Computer Science with Cyber Security
Computer science with cyber security equips you with the deep technical knowledge of computing systems alongside the specialist skills needed to protect those systems from attack. Cybersecurity has become one of the most critical fields in technology, as the organisations and individuals that depend on digital infrastructure face increasingly sophisticated threats from criminal actors, state-sponsored groups and insider risks. Understanding not just how to defend systems but how attacks work, through ethical hacking and adversarial thinking, is essential for the next generation of security professionals.
At the University of Leicester this three-year, full-time programme develops your computing skills across the core areas of the discipline, including programming, algorithms, data structures, operating systems and software engineering, before building specialist knowledge in cybersecurity attacks and defence systems, ethical hacking, secure software development and data-driven AI systems. You will learn to think like an attacker in order to build more effective defences, and to apply rigorous methods to the design of systems that need to be secure from the ground up rather than patched after the fact. The programme includes a sandwich placement year, a year abroad and work placements, giving you direct professional experience in security-relevant roles before graduation.
Graduates move into careers as cybersecurity analysts, penetration testers, security architects, incident response specialists, software security engineers, forensic analysts and information security managers across financial services, government, defence, healthcare, technology companies and consulting. Demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals substantially exceeds supply in the UK and internationally, making this one of the most robust graduate employment markets in any technical field. Many graduates also pursue further certification or postgraduate qualifications in cybersecurity, computer science or information assurance.