The Department of Statistics admits doctoral students each year to a programme of instruction and research leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Statistics degree. A doctorate normally requires between three and four years of full-time study.  It can be in any of the subject areas for which supervision is available.

StatML is a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) based at Imperial and Oxford. It will train the next generation of researchers in statistics and statistical machine learning, who will develop widely-applicable novel methodology and theory, as well as create application-specific methods, leading to breakthroughs in real-world problems in government, medicine, industry and science.

The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Mathematics of Random Systems offers a 4-year comprehensive training programme at the frontier of scientific research in Probability, Stochastic Analysis, Stochastic Modelling, Stochastic Computational Methods, and applications in physics, finance, biology, healthcare and data science through a partnership between the Oxford Mathematical Institute, the Oxford Department of Statistics and the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London.

We train doctoral students in cutting-edge, systems approaches to biomedical research — and, uniquely within the UK, also in advanced practices in software engineering. Our goal is to bring about a transformation of the research culture in computational biomedical science. If you are interested in biomedical applications of statistics, this CDT offers fully funded places to study in the Department.

The Oxford EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Health Data Science offers a four-year doctoral programme, beginning with two terms of intensive training in core data science principles and techniques, and their application to at-scale health data. The training – and subsequent research supervision – is provided by academics from the departments of Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering Science, Medicine and Population Health.

The MSc by Research in Statistics is similar to a doctorate, but the research project is designed to take 2 to 3 years. It is not intended as a first step towards a DPhil, but rather as an alternative. There are no required lectures, classes or written examinations. It can be in any of the subject areas for which supervision is available.

Those undertaking an MSc by Research are admitted as Probationer Research Students in the same way as those intending to do a DPhil. Thus it is therefore possible to switch between the two. The same standards are applied for admission for the two degrees.