Businesses today are heavily reliant on computer networks in their daily operations. It is important to ensure that such networks are well designed, optimised, secured and tested for maximum uptime and ease of management. There are excellent opportunities for network engineers with such skills and experience. The MSc in Computer Networks with Communications aims to produce postgraduates with an advanced understanding of computer networks with hands-on experience of the planning, implementation and maintenance of such systems. The course aims to prepare a student with specialist knowledge and skillset in key areas such as network design, storage area networks, optical networking, network simulation, network redundancy and reliability. Students will be able to review commonly used network simulators, commercial and academic, their common and specific purposes and architectures. The course will enable the student to apply a holistic understanding of networks and their applications in solving real world problems. It will also enables them to develop the ability to critically evaluate and integrate devices and components used for high speed fibre optical communication system, develop the ability to model the behaviour of modern day network systems to design and critically evaluate such systems at all levels of the OSI model.

Our students are now working in companies such as ARM Holdings Ltd, BBC, Broadcom, British Aerospace, BskyB, BT, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Google Enterprise, HP, Huawei Technologies, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Quinix, Rolls Royce, Sony, Virgin, Xilinx and other medium and smaller companies. Our research-active staff work in areas such as digital signal processing, ultra-low-power signal processor design, communication networks, distributed computing, microwave filters and circuit design, satellite navigation, and next-generation communication systems. Furthermore, staff are actively involved with industry and these links, together with the research activity, inform the teaching of these state-of-the-art MSc courses. All of our courses are in the process of seeking accreditation by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The types of Job that a graduate from the Networks suite of MSc courses may wish to apply for include: Network support engineer Network design architect Network manager Project manager Security auditor Network security architect Distributed systems engineer Teaching Research and development