Funded PhD Studentship: Cyber Security

An opportunity to apply for a funded full-time PhD in the College of Arts, Technology and Environment, UWE Bristol. The studentship will be funded by the Wallscourt Foundation to further our continued research investment and commitment at UWE for growing capacity and expertise within our Cyber Security team.

The expected start date of this studentship is 01 October 2025

The closing date for applications is 11 April 2025.

Studentship Details

We are delighted to offer up to 3 fully funded PhD studentships for October 2025 as part of our continued research investment for growing capacity within our Cyber Security team. Successful candidates would become members of UWECyber, an NCSC-certified Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (ACE-CSE), along with the Computer Science Research Centre and the School of Computing and Creative Technologies.

We are accepting proposals that align to the following project themes. Applicants should clearly state which project theme that they are addressing:

• AI-Assisted Autonomous Security for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Secure and Privacy-Preserving AI Models for Cyber Threat Detection
• AI-Driven Adaptive Security: Ensuring Operational Resilience in Compromised Digital Infrastructures
• Adaptive Lightweight Encryption with Formal Verification for Secure and Energy-Efficient Internet of Drones Communications
• Privacy-Preservation Techniques for Securing Large Language Models (LLMs) in IoT/Personal Devices
• The Rust Repository of Babel: Malware Library
• Securing Open Source Robotics: addressing the flaws in ROS
• Knowledge-graph based approaches for reasoning about risks of privacy leakage from Trained AI models
• Security and Privacy of Internet of Medical Things
• Novel approaches for game-based learning in cyber security

Our research group is actively involved in cyber security research ranging from cloud, IoT, and container-based security, AI for security and security of AI, digital forensics, home cyber security, geopolitics of cyber security and cyber situational awareness and decision making. The group have experience of working with a variety of industry and government stakeholders, across both national and international networks. Within the broad scope of our research, we address a number of Knowledge Areas from the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK). We would expect a successful studentship proposal to clearly align to at least one Knowledge Area that should be explicitly stated in your application, with particular interest in the following KAs:

• Malware and Attack Technologies
• Software Security
• Cyber Physical Systems
• Operating Systems and Virtualisation Security
• Distributed Systems Security
• Digital Forensics
• Network Security

We do also welcome students to propose projects beyond those stated above as part of an open call. In this case, all applicants are expected to have identified a suitable member of the academic team at UWE and have discussed their proposal prior to application to ensure that your proposal is judged to be of a suitable academic standard. Proposals that do not meet this criteria will not be considered further.

Your application should consist of:

• a 1-page covering letter that explains your suitability for the role,
• a 4-page proposal that should address the key objectives of the proposed research, initial background to position and justify why the proposed research is necessary, and an initial plan of action for undertaking the research,
• a copy of your current CV.

All queries about this position, including discussions of identifying potential supervisory teams, should in the first instance be directed to Phil.Legg@uwe.ac.uk (Professor of Cyber Security).

Essential Knowledge or Experience:

Undergraduate or postgraduate qualification in Cyber Security, Computer Science, or a closely related subject.

Strong written and spoken communication skills.

Strong programming skills.

Funding details

The studentship is available from 01 October 2025 for a period of 3.5 years, subject to satisfactory progress and includes a tax exempt stipend, which is currently £19,237 (2024/25) per annum. 

In addition, full-time tuition fees will be covered for 3.5 years for the successful Home and International applicants.

Eligibility

Applicants must have an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification in Cyber Security (or a closely related subject), along with strong written and spoken communication skills.

How to apply

Please submit your application online. When prompted use the reference number 25/26-OCT-CATE07.

Supporting documentation: you will need to upload your research proposal, all your degree certificates and transcripts and a recognised English language qualification is required English language requirements - International applications | UWE Bristol

References: you will need to provide details of two referees as part of your application.

Closing date

The closing date for applications is 11 April 2025.

Further Information

It is expected that interviews will take place in the week commencing 12^th May 2025. If you have not heard from us by this time, we thank you for your application but on this occasion you have not been successful.

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