a broader context looking at the role and impact of the individual within an organisation and other factors affecting a firm ranging from strategy to human resources. MSc Accounting and Financial Management instead focuses more closely on interpreting accounting and financial information, and its role as in important tool in decision making.