MSc Finance and Investment

Finance and investment are two sides of the same coin for portfolio managers who need to diversify and manage their exposure to risk to accurately value their assets. You will explore how psychological factors affect the financial behaviours of investors and finance practitioners on this specialist master’s degree.

Our professionally recognised MSc Finance and Investment builds on your existing knowledge of finance, economics, or business to prepare you for a challenging and rewarding career in portfolio management and corporate finance.

You’ll explore how corporations deal with funding sources, capital structuring and investment decisions. You’ll investigate behavioural finance, financial planning strategies and fixed income markets and instruments.

You develop knowledge and skills in:

• portfolio theory
• fixed-income securities
• behavioural finance
• corporate finance

Our aim is to give you the best foundation for a career in investment or elsewhere in the finance sector. We want to help you understand the theory and put it into practice.

You’ll learn to use our Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab, which gives you access to the data and analytical tools found in financial institutions across the City of London and throughout the world. This will allow you to develop the skills needed in industry and gain an advantage in the graduate recruitment market.

Your future

MSc Finance and Investment provides you with the foundations for a rewarding career in finance and investment management, equipping you with the skills to lead at a global level. 90% of University of Essex’s postgraduate graduates are in employment or further study (Graduate Outcomes 2021).

Many of our graduates enjoy roles in a host of occupations, including financial analysis, management, public administration, and accountancy. Our graduates work for high-profile organisations and innovative SMEs such as:

• Deutsche Bank
• Standard Chartered
• GlobeOp Financial Services
• Capital Markets Intelligence, a financial publisher
• Credit Data Research, a business funder

Our Student Support team work closely with the University’s Employability and Careers service to help you with careers information and advice and CV support. They will help you find work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities and provide access to employer talks on campus. We also work closely with the Essex Start-ups team to support our budding entrepreneurs get their business ideas off the ground.

A 2:2 degree, or international equivalent, in one of the following subjects (with no module requirements): Business / Commerce, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural Science, Data Analysis, Statistics or we will also consider applicants who hold a CFA Institute Programme Level One, Two or Three (pass or above). Applicants from any other background will be considered on a case by case basis, where they have at least one year relevant work experience in the field of economics, finance, banking, investment, financial engineering, risk management, entrepreneurship, accounting or quantitative analysis (please include your CV with your application).