Economics

University of Westminster, London

Economists tackle anything from interpreting and forecasting market trends or individual business performance by country, region or market, to advising businesses, governments and individuals on everyday and strategic decisions. These can encompass areas as diverse as international trade, profit maximisation, pricing decisions, forecasting revenues or consumer demand, to managing the national health service, tackling unemployment or inequality.You’ll learn to analyse and predict the impact of economic, social and public policy issues on a variety of stakeholders, including consumers, investors, businesses, and how to source and provide the most appropriate insight to inform future decision-making and strategy.As the role of data in informing decision-making grows, this degree expands your crucial skills in data gathering, handling and interpretation, quantitative analysis and forecasting. You will use industry-standard software, including SPSS, Excel,Eviews, Minitab and other statistical packages, to analyse data, build models and produce forecasts. You will also develop key soft skills such as communicating complex economic ideas to a non-expert, a logical approach to formulating and solving problems, presentation skills and teamwork.As our economics degrees share a common first year, you’ll gain a solid foundation in economic concepts, principles, analysis, techniques and knowledge and, if you choose Introduction to Financial Economics as an option, you may be eligible to change to the Financial Economics course at the start of your second year. A variety of optional modules also enable you to tailor your studies to suit your interests, for example you can choose specialist economics modules in the digital economy, in international trade, money banking and finance. You can also choose option modules in other areas of the business school such as entrepreneurship, human resource management, marketing or accounting. Our degree also offers the flexibility of studying one language module per year.Professional recognitionThe Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is the world's largest professional body of management accountants offering the most relevant accounting qualification for a career in business. If you are considering a career in finance and business, the CIMA qualification will open doors with employers all over the world. This course will give you the opportunity to apply for up to 4 exemptions entering into the CIMA operational level.CareersThis highly practical course aims to prepare you to use economic reasoning, mathematical and statistical analysis, to analyse and evaluate financial performance and public policy issues. You’ll develop a range of transferrable skills useful in almost any career, including excellent communication, strategic and logical thinking.On graduation, you can target a role as an economist, financial or commercial analyst, or choose to pursue a broader career in government departments, banking, risk and insurance, investment and broking firms, retail and manufacturing firms, the media, social work or the voluntary sector.Past economics graduates have secured roles as economic consultants, management trainees, investment bankers, professional accountants and within the Government Economic Service. Increasing numbers of students progress to further study on graduation: either taking professional qualifications (in accountancy, finance, for example) or proceeding to a specialist Master’s degree in the economics or finance area.Job rolesThis course will prepare you for roles such as:Account manager Actuarial analystAssistant economistBusiness analystCommercial project managerCommodities analystData analyst EconomistFinancial advisorInvestment analystJournalist