The Course
If you are looking for a career that offers the best pay of all the professions (and without the need to take postgraduate qualifications) and have an interest in science or engineering, then Financial Mathematics is the degree for you. Just as civil engineering deals with the design, construction and maintenance of buildings and roads, financial mathematics is concerned with the design, construction and maintenance of financial products. An explosion in the market of financial mathematicians occurred after the 1987 crash. Following the recent turmoil in the financial markets, investment banks are already planning to recruit more properly skilled mathematicians.
Career Prospects
Although investment banking is the main destination of financial mathematicians, the skills developed on the programme are desirable to all business, and there are many research opportunities. The severe shortage of well-trained financial mathematicians means that graduates are much in demand.
What Financial Mathematicians do
- They manage financial risk and design new financial products
- They are experts in deciding which assets to choose to fit the investment needs of their clients
- They do this by analysing the past and modelling the future
- They apply financial mathematics, probability, statistics, economics, and finance to solve problems in banking and investment