MSc Accounting & Financial Management

Programme structure

The MSc Accounting & Financial Management course combines core and optional modules across the three terms of your one-year course.

In your three terms at WBS you will study eight core modules and two optional modules of your choice. Assessment is a mix of exams, project work, and tests, and you'll complete your studies with either a Dissertation or self-sourced Internship.

Foundations of Financial Management

This module will lay down the foundations of finance theory.

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Advanced Financial Management

This module will build on the Foundations of Financial Management, as you gain confidence and competence in the area.

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Data Analytics

This course will equip you with essential data analytics skills for financial projects, combining fundamental accounting research methods with practical programming techniques.

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Accounting and Financial Management in Practice

This module will provide a comprehensive, practical learning experience that allows you to apply their accounting and financial management knowledge whilst also utilising key employability skills.

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Governance and Stakeholder Engagement

This module will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the role of corporate governance in aligning the interests of managers, shareholders, and other stakeholders.

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Accounting and Financial Management Careers and Employability

This multi-term module will equip you with the essential employability skills and practical knowledge required to navigate the competitive job market in your field.

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Management Accounting for Decision Making

This module provides an in-depth analysis of the major techniques and processes involved
in modern management accounting.

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Analysing Value Creation

This course examines challenges related to measuring and monetising impacts or organisations, build theoretical skills and approaches before applying them to a real-life situation.

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These are indicative optional modules which may vary year-on-year.
FinTech: Digital Currencies and Decentralised Finance

We'll discuss the emerging areas of Digital Currencies and Decentralised Finance (or DeFi). By utilising blockchain and smart contract technologies, DeFi provides a new platform for programmable, automated finance services that remove the reliance on central trust and intermediaries.

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Behavioural Finance

Study financial markets using models that are less narrow than those based on von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility theory and arbitrage assumptions.

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Alternative Investments

Alternative investments by their very nature are applications of various disciplines. You'll build on your knowledge from relevant modules, and make the practical link between other subjects and topics, and how this could inform your future career or research decisions.

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Sustainability Reporting

This module will familiarise you with the current state of the art in sustainability reporting.

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Financial Accounting: Theory and Context

Build on the financial reporting knowledge gained in your undergraduate programme. You will develop awareness of the contingent and powerful nature of technical accounting.

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Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Control

This module is designed to introduce you to the basic issues in mergers and acquisitions.

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Dissertation route

This dissertation route offers the opportunity to synthesise, apply and extend your knowledge gained during the course, with a 6,000 word final dissertation.

Internship route

This course offers the opportunity to self-source a summer internship, where you’ll be able to increase your employability by applying your theoretical learnings to a real-world industry setting. The WBS CareersPlus team will support you through each step of the recruitment process, including making effective applications, interview practice, organising events for you to meet employers, and more.

Your learning experience

Teaching and assessment will vary to fit the subject being studied. Our faculty have designed your learning experience to fit the subject being studied, with a variety of teaching and assessment styles. 

Your teaching will take the form of lectures and webinars, supported, where relevant, by guest speakers from industry to balance theory and practice. Lectures introduce key theories, concepts, and economic models. In classes you will solve financial problems and numerical exercises, analyse case studies, and make presentations of research published in academic journals.

Your learning will be assessed by a mix of exams, group work, project work, and tests. Group and project work will enable you to collaborate and gain new perspectives from your international cohort, preparing you for working in teams within a global work environment.

Our online platform

Our unique online learning platform my.wbs will act as the hub for your learning experience, hosting all of your teaching materials, key information from your CareersPlus and Programme Teams, and our online classroom: wbsLive.

Learning facilities

You will have access to our outstanding learning facilities, including a Postgraduate-only Learning Space and IT suite, as well as all other University facilities. Studying on a Finance-based MSc also means that you gain access to our Bloomberg terminals, Eikon terminals, and financial data via the Wharton Research Data Services.  

Foreign Language Study

One of the great benefits of this course is that it offers optional free foreign language study in the evenings across all three terms. This is an opportunity to develop the basics of a new language. There is a choice of six different languages, all at beginner-level (please note we are not able to offer classes at intermediate/advanced level).