Advanced Nursing MSc

Teaching methods

Teaching is delivered in a range of engaging and interactive formats by academic and specialist staff working in the contemporary health care environment.

Teaching methods include:

• lectures
• seminars
• workshops
• tutor-led online learning environments

Full-time students

As a full-time MSc student, you will take two core courses and two option courses each semester.

There is a choice of one of three different dissertations:

• empirical
• research proposal
• e-portfolio

This is to be completed during the Semester 3.

You can follow one of three different pathways: leadership, education or clinical research, or can take a generic pathway, depending on career aspirations and areas of interest.

Part-time students

As a part-time student, you can choose one or two courses each semester and have a choice of dissertation in your final year.

You can also follow the three different pathways or take a generic pathway.

The compulsory courses form the core part of the MSc and are:

• Nursing and Global Health Policy: developing your political leadership
• Designing Research in Nursing, Health and Social Care

You can then choose 4 optional taught courses before you go on to undertake the dissertation.

Optional courses

Optional courses can be chosen from those on offer within the School of Health in Social Science or across the wider University and are dependent on the pathway that the student chooses.

Optional courses vary across years depending on the specific courses on offer, but some of the current optional courses available include:

• Homelessness and Inclusion Health
• Contemporary Issues in Leadership for Health and Social Care
• Global Public Health: a critical approach to health improvement
• Learning by doing Research in Nursing, Health and Social Care
• Complex Interventions: an engaged approach to development and evaluation
• Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and Stroke Rehabilitation
• Community Nursing
• Person Centred Care in Practice: Relationships and Emotion

Find out more about compulsory and optional courses

We link to the latest information available. Please note that this may be for a previous academic year and should be considered indicative.

The programme will enable you to:

• Develop advanced specialist knowledge and skills to be able to interrogate nursing, health and social care research, scholarship and practice within the context of a globalising world.
• Develop extensive, detailed and critical knowledge and understanding in either leadership, education or clinical research.
• Enhance skills to be a professional and critically reflective practitioner able to provide evidence-based practice in both a local and international context.
• Develop advanced skills in critical analysis for working in an evolving landscape of nursing, health and social care.

This programme will facilitate career progression for those working in any branch of nursing to develop advanced nursing knowledge, skills and understanding.

As a student, you will develop research skills to enable you to apply for progression to doctoral level study upon successful completion of the programme.

In addition, if you are taking a specific pathway, you will develop specialist skills in leadership, education and clinical research to progress your career in these areas.

These entry requirements are for the 2025/26 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2026/27 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2025.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, and a nursing qualification.

We may also consider your application if you have other qualifications or experience; please contact us to check before you apply.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency which will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 6.5 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 92 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 176 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE II with distinctions in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 65 with at least 59 in each component. We do not accept PTE Academic Online.
• Oxford ELLT: 7 overall with at least 6 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS, TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE, in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

Tuition fees

Funding for postgraduate study is different to undergraduate study, and many students need to combine funding sources to pay for their studies.

Most students use a combination of the following funding to pay their tuition fees and living costs:

• borrowing money

  • taking out a loan

  • family support

• personal savings

• income from work

• employer sponsorship

• scholarships

Explore sources of funding for postgraduate study

UK government postgraduate loans

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

To find out about scholarships and funding, please visit our student funding site.

• School funding pages.

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding