online Education Futures (Online Learning) MSc, PgDip (ICL), PgCert

An innovative, interdisciplinary degree with Edinburgh Futures Institute

Education, in all its forms, is essential to a thriving society. How organisations, systems and people learn and change profoundly affects our lives, our surroundings and our futures. This MSc is a bold and innovative programme for those who wish to engage critically with educational possibilities for the future, and understand how educational knowledge, organisations, spaces and relationships can positively shape societies.

The Futures Institute's Education Futures programme is designed to respond to the need for creative, critical and experimental thinking across education in schools, universities and colleges, and learning within communities, industries and organisations. Some of the issues you will explore include:

• mobility
• politics
• environmental change
• culture
• social justice
• how data-driven systems for managing and understanding the world influence learning and education

You will explore the ways that knowledge, culture and skills are produced and reproduced, how people, organisations and systems learn, and how this influences global challenges and change. Your studies on this programme will support you to:

• think ambitiously about the future of education across all sectors
• gain vital data and creative skills to support your future career
• apply innovative methods to building a strong future for education and learning

Postgraduate study at the Edinburgh Futures Institute

This programme is part of an interconnected portfolio of postgraduate study opportunities at Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI).

The Futures Institute supports interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research that is focused on complex global and social challenges. Our programmes are taught by academic experts from many different subject areas.

As a Futures Institute student, you should be proactive and motivated. You will be supported to develop creative, critical, and data-informed thinking that cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries. You will have the space to think deeply about questions linked to your own passions and professional goals and will develop a project based on an issue that you care about.

As well as knowledge specific to your area of study, studying at Edinburgh Futures Institute will give you the skills and understanding you need to become a creative, confident, and critical citizen in a fast-changing world.

These skills include:

• core data skills
• data ethics
• the ability to interrogate issues of global scope using perspectives from across disciplines
• creative and analytic approaches to knowledge

You can join us regardless of whether you already have experience or practical skills in the use and application of digital data.

These entry requirements are for the 2025/26 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2026/27 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2025.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in any discipline.

We will also consider your application if you have other professional qualifications or experience; please contact us to check before you apply.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency which will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 73 with at least 65 in each component. We do not accept PTE Academic Online.
• Oxford ELLT: 8 overall with at least 7 in each component.

Unless you are a national of a majority English speaking country, your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start of the month in which the programme you are applying to study begins. If you are using an IELTS, PTE Academic, TOEFL, Trinity ISE, or Oxford ELLT test, it must be no more than two years old on the first of the month in which the programme begins, regardless of your nationality. (Revised 14 January 2025 to include Oxford ELLT.)

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

The programme is aimed at both professionals and recent graduates who work in, or are seeking to build a career in, either formal or informal learning and training sectors.

Future opportunities may include education-related roles in:

• higher education
• further education
• community and cultural settings
• schools
• training organisations
• private, government and voluntary sectors

Whether your role or interest is in policy, learning design, teaching and delivery, or educational research, you will find courses and modes of study that will help you develop your career, and position you for roles in a range of education and learning organisations in a range of sectors.

The programme will be of particular interest to those who are preparing for or beginning leadership roles where a focus on developing future educational provision, policy, technologies and practices is key.

The core elements of the programme address the data and higher-order skills we know are important for the future of work, confident and critical citizenship, and a thriving, just society.