Masters in Economics and Finance

Which UK college would be a good fit to pursue a Postgraduate course in Economics and Finance? I have offer from Kings and Bristol currently and would like to have opinion from the experienced people in this community. My career path is to have a job in Financial or Banking institutions.

Reply 1

BenRyan99

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by ecofinance

Master's degrees in economics and finance at top universities aren't super common in the UK, because postgrad study is generally about specialisation so most in this area do a master's in economics or finance, rather than a joint degree. However, there are still some, probably the best would be LSE's MSc Finance and Economics course, Cambridge's MPhil Finance and Economics, and Warwick's MSc Finance and Economics (probably in this order).

Bristol and King's courses are generally tier 2-3 courses. They're good, but they're certainly not the top ones. They tend to be very popular with international students who are looking to get a good university brand on their CV, whereas undergrads from these places generally go to better institutions for their postgrad study instead of staying. While this is my opinion, I do also think it's generally a pretty consensus view.

There's also the issue that hiring from postgrad economics & finance courses is much more limited than from undergrad, so generally the group of unis considered 'targets' is much more narrow. Some places considered strong targets at undergrad can be just semi-targets at master's level, and hiring for top firms is much more concentrated on the top MSc courses. While Bristol and King's are strong semi-targets at undergrad, I'm not sure most would consider them semi-targets at postgrad level, but again others might disagree - it's just my experience.

As there aren't a tonne of joint MSc Economics & Finance courses, one option would be to look at MSc Economics courses which allow you to do quite a lot of finance courses, or the inverse with a MSc Finance course with lots of economics modules. This would broaden the options available to you than purely looking at joint master's degrees.

Reply 2

ecofinance

Thank you Ryan for the response. Let me rephrase my query as I think I have stated it incorrectly earlier: The course name is Financial Economics. Would your opinion still remain the same?

Reply 3

BenRyan99

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by ecofinance

Thank you Ryan for the response. Let me rephrase my query as I think I have stated it incorrectly earlier: The course name is Financial Economics. Would your opinion still remain the same?

I don't really get your question, Bristol & King's don't have financial economics courses, and whether the UK would be a good place to study financial economics depends on which university you study it at and what your specific career goals are

Reply 4

ecofinance

How about Glassgow (Financial Economics) and Birmingham (Financial Economics) from course and career opportunity perspective?

Reply 5

BenRyan99

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by ecofinance

How about Glassgow (Financial Economics) and Birmingham (Financial Economics) from course and career opportunity perspective?

They're certainly nothing special if that's what you're asking, the unis probably rank in the 15-20th positions for postgrad economics/finance courses in the UK. They're not even semi-targets at undergrad level, so given hiring is narrower at postgrad level, they're not fantastic. But this isn't to say that you can't do well from non-targets, you definitely can, it's just the average student in the cohort does less well in certain domains than students at better universities for that subject.

But you still haven't even defined what you want to get out of the MSc. Asking which is best from a career opportunity perspective depends on what career you want! For example, for some jobs these courses would be absolutely fine, for some they'd be inadequate. If you don't define what you want to get it of the course from a careers perspective, how are we meant to advise on whether a course is broadly suitable for the objective?