Foundation degrees

Working with you to help build your career

We have a reputation for working with employers to design courses that will really help your career.

We've won awards for work based learning and pride ourselves on working with local industry and the community to offer courses that are relevant and that will help you find a job.

What's a foundation degree?

Foundation degrees are higher education qualification that bring together experience and learning in the workplace with academic learning.

Employers and universities work together to design these programmes so that:

• you gain the skills to be competitive in the workplace and increase your career prospects
• employers get more people applying for jobs that have the skills they're looking for
• you also get academic recognition and a qualification which allows you to move on to an honours degree.

By doing a foundation degree, you will be doing work-related learning, for example:

• work experience
• employment
• live projects
• competitions
• work related projects and placements.

Where you study depends on the subject you choose and may well be a mix of on-campus at University, in the workplace or at home.

Who's it for?

The foundation degree is relevant to a broad variety of people. It's particularly suitable if:

• you have recently completed studies such as A levels, AVCE, BTEC, GNVQ or NVQ level 3 and are looking for a work related qualification with the option to transfer on to the final stage of a BA or BSc degree programme
• you are returning to learning after a break
• you are in work and want to improve your career prospects
• you are unemployed and looking for a way into work.

Structure and how you study

Foundation degrees are designed to be flexible and allow you to decide how much involvement you can afford in terms of time, cost and effort. The foundation degrees here at Derby offer different ways of studying but you usually choose whether to study full time or part time study.

A full time programme takes two years, and a part time programme is calculated on a pro-rata basis.

View a list of our foundation degrees

Already got experience or skills?

If you already have a high level of knowledge or skills, you may be able to use this to apply for credit so you can get onto a later stage of your course. This is called Accreditation of Prior Learning (APEL).

What can you go on to next?

Foundation degrees will give you the skills and knowledge you need to enter or get ahead in your chosen profession. They're also good if you want to go on to further professional qualifications or an honours degree.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements are specific to each course - search for the course you're interested in and then look at the entry requirement information.

We'll look at any relevant qualifications and experience you already have when making a decision.