Accounting, Finance and Mathematics (Industry) BSc Hons - 2020 Entry

Course Overview

Want to take your maths to the highest level while learning how to apply it to the world of accounting and finance? This degree is the perfect balance of theory and practice. Whether you become a banker, an accountant or a quantitative mathematician, your studies will equip you with the advanced mathematical and statistical techniques needed in the City of London and beyond.

Your third-year industrial placement allows you to gain priceless business skills. You will also have the chance to see how well academic theories work in real-life situations.

How do you build a strong investment portfolio? Or calculate financial risk? You will study investor decision-making, reporting and market analysis. You’ll also learn the key elements of relevant mathematical areas such as calculus, probability and statistics. 

This course is accredited by British accountancy bodies, providing graduates with exemptions from certain professional examinations. It also includes Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) exams. This means, on graduation, you’ll be further along the Chartered Accountants route than many of your contemporaries.

Your degree starts with subjects including calculus, algebra, probability and statistics. We will teach you the foundations of economics, accounting and finance. You will analyse data from real companies to develop your financial reporting skills.

The second year builds on your mathematical knowledge as well as introducing you to statistical computer programming. You’ll also study auditing, management accounting techniques and corporate financing.

You’ll be supported in securing a third-year placement with companies such as Deloitte, Lloyds Bank, PwC and Samsung. Roles on offer range from finance, auditing and accounting to operations, consulting and risk.

Our graduates leave equipped for a working life of teamwork, equations and algebra. Their analytical ability, logical thinking and project management skills are highly prized in banking, management and consulting.

Entry Requirements

Grade Requirements

A Level AAB

Required Subjects A level Mathematics grade A

GCSE Mathematics grade B or 6, English Language grade C or 4

IELTS 6.5 overall with at least 5.5 in each component. For other English language qualifications we accept, please see our English language requirements webpages.

Other Qualifications

International Baccalaureate 35 points overall with 16 points from the best 3 Higher Level subjects including 6 in Mathematics HL

BTEC Considered alongside A level Mathematics grade A

We welcome applications from students with a range of alternative UK and international qualifications, including combinations of qualification. Further guidance on admission to the University, including other qualifications that we accept, frequently asked questions and information on applying, can be found on our general admissions webpages.

Contact Admissions Team + 44 (0) 1524 592028 or via ugadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk

Course Structure

Many of Lancaster's degree programmes are flexible, offering students the opportunity to cover a wide selection of subject areas to complement their main specialism. You will be able to study a range of modules, some examples of which are listed below.

Year 1

Core

• Future Global Leaders

  Future Global Leaders is a professional development module taken by all first year LUMS students. The module takes place mainly online and aims to introduce you to key ideas about leadership to help you become future leaders, to enhance your online working skills and to help you develop professional and careers skills which will enhance your employability.

• Introduction to Accounting and Finance

  This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of Accounting and Finance, which include financial accounting, managerial finance, and financial statement analysis.

  An important element of this course is that it provides exposure to the business and financial environment within which the discipline of Accounting and Finance operates, using real-world financial data for actual companies.

  The course covers concepts, techniques and interpretive skills that relate to the external financial reporting of companies and their relationship to the stock market, and to the use of accounting information for internal management purposes.

• Preparation for Placement

  Your preparation your placement year starts with this module which is delivered by the LUMS Careers Team and invited employers. This module will support you in creating suitable CVs, covering letters, application forms and completing psychometric tests. At the end of the module you will have the opportunity to attend a formal assessment centre and an interview with some of the top graduate recruitment teams in the UK.

• Principles of Economics A

  Providing a thorough introduction to the discipline of Economics, this module is divided into two parts. The first part covers microeconomic analysis, including the theory of demand, costs and pricing under various forms of industrial organisation, and welfare economics. Many applications of theoretical models are examined. The second part focuses on macroeconomic analysis, including national income analysis, monetary theory, business cycles, inflation, unemployment, and the great macroeconomic debates.

• Professional Skills

  This module will provide you with the opportunity to undertake a personal skills audit as part of the CV assignment. It will enable you to identify your current skills level and begin to collect evidence of skills acquisition. It will cover a detailed analysis of the individual in terms of personality, skills, goals, interests and career ideas, and self-development. It would include organisation recruitment processes, including consideration of what organisations are looking for, the nature of ‘transferable skills’ and how these can be developed, and how organisations can select and train people.

Year 2

Core

• Accounting Information Systems and Auditing

  This module provides an overview of the design and main features of accounting information systems (AIS). It introduces methods used by business to meet the financial information needs of external parties and management and includes systems used for collecting, recording and storing transactions data, internal controls and effective design of AIS. It also provides an introduction to auditing, including the regulatory framework, audit planning, systems auditing and substantive testing.

• Computational Mathematics

  Students will gain a solid understanding of computation and computer programming within the context of maths and statistics. This module expands on five key areas:

  • Programming and R
  • Numerical solutions of equations
  • Numerical differentiation and integration
  • Monte Carlo methods
  • Numerical solutions to ODEs

  Under these headings, students will study a range of complex mathematical concepts, such as: data structures, fixed-point iteration, higher dimensions, first and second derivatives, non-parametric bootstraps, and modified Euler methods.

  Throughout the module, students will gain an understanding of general programming and algorithms. They will develop a good level of IT skills and familiarity with computer tools that support mathematical computation.

  Over the course of this module, students will have the opportunity to put their knowledge and skills into practice. Workshops, based in dedicated computing labs, allow them to gain relatable, practical experience of computational mathematics.

• Linear Algebra II

  Students will be provided with the foundational results and language of linear algebra, which they will be able to build upon in the second half of Year Two, and the more specialised Year Three modules. This module will give students the opportunity to study vector spaces, together with their structure-preserving maps and their relationship to matrices.

  They will consider the effect of changing bases on the matrix representing one of these maps, and will examine how to choose bases so that this matrix is as simple as possible. Part of their study will also involve looking at the concepts of length and angle with regard to vector spaces.

• Management Accounting for Business Decisions

  This module provides an introduction to the use of management accounting information for management purposes. This includes an examination of cost-volume profit analysis, the concepts of direct and indirect costs, and various costing methods. The importance of budgets to organisations and their impact on performance are also discussed.

• Principles of Finance

  This module covers project evaluation methods as well as risk, return and the cost of capital, including the capital asset pricing model. Corporate financing, including dividend policy and capital structure, options, and working capital management will also be investigated.

• Principles of Financial Accounting

  This module examines the main features of financial reporting by UK companies as well as the regulatory requirements and conceptual bases associated with these, with attention given to the UK Companies Acts and international accounting standards. Time will also be devoted to inflation accounting, group accounts, and problem areas and to specific reporting topics of current interest and concern.

• Probability II

  Probability provides the theoretical basis for statistics and is of interest in its own right.

  Basic concepts from the first year probability module will be revisited and extended to these to encompass continuous random variables, with students investigating several important continuous probability distributions. Commonly used distributions are introduced and key properties proved, and examples from a variety of applications will be used to illustrate theoretical ideas.

  Students will then focus on transformations of random variables and groups of two or more random variables, leading to two theoretical results about the behaviour of averages of large numbers of random variables which have important practical consequences in statistics.

• Statistics II

  Statistics is the science of understanding patterns of population behaviour from data. In the module, this topic will be approached by specifying a statistical model for the data. Statistical models usually include a number of unknown parameters, which need to be estimated.

  The focus will be on likelihood-based parameter estimation to demonstrate how statistical models can be used to draw conclusions from observations and experimental data, and linear regression techniques within the statistical modelling framework will also be considered.

  Students will come to recognise the role, and limitations, of the linear model for understanding, exploring and making inferences concerning the relationships between variables and making predictions.

Year 3

Core

• Dissertation for Accounting and Finance placement students

  The dissertation is an extended academic piece of work which aims to allow students to explore an issue which may arise on their plcement or which they may have become interested in as a result of their academic studies at Lancaster. The specification is deliberately flexible to allow for the varying placement experiences and resulting dissertation ideas which might arise.

Year 4

Core

• Financial Accounting I

  This module deals with accounting for complex entities, addressing concepts, issues and techniques.

  It examines accounting for business combinations, goodwill and strategic investments, and other aspects of consolidation, foreign currency translation, segmental reporting, and accounting for financial instruments, all within the context of modern accounting theory.

• Financial Accounting II

  This module develops your ability to critically evaluate advanced financial accounting issues, placing this within the international accounting context. It focuses on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), with appropriate and relevant comparisons to US GAAP.

  Other topics covered include the accounting treatments of taxation, leases, pensions, provisions and contingent liabilities. The module also looks at empirical research on issues of relevance to accounting practitioners and accounting regulators.

• Likelihood Inference

  Statistical inference is the theory of the extraction of information about the unknown parameters of an underlying probability distribution from observed data. Consequently, statistical inference underpins all practical statistical applications.

  This module reinforces the likelihood approach taken in second year Statistics for single parameter statistical models, and extends this to problems where the probability for the data depends on more than one unknown parameter.

  Students will also consider the issue of model choice: in situations where there are multiple models under consideration for the same data, how do we make a justified choice of which model is the 'best'?

  The approach taken in this course is just one approach to statistical inference: a contrasting approach is covered in the Bayesian Inference module.

Lancaster University offers a range of programmes, some of which follow a structured study programme, and others which offer the chance for you to devise a more flexible programme. We divide academic study into two sections - Part 1 (Year 1) and Part 2 (Year 2, 3 and sometimes 4). For most programmes Part 1 requires you to study 120 credits spread over at least three modules which, depending upon your programme, will be drawn from one, two or three different academic subjects. A higher degree of specialisation then develops in subsequent years. For more information about our teaching methods at Lancaster visit our Teaching and Learning section.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.

Careers

The skills you develop in your subject areas will open up exciting careers in accountancy, management and finance-related fields of work. You may choose to follow in the footsteps of many previous Lancaster graduates who have gone straight into professional accountancy with a training contract at a professional firm. Alternatively, you may prefer to use the transferable skills you gain - such as analytical ability, logical thinking and project management - to successfully enter a career in fields including banking, general and financial management and consulting.

Lancaster University is dedicated to ensuring you not only gain a highly reputable degree, but that you also graduate with relevant life and work based skills. We are unique in that every student is eligible to participate in The Lancaster Award which offers you the opportunity to complete key activities such as work experience, employability/career development, campus community and social development. Visit our Employability section for full details.

Lancaster Management School has an award winning careers team to provide a dedicated careers and placement service offering a range of innovative services for management school students. Our high reputation means we attract a wide range of leading global employers to campus offering you the opportunity to interact with graduate recruiters from day 1 of your degree.

Fees and Funding

Fees

We set our fees on an annual basis and the 2020/21 entry fees have not yet been set.

Channel Islands and the Isle of Man

Some science and medicine courses have higher fees for students from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. You can find more details here: Island Students.

Funding

For full details of the University's financial support packages including eligibility criteria, please visit our fees and funding page

Students also need to consider further costs which may include books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation it may be necessary to take out subscriptions to professional bodies and to buy business attire for job interviews.