The masters in finance is so firmly established it is hard to believe that the qualification has only been around for a little over ten years. Aimed at graduates from numerate disciplines — economics, maths, physics and engineering — this specialist masters degree paves the way for a career in investment banking and financial services.

Originally offered by a small core of university business schools, including London School of Economics, London Business School, Manchester Business School and Imperial College, London, the MSc in finance is now offered by more than 100 business schools. This popularity is the result of a rise in numbers of graduates and increased competition for jobs in the financial sector. Not even the credit crunch appears to have dented demand.

Imperial College Business School (formerly Tanaka) revamped its masters in finance this autumn by introducing new electives in private equity, distressed debts and portfolio management. The modules add to specialisms such as asset management and hedge funds and are the result of listening to feedback from alumni and employers.

Lina el-Jahel, the MSc finance programme director, explains: “So much has changed in the past decade that we decided to redesign our MSc.”

The finance industry is increasingly reliant on highly technical quantitative techniques, she says. “Graduates need to know how to price sophisticated structured products.”

The MSc in finance is also appealing to a far wider market than when it was originally conceived. When Manchester Business School launched its programme in 1996 the intake was mainly from the UK. This year only 20 per cent of students are from the UK and European Union; the rest are from emerging financial markets such as China, South Korea and India.

Rachel Tufft, head of postgraduate marketing at Manchester Business School, (pictured) says: “Ten years ago we were preparing people for the City. Now we are seeing the big Chinese and Greek banks coming to recruit on campus. Most of our overseas students want to work in their own countries.”

Tufft says the credit crunch has had surprisingly little effect on student enrolment. “It is true that home students are slightly down on last year, but that has been more than compensated for by extra demand from Europe, mainly from France and Germany.”

As the finance industry has evolved, the masters degree has become more specialised. Business schools have added new electives to reflect changing practice and have created sector-specific MScs in related disciplines. The popularity of its masters in finance is such that Manchester has 2,000 applicants for 250 places on its six related masters degrees.

Surprisingly, the core of the MSc in finance has changed little over the years. Sabine Vinck, associate dean of finance programmes and MBA at London Business School, says this is because the MSc is still a generalist programme in a specialised field.

However, the school’s MSc is essentially a post-experience qualification. Vinck says: “Our target market is experienced people who are committed to a career in finance. We have students with a minimum of two years relevant experience and an average of six years. They could be analysts, investment bankers or could come from a finance function in a large corporation.” The programme’s unique selling point is the student experience of high-level peer discussion in class, she adds.