Join over 500 researchers working with industry and government to address some of the problems facing the world today.
Electronics and computer science (ECS) is the leading university department of its kind in the UK. We were on of the first universities to be named an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (ACE-CSE) by the UK government.
Our research is organised around research groups and centres. You'll join one of these groups. This means that specialist academics will always be on hand to hear your ideas and offer help and encouragement. With around 250 staff, ECS has unrivalled depth and breadth of expertise.
You'll have the freedom to run your own project and you'll be supported by a team of supervisors. Direct and regular contact with your supervisors will help you develop your scientific insight, and steer you towards creative and original thinking.
Our graduate school provides training on transferable skills, courses on research methodology, and a working framework to help you settle into a disciplined working routine. You'll also have opportunities to travel to international conferences and events to present your work.
ECS holds an annual careers fair that attracts major companies. The majority of our graduates take up roles in the technology industry or develop their research interests further. If you have a great idea our Future Worlds startup accelerator is there to nurture aspiring entrepreneurs through one-to-one support and its network of investors.
We offer 2 PhD routes.
This is our standard 3-year research degree. When you apply, you'll choose one of the following:
Our iPhD includes a taught first year. This is a good option if you're changing your field of study or have a background in industry. We offer these 4-year funded options through our Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT). Currently we offer the following research areas:
A key feature of ECS is that we are truly interdisciplinary. Many of our research groups sit at the interface between electronics and computer science, including cyber security and cyber physical systems. Areas include:
You can either apply for a structured studentship or propose your own PhD idea.
Structured studentships are advertised PhD projects with a title, supervisor, remit and funding already in place. These projects have been set up through collaborations with industry, external partners or they may have been provided through one of several centres for doctoral raining which we take part in.
Taking one of our structured studentships will give you access to additional training, conferences and secondments.
In this research project, you'll develop effective mapping algorithms for graph-based problems. To achieve this, you'll work with multiple existing massively parallel hardware architectures at the University of Southampton.
Autonomous systems such as self-driving cars, drones, autonomous boats, unmanned underwater vehicles, potentially help to reduce the costs and protect humans from hazardous situations. In situations where close collaboration between multiple assets is required across different operational domains, ensuring the safety and security of the complex multi-component systems is essential to allow different assets to successfully complete their individual tasks. Secure communications which can influence the safety of missions as well as other safety conditions must be considered as early as possible.
The UK's Digital Health Industry has an estimated £1.9bn turnover. The UK government is investing in research and innovation for healthcare, promoting digital adoption, and more specifically digital tools to help people manage long-term health conditions in their own homes.
Electrogastrography (EGG) records the electrical activity of the gut and can provide useful information about the health and wellbeing of an individual. However, unlike the more mature technologies such as electrocardiography (ECG), electroencephalography (EEG) or electromyography (EMG), the potential of EGG has not been studied fully yet. Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship to explore the potential of EGG in healthcare.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way we live, work, and interact with our environment. In order to realise its predicted scale of trillions of devices, while also supporting global green energy targets, sustainable technologies are required throughout the stack. This includes everything from efficient energy storage and generation, semiconductor devices, and compute, through to green communications and networking, efficient data processing, and edge intelligence.
This PhD studentship aims at developing a radiation detector technology based on memristive system. This project exploits the architectonic of memristor device (small, low power, fast, and intrinsically rad-hard) to sense radiation onboard the high-altitude and space objects.
We are relying more and more on technology in our everyday life, which exposes us to several serious threats in the cyber-physical space. The relentless evolution of modern technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, and cloud computing played a pivotal role to extend the possibilities offered by the cyber-physical space, which is therefore getting more and more intertwined with our lives. Many benefits have been brought in by cyber-physical technologies in terms of efficiency, opportunities, and connectivity. However, our heavy dependence on the cyber-physical space has been massively exploited by attackers to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our devices, data, and services. Attacks are not only limited to cyberspace, indeed the ubiquity of embedded devices means that adversaries can directly access them and can carry out physical and side-channel attacks. The attack surface is further complicated by the significant rise in the level of outsourcing in the integrated circuit supply chain, which has given rise to additional threats, including Hardware Trojan and integrated circuit counterfeits.
Robots have the potential of becoming companions that can assist and collaborate with people in everyday tasks. The embodied multimodal interaction capabilities based on gestures, speech, vision and affect/emotion exhibited by the robot companions can better engage users, physically and socially, compared to digital interfaces such as mobile phones and computers. In most of the cases, the interaction behaviours exhibited by the robots are coded manually or automated to limited extents. For example, by using scripted dialogues or teleoperated gestures. Further, there is also a need to investigate techniques to synchronize the behaviours exhibited across multiple modalities to suit various interaction contexts. For example, the gestures of the robot need to suit its speech and emotional context of the conversation.
We offer a wide range of fully funded studentships. We run several of our PhD studentships in partnership with doctoral training centres, meaning you'll benefit from enhanced training and guaranteed funding.
These studentships:
Doctoral training centres offer fully funded studentships which include:
We offer funded iPhD through our CDTs in:
We offer scholarships and teaching bursaries ourselves. Your potential supervisor can guide you on what is available.
If you’re an international student you may be able to apply for a scholarship from your country.
Find out more about scholarships
Once you've found a supervisor, they can help you with potential funding sources. We offer match funding in some cases.
You'll need to state how you intend to pay for your tuition fees when you submit your application.
Find out more about funding your PhD
You may be able to fund your postgraduate research with funding from your current employer or from industry.
You can borrow up to £26,445 for a PhD starting in 2022. Doctoral loans are not means tested and you can decide how much you want to borrow.
Find out about PhD loans on GOV.UK
You may be able to win funding from one or more charities to help fund your PhD.
We charge tuition fees for every year of study. If you’re applying for a fully funded project, your fees will be paid for you.
| Subject | UK fees | International fees |
|---|---|---|
| Computer science full time | £4,596 | £24,600 |
| Computer science part time | £2,298 | £12,300 |
| Electronics and electrical engineering full time | £4,596 | £24,600 |
| Electronics and electrical engineering part time | £2,298 | £12,300 |
| Machine intelligence for nano-electronic devices and systems full time | £4,596 | £24,600 |
You're eligible for a 10% alumni discount on a self-funded PhD if you're a current student of graduate from the University of Southampton.
Our research takes place in a multidisciplinary, collaborative environment, organised across globally important research groups and national research centres.
Building better engineer systems and designing the interaction between human and machines.
Researching cutting edge technology and developing and teaching the next generation of healthcare and bio-related technologies.
The Centre for Flexible Electronics and E-Textiles (C-FLEET) is a centre of expertise for flexible smart materials, printed electronics and electronic textile technologies. We work with industry, policy makers, and the general public to address both national and global challenges.
Our research within the cyber physical systems (CPS) Group involves the exploration and development of theoretical foundations, modelling and programming languages, engineering methods, design tools and system engineering applications.
Researching technologies such as energy efficient power transmissions, satelite technology and renewable power generation for the 21st centrury.
Researching and devloping new methods of wireless technology.
We explore how renewable energy sources and more efficient technology can help make electronic devices less harmful to the environment.
We develop and apply advances in IT technology, working with academic and industrial partners.
Our work covers a range of technological areas from control, to machine learning and computer vision.
We engage with the wider community to address some of the greatest economic and societal challenges facing the World Wide Web today.
We offer 2 doctoral routes:
If you decide to apply for an iPhD make sure you refer to the individual requirements and application deadlines through the relevant CDT:
If you choose our standard research PhD, decide whether to apply to an advertised research project or create your own proposal.
Whichever programme you choose, you'll need to identify a potential supervisor. Therefore it's a good idea to email supervisors working within your field of interest to discuss PhD projects. It's best to do this well ahead of the application deadline.
You’ll find supervisors’ contact details listed with the advertised project, or you can search for supervisors in the staff directory.
As part of your online application, you’ll need to send us:
If you are applying for the MINDS iPhD you'll also need to write a 2000 word research outline.
The application process is the same whether you're applying for a funded project, or have created a research proposal.
You should have a 2:1 honours undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification in a relevant discipline.
If English is not your first language, you'll need an IELTS minimum level of 6.5 with a 5.5 in writing, reading, speaking and listening.
If you are applying for the MINDS iPhD. you'll need an IELTS minimum level of 6.5 with a 6.0 in writing, reading, speaking and listening.
Your awarded certificate needs to be dated within the last 2 years.
If you need further English language tuition before starting your degree, you can apply for one of our pre-sessional English language courses.
Check the specific entry requirements listed on the project you’re interested in before you apply.
Research degrees have a minimum and maximum duration, known as the candidature. Your candidature ends when you submit your thesis.
Most candidatures are longer than the minimum period.
| Degree type | Full time | Part time |
| Computer science PhD | 2 to 4 years | 3 to 7 years |
| Electronics and electrical engineering PhD | 2 to 4 years | 3 to 7 years |
| Machine intelligence for nano-electronic devices and systems PhD | 2 to 4 years | Not available |
