For Students

The Data Lab Academy

What is The Data Lab Academy?

It takes more than good academic and technical skills to start your career in data and AI. You must also communicate well, have real-world experience, and have a good network. You need to prove that you are innovative, ethical, and employable.

The Data Lab Academy offers a programme of workshops, networking events, masterclasses and a residential innovation challenge to support your professional development. The best part? It’s free to join.

You participate alongside your academic studies and earn digital badges to prove your networking, employability, ethics, and innovation capabilities.

Participating in the programme also allows you to apply for a paid industrial placement, putting you in an ideal position to get the best possible graduate job.

Students at The Data Lab Innovation Week Closing Event 2023 clapping in their seats

Who can join The Data Lab Academy?

The Data Lab Academy is for anyone studying in one of our approved MSc programmes.

View a list of eligible programmes at the bottom of our scholarships page, or email us to find out more.

Why join The Data Lab Academy?

This free programme provides you with networking and new skills, plus a variety of perks:

More than 50 hours of relevant training across the academic year to enhance your CV.
Officially certificates of achievement (digital badges) that prove your skills in networking, ethics and innovation.
Access to networking and industry events.
An opportunity to apply for a paid industrial placement.
Participation in our industry-sponsored Innovation Week Challenge.
Access to masterclasses, including our most popular course on Data Ethics.
Access to knowledge through our Data Lab MSc Alumni and The Data Lab Community.

What funding is available?

Participation in The Data Lab Academy is free for qualifying students.

We also offer a variety of scholarships to help fund your studies.

Explore our eligibility criteria and scholarship options

How to apply

Let your university know that you wish to be considered for a place with The Data Lab Academy.

If your university selects you as one of its applicants they will refer you to our application portal having considered which scholarship is relevant for you. We will review the submission, and let you and your university know the result.

If you are successful, simply accept our offer and we will formally invite you to join the programme.

Approved MSc courses

Applications for the 2025/2026 academic year are now open.

The MSc courses approved for 2025/26 are the following:

Hear from The Data Lab Academy alumni

An incredible opportunity to support a career transition, reorient myself to working with health data, and benchmark my skills against professional standards. The networking opportunities are invaluable.
The Data Lab Alumni

It was a great opportunity to be part of a community with like minds and also access to a lot of materials and talents I ordinarily would have not been able to access
The Data Lab Alumni

I’m thankful to The Data Lab for giving me the opportunity in the first instance to study data science, and for then subsequently arranging the MSc placement with Energy Mutual. Having completed my MSc, I’ve now secured a data analyst’s job with NCR, and for that I need to give full credit to The Data Lab and the MSc Placement Programme.
Farheen Tamkanath
MSc Data Science at RGU