Details about our next Graduate Open Day will appear here.

The Master of Science (MSc) in Statistical Science is a twelve-month full-time taught master’s degree running from October to September each academic year. The course has a particular focus on modern computationally-intensive theory and methods. The MSc in Statistical Science will aim to train you to solve real-world statistical problems. The course will equip you to choose the most appropriate statistical method to solve a given problem of data analysis, implement the analysis on a computer and communicate your results clearly and succinctly.

Training is delivered through mathematically demanding lectures and problems classes, hands-on practical sessions in the computer laboratory, report writing and dissertation supervision. You will have around three months to work on your dissertation with guidance from your supervisor.

The Postgraduate Diploma in Statistical Science is a nine-month taught course, running from October each academic year. It is similar to the MSc in Statistical Science but there is no dissertation.

Oxford 1+1 Programme

The Oxford 1+1 Programme enables students to combine an MSc in a variety of subjects with an Oxford MBA from the Said Business School. You will do the MSc in Statistical Science in the first year and the MBA in the second year. Please see our Oxford 1+1 page for more information.

Students can expect to take four or five courses each term (or, in exceptional cases, three or six) for a total of nine courses. These are made up of five core courses and four optional courses. The optional courses available will vary from year to year. The core courses available each year may also vary.

2025-2026 core courses

• Applied Statistics
• Statistical Inference
• Statistical Programming
• Computational Statistics
• Statistical Machine Learning

2025-2026 options

• Stochastic Models in Mathematical Genetics
• Probability and Statistics for Network Analysis
• Advanced Topics in Statistical Machine Learning
• Advanced Simulation Methods
• Graphical Models
• Bayes Methods
• Algorithmic Foundations of Learning
• Climate Statistics

Assessment

You will be assessed on your performance in written examinations in May/June, through your work in the assessed practical problems set during the year, and by the quality and depth of your dissertation.

Please see the main graduate admissions page on the MSc in Statistical Science and PGDip in Statistical Science. For information on entry requirements.

Successful applicants will be expected to have a good understanding of basic parts of mathematics, probability and statistics. Here is the full list of prerequisite material.

For information on fees and funding, visit the University fees and funding webpage. To help you find funding, the University provides a fees, funding and scholarship search.

The Jane Street Scholarship is available for UK Black or Mixed Black students applying to courses from The Mathematical Institute, Department of Computer Science, Department of Statistics and Department of Physics.

Admissions for 2026-2027 entry open in September 2025.

Detailed information on how to apply to the courses is available on the the MSc in Statistical Science or the PGDip in Statistical Science admissions pages on the University website. For guidance on how to complete your application, please refer to the online Application Guide.

If you have any questions, pleaseuse the University help page first. If you cannot find the answer to your question or the question is specifically about the Department of Statistics, please e-mail graduate.admissions@stats.ox.ac.uk.