I have just been accepted for a 1-year MRes that starts in a few weeks, and applied too late to get funding so I'm looking at taking out a loan. Should I apply for a student loan or a career development loan. Thanks for any advice

When you say student loan do you mean a government student loan, like UGs get? I didn't know they were available for PGs.

I wouldn't get a Career Development Loan as I don't think they are a good deal.

Thanks for your reply, it seems that student loans are not available for postgraduate courses. Can I ask why would you not recommend a career development loan.

The interest rate of the CDL was higher than a standard bank loan. I thought that was bad, and decided I'd just get a standard bank loan, but then found HSBC offering a Postgraduate Professional Loan with very good deferment terms. You can get one of these if your course is professional related e.g., medicine, dentistry, law etc.

This was some time back though so things may have changed.

This link has good info: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/career-development-loans

I got a proffessional development loan to do my masters. I don't know if the rates were any good cos I'm not very money savvy :$ Anyway Ended up workign through masters so don't spend the money and jsut paid it off at the end instead of over 5 years.
I guess I'd advise looking at what you plan to do after, if going on to a PhD you still have to start paying off the loan 6 months after the loan period ends. This might be difficult to pay off even if you get funding for a PhD.