Postgraduate Taught
Achieve Your Potential with a Postgraduate Degree from SSESW
Our postgraduate courses connect a range of social science disciplines including Education, Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work.
SSESW is uniquely placed to offer exciting opportunities for students wishing to expand their academic and professional knowledge in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary environment. Students are taught by world leading experts within a culture that fosters intellectual curiosity and harnesses research and communication skills.
Our tailored and accredited professional courses are designed in partnership with key professional agencies with the aim of equipping students with the transferable skills that they need for professional practice.
We provide a range of postgraduate programmes for pre-service and in-service teachers as well as educational leaders.
Applied Behaviour Analysis
Autism in Practice
Children's Rights
Children's Rights and Participation | PG Certificate (online)
Educational Leadership
Education Studies
Education Studies - Jan 2026 entry
Inclusion and Special Educational Needs
TESOL and Applied Linguistics
TESOL and Applied Linguistics - Jan 2026 entry
We provide seven Initial Teacher Education (PGCE) programmes (with Eligibility to Teach/Qualified Teacher Status).
Postgraduate and post-qualifying courses include:
Advanced Social Work with Children, Young People and Families | PG Certificate
Advanced Social Work with Children, Young People and Families | PG Diploma
Advanced Social Work with Children, Young People and Families | MSc
Cognitive Behavioural Practice | PG Certificate
Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy | PG Diploma
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Trauma) | MSc
Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law | PG Diploma
Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law | MSc
Youth Justice MSc
Youth Justice PG Diploma
Social Science Research MRes
Social Science Research PG Diploma
Sociology and Global Inequality MSc
Go Beyond the Classroom with the MSc in Sociology & Global Inequality
Want a Master’s degree that goes beyond the classroom?
The Religion, Power & Peacebuilding module—part the MSc in Sociology and Global Inequality—gets you out into real communities making real change.
Students loved taking learning off the page and into practice:
“You can’t really understand it unless you see how it works on the ground.”
Undertaking postgraduate study in SSESW offers students an opportunity to consolidate a range of highly transferable skills which can be applied to roles in any field. Our graduates are typically promoted to senior positions in training, management, and research across a range of diverse settings in the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Our careers team offer one to one guidance, employability skills sessions, eg. CV writing and interview technique and job search advice. Careers and recruitment fairs and presentations from a variety of employers and alumni also help our students gain important insights to help shape their future career.
Read more Read lessWhere are they now?
The wide array of modules offered give you the space to explore multiple topics you are passionate about while using children’s rights as a jumping-off point. The lessons I learned in modules discussing children with disabilities inspired me to write my dissertation on how they are accounted for in healthcare policy. That experience made me realise that I want to pursue a career in research. I am looking forward to studying this topic further with the Centre for Children’s Rights when I start my PhD this autumn (2025). Ailbhe McGowan
MSc Children's Rights, studying for a PhD in Education
We have an active international postgraduate student body who, alongside all our students, seek to make a social difference in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. With their experience and expertise our international students offer an insight into life and study at Queen's to those interested in applying.
Based in the beautifully restored and remodelled Victorian Lynn library, this fully-accessible exclusive postgraduate hub has modern, hi-tech meeting and group study rooms, a silent study area and social spaces creating a vibrant hub for intellectual exchange and collaboration.
Meet our Programme Directors
“The MSc in Youth Justice provides an opportunity for recent graduates, and those working in policy and practice, to enhance their understanding of contemporary youth issues, system responses to young people and the discourse of children’s rights. Importantly, it aims to enhance the ability of students to apply their learning to policy, practice and research through auditing rights compliance, designing research tools, writing comment pieces/blogs and carrying out their own research on an area of youth justice, youth policy or youth practice.” Dr Siobhán McAlister
Lecturer in Criminology
Youth Justice
“Through experiential learning, the online Palliative Care course will develop and enhance practitioner confidence and skills in the complex areas of living with life-limiting or chronic illness (malignant and non-malignant), attachment, loss and grief. It has been developed for social workers who are working with people who have palliative care needs, regardless of service user group or setting (i.e. children’s disability, physical or learning disability, primary care, addictions, mental health, prisons, homelessness, dementia care, integrated care teams, hospital, or palliative care teams." Professor Audrey Roulston
Social Work in Palliative Care
Palliative Care
"We aim to provide students with excellent learning experiences to enhance their skills in both child and adult service settings. We hope students will leave the courses feeling better equipped to work compassionately and effectively with the many struggles individuals and families seek help with.” Dr Suzanne Mooney
Programme Director
Systemic Practice and Family Therapy