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Economics

Applying economic thinking to the real world. Economics at Edinburgh Business School develops skills in theory and statistical analysis to help solve policy challenges and improve decision making.

MSc Economics degrees at Heriot-Watt's Edinburgh Business School develop specialist expertise across three inter-connected and highly influential subject areas of Energy, Finance and Economics.

Ranked 1st in Scotland and 5th in the UK in the NSS 2024.

Gain success in Economics

Economics is the study of how individuals, firms and governments make choices, and how these choices determine the ways in which resources are distributed across society.

Our degrees progress from an introduction to economics to the point where graduates have the skills and knowledge needed to undertake technically complex analysis of economic policy.

Our programmes are carefully designed to ensure students are ready to progress from their studies into a wide range of opportunities in areas such as financial services, management of organisations, public service, and postgraduate study in economics.

Professional Skills for Economics

The mark of a good economist is the ability to confidently manage and interpret data, which is why hands-on data analysis is embedded throughout our degree programmes, culminating in the undergraduate Year 3 econometrics project, a cornerstone of the curriculum.

At Edinburgh Business School, we equip students with practical experience in leading analytical tools. All students receive a licence and training in Stata, a key resource for professional economists, and build strong programming skills in Python, introduced from the early years and applied across multiple courses.

We are also a Bloomberg Experiential Learning Partner, offering both curricular and extra-curricular opportunities to work in our state-of-the-art Bloomberg Suite, analysing markets, financial data, and more.

By the time they graduate, our students are confident users of tools such as Stata, Python, applying data analytics to complex, real-world economic and financial challenges.

Bloomberg Suite

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Heriot-Watt University is renowned for its Economics degree, offering a diverse range of courses that blend theoretical knowledge with practical applications. My time here as an Economics student has been nothing but insightful, being able to explore various facets of the field, and getting hands-on experience while working on my projects with the help of lecturers and my peers.

Archi Agrawal

MA (Hons) Economics (2024)

I will always treasure my time in Edinburgh at Heriot-Watt, particularly because of the amazing lecturers! They are all active in their fields, so they were able to bring their own research into the classroom which made for a very interactive and applied programme.

Amanda Skellington

Economist at Strategy&, PwC