Finance and banking

Essex is home to one of the largest groups of finance academics in the UK. They can teach you how to forecast share prices, manage investment portfolios, understand the role of financial technology and big data, identify factors behind market booms and crashes, and why the psychological behaviour of investors is so important.

Not only will you become a skilled practitioner, you’ll become a responsible one. We’ll help you to understand the impact that the financial sector has on the world and its people and how finance professionals can be a force for positive change.

Many of our finance and banking degrees are professionally accredited and you’ll enjoy access to industry-standard facilities, such as our Bloomberg virtual trading floor.

Business is global and therefore finance is too. Our staff and students join us from around the world, attracted by opportunity to work alongside world-leading researchers and practitioners in finance.

We offer Masters courses for students who want to specialise in highly skilled areas of finance, such as risk management, financial engineering and fintech. Alongside these, we offer programmes for students who have studied only a little finance, economics or business previously and want to fast-track to a career in the financial sector.

We believe in advancing financial research that makes a difference to industry. Work by our researchers is discussed at the most influential financial institutions in the world, such as the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, but most importantly it is relevant to real people's lives.

By joining our research community, you’ll be at the forefront of thinking in areas such as the financing of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), commodity prices and their relation to food poverty, bank risk and regulation, acquisitions and financial econometrics.

We are very proud that Essex is ranked in the top 150 for Business and Economics in THE World University Rankings by Subject 2023 and Ranked in the top 200 for Accounting and Finance in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022.

We’re pleased to be able to offer a number of integrated PhDs, for students who have a strong research proposal but who do not have previous research or Masters-level study experience.

Our Research Group

• Finance Group
  Our vision is to be at the forefront of the next age of finance and to focus on research that can harness the potential of technological innovation and digital disruption to transform financial services and support sustainable growth.

Our Research Centres

• Essex Centre for Macro and Financial Econometrics (ECMFE)
  The Essex Centre for Macro and Financial Econometrics (ECMFE) brings together academic and industry expertise from both inside and outside the University of Essex to research and help solve important issues in macroeconomics and financial markets.

• Essex Finance Centre (EFiC)
  The Essex Finance Centre (EFiC) provides a world-class and stimulating environment for research activity in banking, finance and financial econometrics.  Our culture is one of integrity, inclusion and respect, with a particular emphasis on encouraging collaboration and synergy between our internal and associate members.