This unit enables learners to begin to think about how digital transformation may benefit their organisation, their job role, or the day-to-day activities within their organisation or their team. This understanding should be pathway neutral as learners at Level 5 will be expected to understand and contribute to plans for a digital transformation, regardless of their role. 

This unit builds on the professional practice content first introduced in Level 4’s Unit 21 (Synoptic Project and Professional Best Practice) where learners considered team behaviours that contribute to effective working, written and oral communication and wider considerations such as ethical practice and an understanding of relevant legislation.

Because the IT industry is fast moving, practitioners should understand that working in this sector will necessitate continuous professional development (CPD), often including the updating of technical skills as well as the development of professional skills as practitioners are promoted. 

This unit aims to equip you with an e understanding of innovative technologies like AI, IoT, Blockchain, AR, VR, and the world of connected devices. You will explore their applications, understand their working principles, and learn about their implementation and ethical challenges. This knowledge and skill set will prepare you to navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape.. 

This unit enables learners to examine a wide range of information systems that they will find in industry. When working in industry, IT practitioners must be able to see the bigger picture, drawing on all of their knowledge and previous experiences to find the best and most viable solutions to the problem. This is particularly important when working with non-technical managers who may not understand the technologies that they need to be able to perform their role. Practitioners must be able to share their knowledge and understanding in an appropriate way to promote the use of data and information systems to support modern business and enterprise. 

This unit will teach the learners relational theory concepts such as normalisation, foreign keys, ensuring consistency, three value logic, indexes for efficiency, database optimisation etc. As an advanced course, it will presume that the learners have some familiarity with basic SQL extraction and manipulation techniques, such as those taught in L4 Unit 8. It will teach how to create various database objects and their benefits, e.g. tables, dynamic/materialised views, triggers, stored procedures, user defined functions etc. 

This unit introduces various tools and languages used for data engineering. It presumes that the learners have a basic understanding of programming at the level normally taught in L3 or L4 computing programming syllabi. It will use the SciPy ecosystem of module in Python to perform efficient programmatic data loading and data manipulation using a variety of functions provided by the modules. 

This unit will familiarise learners with the techniques used to implement data flows, both near real-time and batch processing. It will introduce the ETL paradigm, the tasks performed at each stage and how they are typically implemented in a data warehouse. It will introduce the logical hierarchical modelling structure that is implemented in star and snowflake schemas in data warehouses. 

This unit will introduce machine learning algorithms from an implementational point of view. It will present a few of the popular algorithms without delving into the statistical behaviour or mathematical theory behind them. It will also introduce methods to evaluate and document their performance. 

This unit enables learners to focus on the popular Object-Oriented paradigm and associated SOLID principles as exemplified in programming languages such as Java, C++, C# and Python.

It includes a strong promotion of the DevSecOps practice; the notion of security being “shifted to the left” to avoid costly baked-in bugs, encouraging a shared responsibility through the software’s lifecycle and its quality assurance processes.

Furthermore, it encourages learners to consider modern approaches (and tooling) used when products are designed, written, and then deployed at scale in potentially costly (and high-profile) software engineering projects. 

This unit enables learners to understand how data can be transmitted between different client and server technologies in both unsecured and secured states.

UDP and TCP based connections are the very heart of the transport layer of the ISO OSI 7-layer model, providing a way for commercial applications to transfer data between a range of client and server-oriented technologies.

Although not intended as a networking unit as such, any aspiring software developer should have both an appreciation and technical understanding of the processes required to achieve this type of application connectivity in a commercially oriented programming language. 

This unit enables learners to understand how digital transformation using virtualisation and cloud computing can solve many issues experienced by organisations which need to operate efficiently and cost effectively in a rapidly changing world.

This unit places additional focus on the impact of these technologies, and on the development, deployment and testing aspects of the software development discipline. 

This unit enables learners to understand how digital transformation is facilitated through the use of cloud native solutions, an approach which incorporates the building and running of applications that fully leverages the advantages of a cloud computing platform.

It also provides learners with knowledge and experience in designing and building cloud-native applications that are cost-effective, automated, scalable, and resilient. This is achieved using modern DevOps tools, design applications, microservice architectures, and the deployment of containerised applications to cloud platforms using cloud-native best practices. Note: learners would benefit if they have studied the Cloud Computing unit prior to this unit.  

This unit aims to teach the learner to understand the role of ethical hacking and the types of penetration testing (“pen testing”) used in the development of secure systems. Learners who aspire to the pen testing/ethical hacking role will need to understand a range of pen testing tools and be able to explain their role with respect to adversarial behaviours and to malware and attack technologies. Learners will need to be capable of planning, performing, and reporting on a pen test for a given scenario.

Learners should appreciate that successful hacking is largely down to the skills of the hacker (analytical skills, problem solving skills, understanding of networks, computer systems and programming) than their respective equipment/tools and methodologies.  

This unit is designed to help students acquire the necessary skills to fulfil the increasing need for computer forensics in the security and law enforcement sectors. It introduces the fundamentals of computer forensics and enhances cyber security knowledge through an exploration of the evolution and history of digital forensics. The unit also provides opportunities for students to consider professional standards and policies, as well as to learn about the management and investigation of digital crime scenes.  

The continuing growth of cloud-based networks has led to the concept of Infrastructure as Code. Network engineers now need to think about their networks differently and this unit aims to develop the skills required to plan and code complex cloud systems. It will form a basis to gain the skills needed to build and operate cloud-based networks and examine how they can be deployed and monitored using manual and automated systems. 

This unit aims to develop the skills required to be a network engineer with advanced problem-solving and troubleshooting skills. It involves exploration of cloud infrastructure architecture to design and provision cloud-based solutions, providing the opportunity to discuss, apply and analyse network and cloud infrastructure security measures. 

This unit is designed to enable learners from any pathway to resolve a business problem or show how a business opportunity could be pursued using appropriate tools and technologies. The project should be a suitable match to their study pathway and should make use of the knowledge and skills gained when studying the other units making up their qualification.