Every morning, Rebecca Docherty logs on from her home near Edinburgh and begins writing lines of code. To most people, these cryptic-looking lines are indecipherable. But the AI models she builds help researchers sift through millions of molecules in search of tomorrow’s medicines or analyse brain scans that support preclinical research.
“One of the things I love most about my job is that it’s directly helping human health,” says Docherty, a senior scientist at the German biotech firm Evotec where she applies advanced computing in early-stage drug development (in silico testing).
Writing AI code for use in drug discovery is no easy task, and she sometimes finds herself flicking through notes she took during her online MSc in computer science at the University of Bath a few years ago.
It’s a reminder how her studies helped reshape her career. In 2019, after years working in academia, Docherty felt she’d reached a career crossroads. With AI beginning to transform drug discovery, she saw the MSc as a route from her chemistry background into a rapidly growing field.
“There was so much I use in my job now,” she says. “Deep learning, the mathematics behind AI, software engineering skills …”
The MSc prepares students for AI-adjacent jobs by equipping them with other sought-after skills such as data science, entrepreneurship and cybersecurity.
Another University of Bath course – the artificial intelligence online MSc – promises to answer “AI’s biggest challenges” through topics such as robotics, reinforcement learning and natural language processing. Students also learn how to formulate decision problems using Markov processes (a way of modelling decisions and predicting likely outcomes), not a phrase you’ll hear every day, but one that stands out on LinkedIn.
Equally important, both courses embed ethical and safety considerations. “These courses aren’t just technical; they talk about how organisations can use AI responsibly,” says Dr Benjamin Ralph, senior lecturer in computer science. “[These firms] aren’t looking for somebody who’s played around with ChatGPT a couple of times; they want people who understand AI on a technical, but also applicational and societal level.”
Back in 2019, ChatGPT didn’t exist, “prompt engineering” sounded like something to do with trains and few people outside a research lab knew what the letters “LLM” (large language models) stood for. Still, Docherty sensed AI’s epoch-shifting potential and began looking for a way into the field.
“Even though I’d worked for a pharmaceutical company before, I didn’t have practical skills such as programming or machine learning,” she says. No prior coding or programming experience is required for the course, making it accessible to a wide range of people from professional or academic backgrounds.
“I tried to teach myself but found it hard because the industry requires specific standards, plus I was working full-time. What I needed was the structure of a degree …”
The course took three years to complete, spanning two maternity leaves and a pandemic. Because teaching was asynchronous, Docherty could continue working as a knowledge exchange scientist, but also “be there physically for my daughters – I’d study before they woke up, in my lunch hour or late at night”.
The focus on teamwork impressed Docherty. “It taught me lots of soft skills,” she says. “In academia, I’d spent a lot of time working by myself. I found it quite lonely. But on the course, we’d do software engineering projects such as developing a banking system, which was great because I could talk about it in interviews.”
When it came to her dissertation, Docherty hit upon an idea rooted in a pressing healthcare problem. Dismayed by the high failure rate of anti-cancer drugs (one 2017 BMJ study found more than half of new cancer drugs showed no benefits for survival or wellbeing) and the length of time it took to develop these medicines, she chose to explore how AI might offer solutions instead.
“I felt it was such a shame that these drugs were taking so long to develop and likely to fail,” she says. “There was so much scope for innovation.”
Her dissertation found that transformers – the architecture underpinning LLMs – could improve the predictions of anti-cancer drug targets (molecules such as proteins, enzymes or receptors that interact with medicines to help treat the disease).
If the highly specialised subject area wasn’t challenging enough, Docherty was midway through her second pregnancy when working on her dissertation. “I found it tough,” she says. “I felt very sick and never slept – I was really tired.”
But the effort paid off. Her dissertation supervisor, Dr Hongping Cai, lecturer in the University of Bath’s computer science department, immediately recognised its potential. “Rebecca’s dissertation was a great example of how students can apply the AI skills they gain at Bath to solve important real-world problems in their own fields,” she says. “It gave me every confidence that she’d thrive in an AI-focused career.”
Docherty graduated with distinction, scoring highly in her dissertation, with assessors noting its “potential to make a meaningful contribution to AI-driven drug discovery”. Employers had spotted her talents long before then: two months before she submitted the dissertation, Evotec had offered her a job.
Docherty credits her MSc with laying the groundwork for the career-defining role. “Going from academia to industry can be hard but having this qualification demonstrated I could work there and talk the same language as employers,” she says.
The global reputation of the University of Bath – ranked eighth in the Guardian University Guide 2026 – is reflected in graduates from the AI and computer science courses landing jobs at leading companies from Apple to Microsoft.
Big tech behemoths aren’t the only companies hoping to employ University of Bath alumni. “There’s such a demand for these skills across the entire economy, pretty much any organisation is taking them seriously,” says Ralph. Indeed, alumni have secured positions ranging from banking at Goldman Sachs to working with the Mercedes F1 team.
Docherty, now in her fourth year at Evotec, is excited about AI’s impact on healthcare. “Drugs are now being approved or in clinical trials at a much quicker rate,” she says.
Research published in Drug Discovery Today in 2024 suggests AI-discovered drugs have an 80-90% success rate in phase 1 trials, compared with the industry average of 40-65%. The technology is also speeding up the search for new medicines. Usually, drugs take 10-15 years to develop. With AI, it can be just two years.
“Rebecca’s story shows that our online MSc programmes can open doors to new career opportunities,” says Cai. “They allow students to gain advanced computer science and AI skills while balancing work and family commitments. Her journey shows how combining previous experience with new technical knowledge can lead to career transformation and exciting opportunities in fields such as AI.”
“Before the MSc, I was stuck in my career,” says Docherty. “Now, I’m working in AI on problems that could improve human health … It’s completely changed things for me.”
Discover how an online MSc at the University of Bath can kickstart your career in AI
