What qualifications are typically required?

For the greatest career opportunities you will require a postgraduate degree (MSc or PhD). This reflects the fact that most demand is for statisticians who will work with scientists from other disciplines and have the confidence to provide the necessary statistical quality control on their work without day-to-day supervision. Some employers may recruit from a first degree and then sponsor their staff to undertake higher degrees.

The University of Reading runs the only MSc in Biometry in the UK, but any MSc or PhD in statistics should be acceptable, particularly if it places emphasis on applied project work. For information about postgraduate degrees throughout the general area of statistics, please see our prospective postgraduates section. Other appropriate higher degrees may be in areas of applied mathematics, physics (for modelling complex systems) and computer science (for areas such as bioinformatics where machine learning techniques can contribute to the interpretation of massive amounts of molecular data). Graduates from other subjects (for example, biological sciences) may require a two-year course to reach the appropriate Masters level.