The Financial Statistics stream of the MSc Statistics programme is mainly intended for students wishing to pursue careers in the finance industry or as a stepping stone towards PhD study in statistics for finance. It provides high-level training in statistics with applications in finance. You will learn to analyse and critically interpret data, build statistical models of real situations, and use statistical software packages.

The compulsory courses consolidate your understanding of fundamental ideas in probability and statistics and introduce advanced topics. You can choose options to focus on various topics, including those in statistics (with applications in finance or social science), data science, or approved courses from other departments.

Graduates of the programme are awarded Graduate Statistician (GradStat) status by the Royal Statistical Society if a specific combination of modules is taken.

You may also be interested in the 12-month research stream of this programme, MSc Statistics (Financial Statistics) (Research), which includes a dissertation component.

Teaching methods

LSE is internationally recognised for its teaching and research and therefore employs a rich variety of teaching staff with a range of experience and status. Courses may be taught by individual members of faculty, such as lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, associate professors and professors. Many departments now also employ guest teachers and visiting members of staff, LSE teaching fellows and graduate teaching assistants who are usually doctoral research students and in the majority of cases, teach on undergraduate courses only.

Assessment

All taught courses are required to include formative coursework which is unassessed. It is designed to help prepare you for summative assessment which counts towards the course mark and to the degree award. LSE uses a range of formative assessment, such as essays, problem sets, case studies, reports, quizzes, mock exams and many others. Most courses are summatively assessed by a two-hour exam in the summer term, although some contain an element of course work.

Careers

The programme provides excellent opportunities for employment and further study. The programme is also conditionally accredited by the Royal Statistical Society. This means that although an accreditation is given, it will only lead to the award of ‘Graduate Statistician’ if you take a specific combination of modules.