Why choose this course 

• It’s project-led from day one, so you learn by building software that works and graduate with a portfolio to show for it. 

• You’ll get genuine hands-on experience with AI, building, training, testing and deploying machine learning models, a skill employers are actively looking for. 

• You’ll work with the tools and languages industry uses, including C++, C#, the .NET ecosystem, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, Git and GitHub. 

• Small classes and tutors with industry experience mean you get the one-to-one teaching that helps you get going and keep moving. 

• You earn a UWE Bristol degree close to home, with a clear route on to the BSc (Hons) and its specialist Artificial Intelligence module. 

Year One: getting the foundations right 

Your first year covers the core of computing: programming, the web, data and networks. You share it with our cyber students, and your first dedicated software module sharpens the way you tackle problems in code. 

Year One

Fundamentals of Software Development – 30 credits: Design, code, test and debug real programs in C++ and learn how software is built. 

Web Technologies and Platforms – 30 credits: Build dynamic, database-driven websites with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. 

Database Development – 15 credits: Model, normalise and query relational databases with SQL. 

Computer Networks and Protocols – 15 credits: Configure switches, firewalls and services, and master IP addressing and subnetting. 

Business Security – 15 credits: Assess organisational risk and build secure-by-design thinking into your work.

Computational Problem-Solving – 15 credits: Master data structures, algorithms and Big O analysis to write efficient code.

Year Two: building software properly 

Your second year moves you on from writing programs to engineering software properly: designing object-oriented solutions, working with data, and getting your hands on artificial intelligence by building, training and testing your own machine learning models. You’ll also learn how a project gets planned and delivered. 

Object Oriented Software Design and Development – 30 credits: Design and build efficient, testable C# software using OO principles, UML and design patterns. 

WebApp Development – 30 credits: Build, secure and deploy a full database-driven web application across the stack. 

Introduction to Ethical AI – 30 credits: Build, train, test and deploy machine learning models, and weigh the ethics of using AI. 

Project Management – 15 credits: Plan, schedule and control IT projects using structured and agile methods. 

Practical Data Science – 15 credits: Apply statistics and machine learning to real datasets in R and Python. 

How you'll learn 

Lectures introduce the theory, but you'll spend most of your time in the workshop and the lab building things. Nearly every module asks you to make something that works, whether that's a database, a configured network, a secure web application, a forensic investigation or a deployed cloud platform. Our network and electronics labs are genuinely well equipped, and behind them sits plenty of hardware and virtualisation, AI compute facilities and production web hosting, so whatever a module needs, we can support it. Microsoft 365 is provided throughout.  We keep classes small on purpose. Your tutors know you by name, they've worked in the industry themselves, and you can ask them for help when you need it instead of joining a queue. It's a friendly place to study, and that makes a real difference to how quickly you find your feet. 

How you'll be assessed 

You won't sit a row of exams at the end of the year that decide everything. Assessment is mostly practical: portfolios where you design, build and evaluate a solution, technical lab reports, presentations, a technical interview, timed problem-solving tasks and written reports. These are the same things you'd be asked to do in a job, and the feedback you get is meant to help you do better next time rather than just mark the work and move on. 

Career opportunities 

This degree sets you up for the development jobs at the centre of the technology industry. Graduates typically go into roles like these: 

• Software Developer - Design, build and test reliable, efficient applications. 
• Junior Software Engineer  - Contribute to professional codebases within a development team. 
• Web / Full-Stack Developer  - Build complete applications across front end, server and database. 
• Back-End Developer - Implement the logic, APIs and data layers behind applications. 
• Applications Developer  - Develop and maintain data-driven software to changing requirements.
• Junior Data Analyst  - Turn data into insight using statistics and modelling. 

Where this could take you next 

Once you've finished the FdSc you can go straight into work as a developer, or carry on to the final year of the BSc (Hons) Software Development at University Centre Weston for a full Honours degree and access to more advanced engineering roles. 

UCAS Tariff - 60 points Need level 2 English and Maths and a qualification/experience in a relevant subject area. You will also need previous experience of qualifications in Digital.

No additional costs apart from the need to have a PC that can run the required software.