Course Information course information
About
We are offering a limited number of free places on our Postgraduate Certificate in Data Science, fully funded by the Department for the Economy.
If you have previous computing experience and want to build skills to develop your career, then this is the perfect opportunity for you to begin to specialise in Data Science, a key growth area within the IT sector.
Data Science skills are typically in high demand in many industries including IT, business, security, health, intelligent transport, energy, and the creative industries. Data and analytics capabilities has developed rapidly in recent years. The volume of available data has grown exponentially, more sophisticated algorithms have been developed, and computational power and storage have steadily improved. Most companies, however, are not capturing the full potential value from data and analytics because they do not have the required expertise.
To help address these challenges, the Postgraduate Certificate in Data Science will provide you with the knowledge and skills in key technologies used in data collection, curation, processing, integration, analysis, and visualisation, applied to a variety of data types. Students will be introduced to a data scientist toolkit that can be applied to build data-driven applications.
Campus
Derry~Londonderry
Start Date
September 2025 (Full-Time and Part-Time)
Duration
Full-Time: One semester
Part-Time: Two semesters
Delivery format
The PgCert Data Science (Analytics and Applications) consists of three 20-credit taught modules.
The full-time provision will be completed in one semester. The part-time provision will be completed across two semesters.
Attendance
Each module has 5 hours per week of timetabled classes, typically starting mid-afternoon on a weekday to include lectures and practical classes.
Career options
The key message from employability and work-related learning initiatives is that enhancing opportunities to develop work-related learning and employability enhances the learning of the subject being studied. We understand the importance of including real industrial and commercial contexts to our student's experience, so this Postgraduate Certificate in Data Science will pursue opportunities for industrially linked teaching material and student project work.
A recent statement from Ulster University’s Careers Office indicates that Data Analysts are in high demand across all sectors, such as finance, consulting, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, government and education. Data analysts can work in large companies such as the ‘big four’ consultancies or financial services firms, or consumer retail firms, small and medium sized businesses such as marketing agencies’ or the public sector.
Progression
On successful completion of the programme, students can continue on to our MSc in Data Science or our MSc Professional Software Development (Data Science).
Both MSc programmes are available as full-time or part-time study options.
Contact us
If you have any queries about the course, please email us: sceis@ulster.ac.uk
Modules
The Postgraduate Certificate in Data Science (Analytics and Applications) award consists of three compulsory taught modules (totalling 60 credits).
Data Science Foundations (20 credit points)
The focus of this module is to present an understanding of key data science concepts, tools and programming techniques. Within the arena of data science, the theory behind the approaches of statistics, modelling and machine learning will be introduced emphasising their importance and application to data analysis. The notion of investigative and research skills will also be introduced through a number of problem-solving exercises. The material covered will be contextualised by providing examples of
the latest research within the area. Students will also be introduced to programming with Python. They will learn the basics of syntax, and how to configure their development environment for the implementation and testing of algorithms related to data science.
Big Data Technologies (20 credit points)
Within this module a variety of database and data storage paradigms will be explored, ranging from more traditional relational systems to NoSql and object stores, time series databases and graph stores. Consideration will be given to big data and the problem with storing and querying high volumes of highly variable data which is stored and processed at a high speed. The cloud computing paradigm will also be introduced and how to avail of its power and resources.
The core concepts of distributed computing will be examined in the context of Hadoop and Spark. Students will be taught, practically and theoretically, about the components of Hadoop and Spark workflows, functional programming concepts and use of MapReduce.
Business Intelligence and Analytics (20 credit points)
This module aims to contextualise the role of Business Intelligence and Business Analytics and why we need them. A particular focus will be on how to turn already stored data into valuable information and why this is important. For instance, vast amounts of data regarding company's customers and operations is routinely collected and stored in large corporate data warehouses. This data can be of immense value if properly analysed.
Students will explore techniques and tools for data analysis, and presentation of the results to non-technical and managerial staff, in alignment with business strategies. Business intelligence and analytics however, are open to certain ethical and consent issues along with risks. These will be analysed, reviewed and evaluated.
Entry Requirements
Academic requirements
Applicants must:
(a) have gained
(i) a second class honours degree or better, in the subject areas of computing, engineering or related discipline, from a university of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, or from a recognised national awarding body, or from an institution of another country which has been recognised as being of an equivalent standard;
or
(ii) an equivalent standard (normally 50%) in a Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate, Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma or an approved alternative qualification; and the qualification must be in the subject areas of computing, engineering or related discipline.
and
(b) provide evidence of competence in written and spoken English (GCSE grade C or equivalent).
Eligibility
Please are open to students who:
- are over 18 years of age;
- are eligible to work in Northern Ireland;
- are ‘settled’ in Northern Ireland, and has been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least three years; or
- are a person who has indefinite leave to enter or remain in the UK.
- meet the course specific entry requirements. See course pages for requirements.
- meet the Ulster University general entry requirements
Applications will open on 2 June and will close on 22 June
There are a limited number of places on the course. Offers will be extended to those applicants who meet the entry requirements following successful completion of the application process. Applications will no longer be accepted or processed once all offers are extended.
When creating your application you will need to have the following documents saved electronically as they need to be uploaded as part of the application process:
- Passport
- Evidence on meeting three year residency in NI/ROI
- Degree Certificate
- English Competency (If you have a degree from UK/ROI, you don't need to provide anything else)
- Statement of Purpose*
- BRP - If applicable
* Statement of Purpose - this should be no more than an A4 page and should provide details of what you hope to gain from studying this course. This may be to used to assist the course team in the allocation of places, in the event that the number of applicants who meet all other requirements exceed the number of available funded places.
