MSc Crime Intelligence and Data Analytics

The work boundaries of the traditional police intelligence analyst and digital forensic investigator are becoming blurred – today’s analysts need to be cyber aware, understanding how communication records and web search histories can be extracted and analysed.

This course covers these areas and theories that provide a better sense of the causes of crime and the prevention measures that can be put in place to stabilise and reverse these trends. Analysts shouldn’t be phased by data simply because of its size, complexity or format. This course gives you the skills to work effectively with large datasets, allowing you to make more informed decisions about criminal investigations. Key features include writing code to quickly clean up data and packaging it so it’s suitable for analysis and visualisation. You develop these skills and your confidence in applying them to make more sense of the data – analysing Twitter downloads, searched words and images, geolocation points or big data. You also explore strategies employed in forensic investigation and develop your interest in a research project where your supervisor enables you to maximise your skillsets from academic writing to data analytics.

Applicants are generally expected to have at least a 2.2 UK honours degree or equivalent qualification. A range of degree subjects is acceptable, including topics in the physical sciences, crime scene and forensic science. Social science graduates are particularly welcome, for example, criminology, policing, sociology and the humanities.

20 Hours of work permit weekly for international students.