Why to Follow this Program
Career opportunities
Current and future market trends show a continuously increasing demand for experts in various areas of Computer Science, one of the sectors with the highest absorption in the job market. The three tracks that compose our Master’s program provide both the theoretical and practical skills in cutting edge Computer Science technologies, including Machine Learning. Cybersecurity, Big Data Analytics, etc. These skills are considered to be in the top-10 technology and market trends for 2021 and beyond, according to several surveys by Forbes, Gartner, and others (indicative examples can be found here and here).
Despite the market trends, our postgraduate students have the opportunity to continue their studies at PhD level. Currently, several postgraduates of our MSc Program serve as post-doctoral researchers or PhD candidates in all the above areas, participating in EU- and nationally-funded research projects. A few more words about the three tracks that compose the MSc in Cybersecurity and Data Science:
Information and Communication Systems Security (ICSS)
As cyber threats are continuously evolving and valuable data are continuously becoming accessible on-line, cybersecurity will remain a trending technology and security experts are expected to gain higher salaries than the expected average salary of computer science experts. The need for proper cyber security is so high that by 2021, cyber-attacks are expected to cost $6 trillion globally. The demand for cybersecurity experts not only covers the IT sector, but also can be found in all the sectors of the economy including finance, health, industry, public services, defense and e-commerce, among others. Popular career opportunities for Cybersecurity experts, graduates of our ICSS track, include, among others:
- Cyber Security – Data Privacy officers / engineers / consultants
- Information security risk analysts
- Network security experts
- Code auditors
Infrastructure and Systems Security and Reliability (ISSR)
The proliferation of IoT devices in business and daily life applications has opened up a range of new jobs as embedded systems designers and developers in today’s market. Moreover, since the integration of IoT devices within safety-critical industries, such as automotive, healthcare, avionics, etc., is endless, the dependability is becoming a growing concern, pushing the companies to hire highly-skilled engineers to design secure and reliable systems, and thus making the embedded system cybersecurity one of the hottest and well-paying job market for computer scientists. According to a recent Markets and Markets Report, the global IoT security market size is expected to grow from $12.5 billion in 2020 to $36.6 billion by 2025, while key factors driving this growth are the rising security concerns for critical infrastructures. Popular career opportunities for embedded system engineers, graduates of our ICSS track, include, among others:
- Embedded/IoT hardware and software engineers
- Embedded systems / hardware security engineers
- Embedded systems / hardware test engineers
- IoT / Critical Infrastructure security analysts
Business and Data Analytics (BDA)
Back in 2010, Data Scientist was considered to be “the sexiest job of the 21st Century”. Nowadays, there are still many reasons why one should consider a career in Data Science. It is true that the needs for Big (or extreme-scale) data processing and analytics will continue to grow; according to a recent Markets and Markets Report, the global market for big data is predicted to grow from $138.9 billion this year to $229.4 billion by 2025, with the data science platform growing 30% by 2024. It is also inevitable that the exponential potential and growth of Machine Learning and AI will keep data scientists busy innovating. Popular career opportunities for Data Scientists, graduates of our BDA track include, among others:
- Machine learning experts
- Big data architects / engineers
- BI developers / data analysts
- Mobility data analytics experts