The course is what you make of it. It's possible to scrape through the compulsory programming modules in the first 2 years with poor programming skills, and then by careful choice of modules and leaving the coding to others in group work, get by without really being able to code. They will have needed to code during the first few years to some extent, but can mostly get away with not coding in later years if they go for modules that skew towards maths or academic research.

When I say "unable to code" here I mean unable to produce working solutions to problems in a professional environment. I'm sure these people can get a few ifs/loops together in Java.

Because the course is what you make of it, there are plenty of excellent programmers by the end, and the department has a good relationship with some great grad programmes at companies like ARM, Google, Microfocus, the finance industry, etc. IBM just look for a different kind of student.