Introduction to the BSc Hons Software Engineering Program

The BSc Hons Software Engineering program at the University of Strathclyde is designed to equip students with the technical knowledge and skills, as well as the communication and management expertise, essential to participate in and lead teams of professional engineers that deliver robust and reliable software.

Key Facts

• UCAS Code: G600
• Accreditation: BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
• Industrial Placement: 12-month paid placement, in the UK or abroad, with support provided to help secure a placement.
• International Study: Option to study abroad.

Study with Us

The program aims to:

• Provide students with the skills to become professional developers of high-quality software, focusing on large-scale software systems.
• Combine theory and practice to maximize career options.
• Develop an understanding of software, hardware, communication technologies, and strong design and team-working skills.
• Offer a 12-month paid industrial placement in the UK or abroad, with support to secure a placement.

Accreditation

The program is accredited by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, for the purposes of:

• Fully meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered IT Professional.
• Partially meeting the academic requirement for a Chartered Engineer, on behalf of the Engineering Council.

Why This Course?

Software engineers design and develop large, complex systems, including those used in vehicles, phones, financial systems, and secure web and medical applications. As a software engineer, one needs a good understanding of software, hardware, communication technologies, and strong design and team skills. The program combines theory and practice, allowing for flexibility in transferring between courses, including the possibility of transferring to the MEng Computer Science course for students who perform well.

What You'll Study

The BSc Software Engineering degree covers foundation skills such as programming and computer systems organization, as well as more specialized areas including:

• Algorithms
• Databases
• Logic
• Analysis and design of large systems
• Usability
• Communications
• New programming languages
• Artificial intelligence
• Graphics
• Technologies behind web-based applications

Industrial Placement

Students will secure and undertake a 12-month paid industrial placement between Years 3 and 4, typically within a software development team. The placement may be in the UK or abroad. Support is provided to help students secure a placement, including information sessions, careers events, and student presentations.

Major Projects

Several companies work with the university to develop student projects, either individual or group final-year projects that are suitable for both parties. Projects are supervised by academic staff, with individuals from the sponsoring organization providing occasional advice and feedback.

Facilities

The university has three large undergraduate teaching laboratories, with printers in each main lab. All departmental machines are linked by a high-speed local area network and operate under a single network file system, allowing students to access their files from any of the machines.

Guest Lectures

Multiple modules invite guest lecturers from industry, ranging from startup companies to large organizations, to provide insights into real-world applications and challenges.

Study Abroad

Students have the opportunity to take an exchange year in their third year, broadening their educational experience and cultural understanding.

Student Competitions

The program includes various competitions that recognize student achievements, such as the Young Software Engineer of the Year Award, the Charles Babbage Prize, and the Andrew McGettrick Prizes, which encourage innovation, excellence, and dedication to software engineering.

Course Content

The course is structured over four years, with compulsory and elective modules that cover a wide range of topics in software engineering, including:

• Year 1: Foundation skills such as programming, computer systems organization, and information systems.
• Year 2: Subjects including algorithms, databases, logic, and the analysis and design of large systems.
• Year 3: More specialized areas such as communications, new programming languages, artificial intelligence, and the technologies behind web-based applications, along with a large group-based software development project.
• Year 4: Industrial placement and individual project work, focusing on advanced topics and the application of software engineering principles in real-world settings.

Learning and Teaching

The program aims to help students gain knowledge and understanding, as well as develop intellectual, practical, and transferable skills. This is achieved through lectures, tutorials, laboratory work, coursework, and project work, with an emphasis on independent learning and problem-solving.

Assessment

Students are assessed on their knowledge and understanding, intellectual, practical, and transferable skills through a variety of methods, including written exams, laboratory submissions, presentations, coursework, project reports, and industrial placement assessments.

Entry Requirements

The standard entry requirements for the BSc Hons Software Engineering program include:

• Highers: AAAB/AABBB (Maths B, Computing Science recommended)
• Advanced Highers: Maths and Computing Science at AB/BA and three other Highers at ABB
• A Levels: BBB (Maths, Computer Science is recommended)
• International Baccalaureate: 30 (Maths HL5, Computer Science recommended)
• HNC/HND: Relevant HNC with A in Graded Unit and Maths Higher at B
• International students: View the entry requirements for your country.

Fees and Funding

The tuition fees for the BSc Hons Software Engineering program vary depending on the country of origin and the year of study. For the 2025/26 academic year:

• Scotland: £1,820
• England, Wales & Northern Ireland: £9,535
• Republic of Ireland: Fees are the same as for England, Wales & Northern Ireland
• International: £27,100 There are also additional costs for things like printing and potential international exchange programs. Scholarships and funding opportunities are available, including the Strathclyde Access Bursary, Strathclyde Excellence Scholarship, and Strathclyde Accommodation Bursary.

Careers

Graduates of the BSc Hons Software Engineering program can pursue a wide range of career opportunities, including:

• Applications developer
• Cyber security analyst
• Game developer
• Information systems manager
• IT consultant
• Multimedia programmer
• Web developer
• Web designer
• Software engineer The program also prepares students for roles in research, software development, consultancy, and business analysis, with potential employers including Microsoft, Oracle, Logica, and Kana. Typical graduate software engineer salaries start from around £28,000 to £35,000 a year, with experienced software engineers earning up to £70,000 a year.

Course content

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

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Compulsory classes

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Machines, Languages & Computation

This class will help you to achieve a broad knowledge of the essence of computation and computational systems, as embodied by the notions of computable functions, formal languages and recursion, logic and computability and abstract machines.

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Information & Information Systems

You'll develop a broad knowledge of information systems and how information is created, used and disseminated within an information society.

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Programming Foundations

The class will provide you with a solid foundation in the principles of computer programming. On completing this class you should have the necessary skills to be able to design, build and test a small system in a high-level language (Java is currently the language used).

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Computer Systems & Organisation

Semester 1:

You'll develop an understanding and appreciation of a computer system's functional components – both hardware and software, their characteristics, their interactions, and their fundamental role in the manipulation of data.

Semester 2:

You'll further your knowledge of the design parameters of a typical computer system and the impact these have on the functionality, and implementation, of the hardware and software components.

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Combinatorics for Computer Science 1

The aim of this class is to:

introduce the basic combinatorial tools of computer science

teach you about mathematical thinking and reasoning that is pertinent to computer science

to present that reasoning in rigorous written text

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Topics in Computing 1

This class will help you to develop a broader perspective of computer science and to develop problem solving, team working, presentational skills, as well as personal and professional development skills.

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Business Analysis & Technology

The aim of the class is to raise awareness of the real world problems encountered by industry that can be solved through management science methodology.

develop an understanding of the tools and techniques used by business analysts

highlight the integrative role of technology within organisations

demonstrate the dynamic nature of technology

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Elective class

In year 1 most students take an elective class.

Classes from a range of topics are offered, normally by other departments to give a taste of other subjects and broaden your curriculum.

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Compulsory classes

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Advanced Programming

The aim of the class is to:

further your skills in object-oriented programming

provide knowledge of key abstract data types along with their implementation and usage

provide experience in the development of larger scale software and an introduction to design

The main goal is for you to be able to develop larger programs with specialised data structures and utilising APIs from a specification, and being able to ensure and show how the system they developed matches the specification.

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Topics in Computing 2

The class will help you to further your perspective of computer science and to enhance your problem solving, team working, and presentational skills.

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Combinatorics for Computer Science 2

The aim of this class is to introduce the combinatorics of discrete objects that are ubiquitous in theoretical computer science, namely graphs and relations.

For both these objects, the overarching aim is to develop your skills in mathematical thinking and reasoning, and to be able to present that reasoning in rigorous written text.

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Logic & Algorithms

This class will equip you with the tools to model and measure computation. You'll build on the skills gained in CS 103 (Machines, Languages & Computation) and develop further understanding of the mathematical foundations of computation. You'll foster an analytical and empirical appreciation of the behaviour of algorithms and the use of abstract data types.

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User & Data Modelling

You'll gain a critical appreciation and understanding of how to model user activities and the data to support them, together with how to implement systems and databases to support user activities.

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Computer Systems & Architecture

You'll develop a deeper understanding of typical computer architectures and their instruction sets and the complex trade offs between CPU clock speed, cache size, bus organisation, number of core processors, etc, that influence their design and have a fundamental impact on their performance.

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Professional Issues in Computing

This class helps you to become aware of the legal, social, ethical and professional issues commensurate with the practice of information systems engineering.

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Elective class

In year 2 most students take an elective class.

Classes from a range of topics are offered, normally by other departments to give a taste of other subjects and broaden your curriculum.

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Compulsory classes

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Computer Systems & Concurrency

The class will enable you to develop a deeper understanding of highly concurrent hardware and software systems. The class will also further your knowledge of the need for, and the design and implementation of, those other vital hardware and software components of a concurrent system, namely multiprocessors and their interconnections, operating systems and networks.

The interactions between many of these components will be investigated by means of significant practical work that consolidates the lecture content in the context of:

1. multiprocessor architectures
2. concurrency
3. protection and security
4. networked and concurrent applications

Software developed in appropriate programming languages will form the basis of much of the practical work. This allows you to enhance your software design and implementation skills in this domain.

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Optional classes

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Functional Programming

Pre-requisites:

Basic programming skills, as might be gained by taking CS 105 Programming Foundations or a similar introductory programming class.

This class will provide you with skills in basic functional programming and experience in integrated deployment of those skills.

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Mobile App Development

Pre-requisites:

CS 207 Advanced Programming

You'll gain a good understanding of the issues in developing for mobile environments and approaches to handling these issues and skills in developing for a widespread mobile platform.

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Foundations of Artificial Intelligence

Pre-requisites

: CS 207 Advanced Programming, CS 208 Logic & Algorithms

The class will give you a broad appreciation of the scale and nature of the problems within Artificial Intelligence. It will also give you a detailed understanding of some of the fundamental techniques used to address those problems.

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Web Applications Development

Pre-requisites

: CS 207 Advanced Programming, CS 209 User & Data Modelling

You'll gain an understanding of the technologies used in the development of N-tier Internet-based applications.

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Programming Language Definition & Implementation

The aim of this class is to provide familiarisation with the definition of programming language syntax and semantics, and the translation of these definitions into an implementation of a programming language.

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Compulsory classes

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Software Architecture and Design

The class will enable you to understand the challenges of advanced software design and the issues associated with large-scale software architectures, frameworks, patterns and components.

You'll also develop your understanding of the tools and techniques that may be used for the automatic analysis and evaluation of software.

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Individual Project

The aim of the class is to enable you to demonstrate practical and documentary competence. You'll also be expected to give a demonstration of your work.

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Industrial Placement

Software Engineering students in year 4 do a one-year placement between third and fourth year.

This is so you can experience the application of aspects of your degree course in an industrial context and understand the complexities of commercial software development

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Optional classes

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Advanced Functional Programming

The class will allow you to further your skills in functional programming and gain an appreciation of the mathematical structures which underpin powerful general programming concepts and techniques.

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Theory of Computation

Building on the previous material in software development, this class will extend and formalise your abilities in the area of computational complexity.

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Information Access & Mining

This class will enable you to understand the fundamentals of information access and information mining.

The class will cover a range of techniques for extracting information from textual and non-textual resources, modelling the information content of resources, detecting patterns within information resources and making use of these patterns.

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Building Software Systems

This class will:

extend and deepen your understanding of the analysis, design and implementation of software systems

provide further experience in the activity of designing and implementing non-trivial systems

enable you to demonstrate practical competence in a group environment

The goal for you is the development, in a group setting, of significant systems. You'll also be introduced to more general software engineering topics.

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Embedded Systems

This class will allow you to undertake the design and development process for embedded (dedicated) computer systems in relation to the environment in which they operate.

You'll gain knowledge in how to integrate embedded hardware, software, and operating systems to meet the functional requirements of embedded applications.

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Digital Forensics

You'll gain an understanding of issues associated with the nature of cybercrime, digital evidence, detection methods and proof, in a variety of digital forensic contexts, including computers, networks and portable digital devices.

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Learning & teaching

We aim to help you gain knowledge and understanding as well as the development of intellectual skills (problem-solving and critical evaluation skills), practical skills (designing and implementing a software system, team-working skills) and transferable skills (investigative skills, presentation skills, report-writing skills, time management skills, independent learning skills).

Knowledge and understanding is gained through lectures and supported in tutorials or laboratories as well as individual and group project work. You’re encouraged to read and research independently to help broaden your understanding of the subject.

You’ll develop intellectual skills through weekly laboratory or tutorial exercises. You’ll also be set challenging problems while further coursework and group and individual projects will help you enhance your skills.

The industrial placement will allow you to appreciate the significant engineering problems involved in the construction of software systems.

You’ll learn practical skills through lectures, tutorials, laboratory, coursework and project work.

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Assessment

You’ll be tested on your knowledge and understanding, intellectual, practical and transferable skills. This will be done through written exams, laboratory submissions, presentations, coursework, project and industrial placement reports.

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Careers

This degree produces graduates with the technical knowledge and skills, and the communication and management expertise essential to participate in and lead teams of professional engineers that deliver robust and reliable software.

Our Software Engineering degree will open doors for careers in research, software development, consultancy and business analysis with companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Logica and Kana.

Career opportunities are not limited to technology. The problem-solving, creative and personal skills you learn on this course will be sought after in many industries.

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How much will I earn?

Typical graduate software engineers’ salaries range between £22,000 and £27,500. With experience, this can vary between £36,500 and £50,000.

At senior management level, salaries can rise to around £70,000 a year.*

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Where are they now?

92.9% of our graduates are in work or further study.**

Recent job titles include:

Analyst Programmer

Assistant Language Teacher

Graduate Data Analyst

Graduate Software Engineer

Software Developer

Software Engineer

Test Analyst

Employers include:

Amazon UK

CGI

Gamma Dataware

Jet

Kana

Morgan Stanley

Mott MacDonald

National Australia Group

RBS

STV

SHE Software Ltd

*Information is intended only as a guide.

**Based on the national Destination of Leavers Survey.

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Overview:

• Founded in 1796 as Anderson's Institution
• Received its Royal Charter in 1964, becoming the University of Strathclyde
• Consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the UK for engineering and technology
• Home to the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), a world-leading research center in metal forming
• Notable alumni include Sir James Black (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Sir David Murray (former CEO of Rangers Football Club), and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (astrophysicist)

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Student Life:

• Over 23,000 students from over 100 countries
• 150+ student clubs and societies, including sports teams, cultural groups, and academic societies
• Student support services include counseling, health, and disability support
• Campus facilities include a sports center, library, and student union

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Academics:

• Offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs in engineering, science, business, law, and social sciences
• Faculty includes world-renowned experts in their fields
• Teaching methodologies emphasize hands-on learning and industry engagement
• Academic support services include tutoring, writing centers, and language support
• Unique academic programs include the Strathclyde MBA, which is ranked among the top 100 MBAs in the world

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Top Reasons to Study Here:

• Excellent reputation for teaching and research, particularly in engineering and technology
• Strong industry connections and opportunities for internships and placements
• Specialized facilities such as the AFRC and the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
• Vibrant student life with a diverse and inclusive community
• Located in the heart of Glasgow, a vibrant and cosmopolitan city

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Services:

• Counseling and mental health support
• Health center with a range of medical services
• Accommodation services with a variety of on-campus and off-campus options
• Library resources with over 1 million books and journals
• Technology support including IT services and free Wi-Fi
• Career development services with support for job searching, CV writing, and interview preparation