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Postgraduate

MSc Data Science and AI for the Creative Industries

CCI staff and students talk in the breakout space, 2019, UAL Creative Computing Institute, ©Ana Escobar
College
UAL Creative Computing Institute Start date
September 2024 Course length
1 year (45 weeks including summer thesis project)

This MSc course gives you the opportunity to learn computer and data science skills, as well as introducing you to functional approaches to AI.

Applying for more than 1 course

You can apply for more than 1 postgraduate course at UAL but we recommend that you apply for no more than 3. Find out more in the Apply Now section.

Why choose this course at UAL Creative Computing Institute

  • High-quality research informed teaching: the course is significantly informed by the research themes of the UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI)
  • Critical engagement with technology: engagement with creative practice will also build your ability to self-reflect and think critically about your role in shaping the world
  • Institute environment: you will have access to purpose-built facilities and technical support, and exposure to creative computing research

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Course overview

Our focused master’s programme offers you a further engagement with core data science competencies, and functional approaches to developing AI products and services. Furthermore, the ethical dimension of data science is actively explored in this course ensuring you have a deep understanding of the power of this technology.

You will apply scientific principles to support creation of mathematical models of real-world problems through computer programming. Different competencies will be measured across the programme through project work and core programming. Special attention will be given to the development of your thesis project that targets your preferred technology sector or domain of work. This is to support your progression to industry or academic research.

What to expect

  • Coding for data science: You will learn practical coding skills in core modern programming languages, which can be applied in a wide range of data science industries and beyond.
  • Project-based learning: You will complete a range of computing projects, applying your skills and knowledge to resolve real world problems.
  • Ethical data practices: You will learn how data practices have the potential to impact individuals and society.
  • Collaboration and creativity: You will collaborate with your post graduate peers to creatively solve problems together bringing your varied undergraduate experience to advanced problems. This ability is a core attribute sought after by many graduate employers.
  • The CCI community: You will join a significant community of students, academics and researchers who are passionate about the future of data and computing. You will also be part of our integrated online community where you can access technical support, events, employment opportunities and more.

Industry experience and opportunities

You will learn using industry standard tools and advanced frameworks ensuring you are ready to progress to a wide range of roles across the technology sector. You will benefit from a wide range of industry talks and will meet industry representatives throughout your studies.

Course units

STEM for creatives

This unit offers a conversion boot camp for STEM study for arts and humanities graduates including the maths that underpins the data science approaches later in the course. This unit is taught by a STEM academics who have worked in a creative industries setting.

Natural language processing for the creative industries

This practical class develops key coding skills to support NLP for the creative industries and introduces applied computer science concepts for arts and humanities graduates. Students will use coding languages such Python and JavaScript to develop approaches to text analysis, text generation, chatbots, conversational interfaces for sectors such as data journalism, art practice, social media analysis and bias in large language models.

Introduction to data science

This computing and seminar class uses programming approaches to statistics, structuring data, analysing data and explores approaches to questioning real world datasets. This units also gives a grounding in data ethics, data handling and GDPR.

Artificial intelligence for media

This practical class introduces students to practical Artificial Intelligence tools such as Tensorflow an pyTorch in order to do signal processing classification, regression, style transfer, image and video generation and includes exploring techniques such as, deep fakes, GANS, pix-2-pix and others. You will benefit from tuition from senior CCI researchers in this area and our relationships with industrial product teams such as Google Brain.

Data science in the creative industries

This unit is taught in partnership with our current industry partner (WPP) and involves an industry case study of data science approaches to product development and applied approaches to campaign insight, customer interfaces, media analysis and generation.

Personalisation and machine learning

This practical class look at extending your machine learning experience to include the building and testing of recommenders and audience analysis tools. This Python and JavaScript based applied computing experience enables you to build and test systems that specifically test clustering for audience preferences.

Thesis project

This self-directed unit ask you to build a practical project and write an associated thesis report of 8-10,000 words that documents your technical methods, process of design and development and evaluation.

Learning and teaching methods

  • Collaborative problem-solving and group work
  • Independent study
  • Lectures and seminars
  • Project work
  • Studio/lab-based practice and masterclasses
  • Technical tuition

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Staff

Fees and funding

Home fee

£13,330

This fee is correct for 2024/25 entry and is subject to change for 2025/26 entry.

Tuition fees may increase in future years for new and continuing students on courses lasting more than one year. For this course, you can pay tuition fees in instalments.

Students from countries outside of the UK will generally be charged international fees. The rules are complex so read more about tuition fees and determining your fee status.

International fee

£28,570

This fee is correct for 2024/25 entry and is subject to change for 2025/26 entry.

Tuition fees may increase in future years for new and continuing students on courses lasting more than one year. For this course, you can pay tuition fees in instalments.

Students from countries outside of the UK will generally be charged international fees. The rules are complex so read more about tuition fees and determining your fee status.

Scholarship search

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Entry requirements

An applicant will normally be considered for admission if they have achieved an educational level equivalent to an honours degree in either the broad fields of:

  • Arts and Design
  • Humanities
  • a joint computer sciences and arts/humanities degree, or related subject.

Educational level may be demonstrated by: Honours degree (named above); Possession of equivalent qualifications in a design-related or creative discipline; Prior experiential learning, the outcome of which can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required. Your experience is assessed as a learning process and tutors will evaluate that experience for currency, validity, quality and sufficiency; Or a combination of formal qualifications and experiential learning which, taken together, can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required.

Applicants without the required qualifications, but with professional experience may be eligible to gain credit for previous learning and experience through the AP(E)L system.

Language requirements

IELTS level 7.0 or above, with at least 6.0 in reading, writing, listening and speaking (please check our main English Language requirements webpage). 

Selection criteria

Offers will be made based on the following selection criteria:

  • An ability to code.
  • Sufficient prior knowledge and experience in a specialist subject area or potential to be able to successfully complete the course. 
  • An academic or professional background in data and computer science or a related subject area.
  • Willingness to work both independently and as part of a team.
  • A strong case for how the course could be applied to your ambitions, especially if your current knowledge and experience is in a different subject area.

Apply now

Application deadline

Deadline

Round 1:

13 December 2023 at 1pm (UK time)

Round 2:

3 April 2024 at 1pm (UK time)

Decision outcome

Round 1:

End of March 2024

Round 2:

End of June 2024

Round 1
Round 2
Deadline
13 December 2023 at 1pm (UK time)
3 April 2024 at 1pm (UK time)
Decision outcome
End of March 2024
End of June 2024

All applications received by 3 April will be treated equally. If there are places available after this date, the course will remain open to applications until places have been filled.

Read more about deadlines

Apply to UAL

Start your application

Apply now

Application deadline

Deadline

Round 1:

13 December 2023 at 1pm (UK time)

Round 2:

3 April 2024 at 1pm (UK time)

Decision outcome

Round 1:

End of March 2024

Round 2:

End of June 2024

Round 1
Round 2
Deadline
13 December 2023 at 1pm (UK time)
3 April 2024 at 1pm (UK time)
Decision outcome
End of March 2024
End of June 2024

All applications received by 3 April will be treated equally. If there are places available after this date, the course will remain open to applications until places have been filled.

Read more about deadlines

Apply to UAL

Start your application
or

Apply with a UAL Representative

Based across the world, our local UAL representatives can support you with your application from your home country. Check to see if there is a representative available in your country currently.

Find your representative

How to apply

Follow this step-by-step guide to apply for this course

Step 1: Initial application

You will need to submit an initial application including your personal statement and CV.

Personal statement advice

Your personal statement should be maximum 500 words and include:

  • your reasons for choosing the course
  • your current creative practice and how this course will help you achieve your future plans
  • any relevant education and experience, especially if you do not have any formal academic qualifications.

Visit our personal statement page for more advice.

CV advice

Please provide a CV detailing your education, qualifications and any relevant work or voluntary experience. If you have any web projects or other media that you would like to share, please include links in your CV. If English is not your first language, please also include your most recent English language test score.

You also need to know

Communicating with you

Once you have submitted your initial application, we will email you with your login details for our Applicant portal.

Requests for supplementary documents like qualifications and English language tests will be made through the applicant portal. You can also use it to ask questions regarding your application. Visit our After you apply page for more information.

Applying to more than 1 course

You can apply for more than 1 postgraduate course at UAL but we recommend that you apply for no more than 3 courses. You need to tailor your application, supporting documents and portfolio to each course, so applying for many different courses could risk the overall quality of your application. If you receive offers for multiple courses, you'll only be able to accept 1 offer. UAL doesn't accept repeat applications to the same course in the same academic year.

Visas and immigration history check

All non-UK nationals must complete an immigration history check. Your application may be considered by our course teams before this check takes place. This means that we may request your portfolio and/or video task before we identify any issues arising from your immigration history check. Sometimes your history may mean that we are not able to continue considering your application. Visit our Immigration and visas advice page for more information.

External student transfer policy

UAL accepts transfers from other institutions on a case-by-case basis. Read our Student transfer policy for more information.

Alternative offers

If your application is really strong, but we believe your strengths and skillset are better suited to a different course, we may make you an alternative offer. This means you will be offered a place on a different course or at a different UAL College.

Deferring your place

We do not accept any deferral requests for our postgraduate courses. This means that you must apply in the year that you plan to start your course and you will not be able to defer your place to start at a later date.

Application deadlines

For postgraduate courses at UAL there are 2 equal consideration deadlines to ensure fairness for all our applicants. If you apply ahead of either of these deadlines, your application will be considered on an equal basis with all other applications in that round. If there are places available after the second deadline, the course will remain open to applications until places have been filled.

Careers

Career paths

Graduates will be well placed to work in the following areas:

  • Software development for the creative industries
  • Customer insight and personalisation for the creative industries
  • Digital product development for the creative industries
  • Research and development for the creative industries
  • Content creation for creative industries

UAL Creative Computing Institute

Contact

Email

cci@arts.ac.uk

Address

UAL Creative Computing Institute
45–65 Peckham Road
London
SE5 8UF