Do you need Higher Maths for Computer Science in Scotland?

You’re picking S5 subjects, or your results have landed and Maths isn’t on them, and the question is whether that shuts a Computer Science degree. Of the fourteen universities checked here, five require it and nine don’t, and one of the five will take you without it if you apply to a slightly different degree and transfer across in second year. Everything below is from each university’s own course page for September 2027 entry, read on 9 October 2026.

Which universities actually require it?

University	Higher Maths	Standard offer	Minimum / widening access
Edinburgh	A	AAAAA, by end of S5 preferred	AABB by end of S6
Glasgow	A	AAABB in S5 to be reviewed, then typically AAAAAA by end of S6	ABBB (MD20) or AABB (MD40)
St Andrews	A, plus a pass in a second science	AAAAB	AABB
Strathclyde	B	AAAB or AABBB	ABBB or BBBBB
Heriot-Watt	B	ABBB over two sittings	BBBC over two sittings

Glasgow is stricter than its headline number suggests. AAABB from S5 only gets your application reviewed, and the offer itself is typically AAAAAA by the end of S6. Its adjusted offer for MD20 and MD40 postcodes drops the grades but keeps Higher Maths at A and adds a condition — finishing Glasgow’s Top-Up or a Summer School. That’s the pattern across all five: the widening access offer drops grades, never the Maths.

Edinburgh wants the Maths no more than two academic years old when you start, and takes no second-year entry at all. Strathclyde’s AAAB/AABBB means four Highers or five, not S5 and then S6.

Where can you study it without Higher Maths?

University	What it wants instead	Standard	Minimum / widening access
Stirling	Nothing subject-specific	ABBB	BBBC
Aberdeen	Maths or two sciences; N5 English and Maths at C	BBBB	BBC
Dundee	A STEM or technical Higher	BBBB	BBCC
Abertay	A technical Higher at C, Computing Science among them	BBBB	ABB
Edinburgh Napier	N5 Maths or Applications of Maths at C	BBBB	BBCC
Glasgow Caledonian	Higher Maths, Applications of Maths or Computing	BBCC	BCCC
Robert Gordon	N5 English and Maths if not held at Higher	BBCC and two passes	CCCC and two passes
UWS	Higher Maths, Applications of Maths or Computing Science	BCCC	CCC, or CC plus a bridging course
UHI	None published; year one of the degree is an HNC	—	—

One thing about that last column before you compare it across rows. Some of those minimums are three Highers rather than four, which is why Abertay’s ABB can sit next to a standard BBBB without being a mistake. Aberdeen’s BBC and UWS’s CCC are three-Higher offers too. A grade profile is only comparable against another of the same length.

Two of those rows have a hole in them. Aberdeen asks for “Mathematics OR two Science subjects” and Dundee for “a STEM or technical subject”, and neither publishes the list of what counts, so email them and get it in writing. Abertay does publish its list, and Graphic Communication is specifically excluded. The UWS and Robert Gordon pages carry no entry year at all — UWS was still showing Clearing for September 2026 when this was checked — so confirm those two rows yourself.

Why do some need it and others don’t?

At Edinburgh it’s the timetable. Year one of the BSc Computer Science compels two Informatics courses and Linear Algebra 1, a 20-credit course run by the School of Mathematics that you have to pass. Behind it sits Calculus and Algebra Fundamentals for Informatics, which the degree regulations require of “students with Higher Mathematics only, or Advanced Higher less than Grade A”. So turning up with exactly what Edinburgh asks for still puts you in a catch-up calculus class, and 40 of your 120 first-year credits come from the maths school. That’s why it won’t count a Higher more than two years old.

St Andrews is the exception. It wants Maths at A as well, but its current programme requirements name no maths module in first or second year, so the Higher there is doing selection work rather than prerequisite work.

The ones that don’t ask for it teach the maths instead. Stirling, which names no required subject whatsoever, makes you take a module in semester one “specifically designed to help with your understanding of networks, logic and algorithms”.

Why doesn’t Applications of Maths count?

Because it’s a different course, not an easier one. Both sit at SCQF level 6, but Higher Applications is built around modelling, statistics, finance and project planning, and its course specification says outright that “ideas from calculus, such as derivatives, are not required” — no differentiation, no integration, no trig identities, no logarithms. Higher Maths carries the symbolic manipulation that a course like Linear Algebra 1 assumes you’ve met, so Glasgow and Heriot-Watt both refuse the substitution in writing.

What if you haven’t got it?

Heriot-Watt’s own Computer Science page asks: “Not studying mathematics or worried about meeting the mathematics requirement? Consider applying for BSc Computer Systems.” Computer Systems wants the same ABBB, or BBBC on the minimum offer, with no Maths requirement attached. Take two optional maths courses in year one and, on a good performance, you can request a transfer to Computer Science for year two.

The other route is college, since an HNC sits at SCQF level 7 and an HND at level 8 and lands you in year two or three. The maths requirement usually survives the detour, though: Strathclyde wants Higher Maths at B alongside the HNC, Napier wants it at B for year two, and Heriot-Watt wants maths at SCQF level 6 inside the HNC, which is Higher level under another name.

So should you take Higher Maths?

If you’re choosing S5 subjects and computing is even a maybe, take it. It’s the only subject that gates any of the fourteen degrees here, and not one of the other nine holds it against you.

If results have already happened, work out what you actually want before you resit anything. Aberdeen and Dundee both make their standard offer at BBBB with no Maths requirement, and BBBB clears the standard offer on 610 of the 1,506 courses in the calculator. Resit it if Edinburgh, Glasgow or St Andrews is genuinely the point — a Higher at college or a private centre runs about £350 to £640 — but resitting Maths for a degree that never asked for it costs you a year for nothing.

This covers the main single-honours Computer Science or Computing degree at each university. Joint degrees with Maths, and specialist ones in artificial intelligence or data science, generally ask for more.