Investment Management and Financial Analysis at Lancaster University - UCAS

Lancaster University

Degree level: Postgraduate

Investment Management and Financial Analysis (Taught)

Course summary

The investment management and financial analysis sectors require industry professionals with advanced technical knowledge, plus practical experience with programming. Our Investment Management and Financial Analysis MSc (IMFA) programme is designed to equip you with these skills, and help you acquire your CFA Level II professional qualification. As such, the course offers modules that are academically more advanced and, at the same time, more practice-oriented than those offered by a typical UK master's programme in finance. You will study technical and practice-oriented modules. LUMS accounting and finance specialists and expert tutors from Fitch Learning will prepare you to complete CFA Level II. Core modules embed training in financial programming languages including VBA, R and MATLAB, and provide hands-on experience with data platforms such as Thomson EIKON or FactSet. Course outline You can elect to prepare for the February CFA Level I exam or if you already have CFA Level I, you will study alternative modules to benefit a career in Investment Management or Financial Analysis. You then prepare for the August CFA Level II exam. An alternative non-CFA pathway is available for those who do not want to acquire the CFA qualification, or those who already have the qualification but still wish to benefit from this practitioner-oriented programme. You will study the following modules, outlined in the course structure: Term 1 core modules:

  • Fund Management
  • Financial Modelling and Analysis
  • Programming and Databases for Financial Applications
Students without CFA Stage 1 will also study Topics in Professional Analysis Students who have already attained CFA stage 1, or those on a non-CFA pathway will also study Quantitative Methods for Finance Term 2 core modules:
  • Advanced Financial Markets and Investment Management
  • Advanced Financial Reporting and Analysis
  • Advanced Investment Research Methods
  • Careers Skills in Finance with Applications to ESG
Students without CFA 1 will take the February examination. Term 3 Students taking the CFA Level II examination will complete the following modules followed by the examination in August:
  • Advanced Topics in Fund Management and Investment Analysis
  • CFA level 2 training
  • Capstone project
Students not taking the CFA Level II examination will instead complete a dissertation.


Entry requirements

A 2:1 honours degree, or equivalent, in finance, or in accounting with a significant number of finance and/or quantitative modules studied.


Fees and funding

Tuition fees

No fee information has been provided for this course

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .

Additional fee information

For information about fees and funding please visit our website: www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding.
Investment Management and Financial Analysis at Lancaster University - UCAS