Finance (Including Placement Year)

Are you interested in how financial markets operate? Do you want to learn about financial decision making and investment? Would you like to join one of the UK’s largest and most respected finance groups, with some of Britain’s most satisfied students?

BSc Finance at Essex Business School course prepares you for a fast-paced career in any area of finance.

You have access to our virtual trading floor, where you can trade multiple markets from a single screen with industry leading softwares. You can also use real-world Bloomberg Market Data Feed (B-PIPE), within minutes of it being released, so you can practise making business decisions in the same way you might in the workplace.

The course examines international financial markets, as well as how finance shapes leadership, strategy and planning within organisations.

Topics may include:

• the pricing of securities in financial markets

• risk management

• corporate finance and financial decision making

• business economics

• quantitative methods

• financial modelling

• portfolio analysis

We use real-life examples to apply theory to practice and develop your capacity to analyse statistics. Ethics underpins all of our teaching, so you can graduate with the ability to make sound, responsible financial decisions for the benefit of organisations and their stakeholders.

Your first year ensures you receive a fully-rounded business education by introducing you to topics such as marketing, economics, management and accounting.

In your final year, you have the opportunity to put your knowledge into practice by completing an in depth, independent research project or dissertation. This gives you the chance to further develop vital employability skills in areas of research, project management and critical thinking.

BSc Finance also gives you the option to follow a specialised pathway in Applied Quantitative Methods (AQM).

With employers looking for graduates with data analysis skills, The University of Essex is one of just three UK universities to have received Q-Step Affiliate status. By completing necessary AQM modules, your quantitative skills are evidenced on your degree transcript to give you the competitive edge in the jobs market. We can also provide work placement bursaries to develop your skills in evaluating numerical evidence, analysing data and designing research.

Essex Business School, where this course is taught, is an IMC Advantage Partner. This course is aligned to the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) syllabus, the industry’s benchmark entry-level qualification.

The University of Essex is also a member of the CFA Institute University Affiliation Program, enabling us to award up-to six exceptional students each year with a scholarship that goes towards the fees for the CFA Program Level One exam, so you can start your journey of becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Achieving this accolade is one way to enhance your CV if you're interested in pursuing a career in investment management.

Many of our courses offer a choice of optional modules to tailor your learning experience. More information about these can be found on the University of Essex website.