This is one of the few subject–country pairs where we can answer the cost question from our own data rather than pointing at somebody else's range. We list 30 Computer Science programmes in the UK — 28 master's and 2 bachelor's — and hold a verified tuition figure for 18 of them, each one checked against the university's own page.
The numbers, and what they mean
Across those 18 verified programmes the annual tuition runs from £17,000 to £43,730, with a median of £19,450.
The gap between the median and the top is the whole story. A £43,730 figure is a small number of names at the very top of the market; the middle of the UK CS market sits a little under £20,000. If your mental model of a UK master's was built from the headline figures at two or three famous universities, it is roughly double what most of this list actually charges.
The usual caution applies with more force than normal: we hold verified figures for 18 of 30, so this is the shape of the market and not the whole of it, and a fee verified today is a fee for a stated intake. The twelve without a verified figure are not cheaper or dearer — they are unchecked, and we would rather say that than average them in.
One year, which is the real difference
All 28 UK master's on this list run 12 months. The two bachelor's run 36.
Set that against Germany, where 63 of the 69 CS master's we list run 24 months. One year of tuition and living costs against two, and twelve months earlier into a salary. For a self-funding student that difference frequently outweighs a tuition gap, and it is the single most under-weighted variable in the UK-versus-Europe decision.
What you give up is time: less room for an internship, a shorter dissertation, and a year that is genuinely compressed. People who have worked for a few years tend to handle that well. People coming straight from a bachelor's sometimes find the pace brutal.
Where the 30 are
By city: London (9), Coventry (3), Leeds (3), Middlesbrough (3), Manchester (2), Portsmouth (2) and Newcastle upon Tyne (2).
By institution: University of Leeds (3), University of Greenwich (3), Teesside University (3), University of Manchester (2), University College London (2), King's College London (2) and Coventry University (2).
Nine of the thirty are in London, where the tuition figures and the rent are both at the top of their ranges. Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Coventry and Leeds are the other half of that trade — and on a self-funded budget the city often moves the total more than the tuition line does.
Entry requirements
Where an English requirement is recorded on our listings it is IELTS 6.0 on 8 programmes, 6.5 on 8, and 7.0 on 5. That spread is wider than most applicants expect, and the 6.0 end is real — a band that rules you out of one UK CS master's will not rule you out of all of them. We have written separately on reading an IELTS requirement properly.
The stay-back, briefly
The Graduate Route is the other half of the UK case, and we have covered it in post-study work visas explained. For a CS graduate specifically, the thing worth noting is that a 12-month degree plus the Graduate Route puts you in the labour market considerably earlier than a two-year European equivalent — which is either the point of choosing the UK or beside it, depending on whether you want to stay.
Browse the set: Computer Science in the UK, master's only, or the subject across every destination we list.
Fees and catalogue figures counted from our published listings on 6 October 2026: 18 of 30 programmes carry a tuition figure verified against the university's own page. Check the current figure for your intake before you apply.