Everything you need to know...
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What is the fee?
Home: £9,535 per year
International/EU: £17,155 per year (£1,200 for placement year) -
How long will I study?
4/5 Years
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Where will I study?
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What are the entry requirements?
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What is the UCAS code?
A024
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When do I start?
September 2025
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Placement year available?
Yes
Course summary
- Become a professional electrical and electronic engineer from day one.
- Gain knowledge and specialised skills in state-of-the-art labs and workshops.
- Apply your skills by completing industry-linked projects and placements.
- Explore diverse disciplines – mechanical, automotive, aerospace, civil engineering.
- Design and manage electrical systems for a sustainable future.
From smartphones and buildings to electric cars and renewable energy, the world we live in today is profoundly dependent on the talents of electronic and electrical engineers. Creating, designing and managing the systems that keep things running is vital in our society – from the generation of heat, light and power to the ease and speed of communication that we’ve come to expect.
This foundation year course is for those who don't meet the entry requirements for our BEng Hon Electrical and Electronic Engineering course, or would like extra preparation before starting degree-level study.
How you learn
This course is designed for you to gain experience as a professional engineer from day one, developing technical and professional skills from the very start.
You’ll engage in a variety of learning activities as you progress through the course.The balance of these activities changes at each level of study to encourage you to become increasingly independent learners, developing the ability to take the initiative, plan, organise and complete programmes of work – as an individual, a leader and a member of a team.
You learn through:
- Diverse lectures emphasising peer collaboration.
- Tutorials to practise and apply your knowledge ahead of assessments.
- Hands-on lab experience including computational modelling and simulation.
- Q&A and discussions for self-assessment and understanding.
- Support sessions for receiving feedback and preparing for assessments.
- Teamwork activities for collaboration in an innovative environment.
- Project-based learning to apply knowledge, creativity, design, critical analysis and professional skills to real-world projects.
Key Topics
You will begin the course will focusing on the theoretical and practical fundamentals of electrical and electronic engineering. You will then move into developing skills in analysis, design and verification of circuits before taking these skills and applying them at a system level.
Course Support
You’ll be supported in your learning journey towards highly-skilled, graduate-level employment. This includes work experience, digital skills, career readiness and graduate attributes – plus the following support:
- Access to specialist support services to help with your personal, academic and career development.
- Access to our Skills Centre for support with one-to-ones, webinars and online resources, where you can get help with planning and structuring your assignments and assessment preparation.
- Industry-specific employability activities, including work placements, live projects and networking opportunities.
- The Engineering Café, a weekly drop-in session where you can ask questions and get advice from academics.
- A dedicated Maths and Stats Support drop-in session that runs twice a week.
Course leaders and tutors
Tim Spencer
Research FellowTim's research at MERI involves the application of theory and simulation techniques for the predictive modelling of real life systems that involve fluids.
Applied learning
Live Projects
Throughout all years of the course, you’ll have the chance to work on live projects, using the tools and skills relevant to the industry today. You’ll be treated as a professional from the moment you join us, and these projects will help you to harness the skills you learn with us in the real world.
As part of this course, you’ll have the chance to run a project on data acquisition and analysis in collaboration with Netflix, where you’ll learn how to optimise data to improve the performance of systems and products.
You’ll also have the opportunity to get involved with SHU Racing, initiated and led by Sheffield Hallam students. SHU Racing caters to a broad audience, reflecting our commitment to professional diversification. Each year the team strives to optimise and develop a Formula Student competition car – through smart innovation, professionally engineered development and lean manufacturing strategies.
The SHU Racing team typically consists of over 70 undergraduate students, predominantly from the engineering disciplines.
Work Placements
You’ll have the opportunity to arrange a year-long work placement in between your second and third years. This gives you valuable work experience to prepare you for your future career – and allows you to graduate with an Applied Professional Diploma to add to your CV.
We’ll be on hand to support you in applying for and finding suitable placement opportunities. We’re in regular contact with local and national companies – and we can help you with interview techniques and preparing your CV. Previous graduates have spent their placement years at companies including Siemens, BMW, General Electric, Network Rail, Caterpillar, Cetix, British Gas, Servelec Group, Abaco Systems, ARM, British Airways Engineering and Heraeus Electro-Nite (UK).
Field Trips
You’ll be able to observe relevant industry processes through site visits. Previous trips have included tours of power stations, automotive plants and advanced manufacturing industries.
Networking Opportunities
You’ll be able to attend scheduled events across the academic year and meet industry partners, employers, researchers, and alumni. Past events have included the Alumni Careers Panel, Careers Fair, Winter Research Poster Event, SHU Racing Launch and EngFest.
Come to an open day
Visit us to learn more about our gold-rated teaching and why we were awarded the highest possible rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework.
Future careers
Graduates of this course are in demand locally, nationally and globally – giving you an opportunity to follow your chosen career anywhere in the world.
This course prepares you for a career in:
- Electrical engineering – supply and distribution
- Electronic engineering – design, development and test
- Project engineering management
- Control systems engineering
- Embedded systems engineering
- Communication systems engineering
Previous graduates of this course have gone on to work for:
- Siemens
- National Instruments
- TBG Solutions
- Honeywell Process Solutions
- Asteral Healthcare
- Cummins
- Rolls-Royce
Equipment and facilities
You’ll learn in excellent teaching facilities, including professionally equipped laboratories for teaching, projects and research.
We have cutting-edge teaching spaces, dedicated labs and workshops for:
- Electrical power, transmission and distribution.
- Embedded systems – facilities for advanced Field Programmable Gate Array and Microcontroller development (Intel, ARM and Arduino).
- Electronics and communications – modern digital oscilloscopes, function Generators, power supplies and spectrum analysers.
- Control systems– Mitsubishi & Siemens Programmable Logic Controllers and software for Supervisory Control, and Data Acquisition.
- Electrical & Electronic Design Automation software such as LabVIEW, MATLAB, MULTISIM, PowerFactory and Cadence.
- Automation, industry 4.0 facilities and a wide range of fixed and mobile robots and cobots.
- Rapid prototyping equipment with laser cutters and 3D printers.
- Materials testing and manufacturing.
360 tour - engineering facilities
Media Gallery
Entry requirements
All students
UCAS points
- 80
This must include at least 32 points from one A level or equivalent BTEC qualifications. For example:
- CDD at A Level.
- MMP in BTEC Extended Diploma.
- Pass overall from a T level qualification with C from core
- A combination of qualifications, which may include a maximum of one AS level, EPQ and general studies
You can find information on making sense of UCAS tariff points here and use the UCAS tariff calculator to work out your points.
GCSE
- English Language at grade C or 4
- Maths at grade C or 4
- Science at grade C or 4
*GCSE Equivalents
- Level 2 Literacy or Functional Skills Level 2 English
- Level 2 Numeracy or Functional Skills Level 2 Maths
• Access - an Access to HE Diploma with at least 45 credits at level 3 and 15 credits at level 2. At least 15 level 3 credits must be at merit grade or above from a QAA-recognised Access to HE course, or an equivalent Access to HE certificate.
We may also accept you, if you have no formal qualifications but can show evidence of ability and a genuine commitment to studying the subject.
Some applicants may be invited to attend an informal interview with the course leader to ensure that the programme is suitable for themselves and their aspirations.
UK students may be able to claim financial support for the course.
If English is not your first language, you will need an IELTS score of 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in all skills, or equivalent. If your English language skill is currently below IELTS 6.0 we recommend you consider a Sheffield Hallam University Pre-sessional English course which will enable you to achieve an equivalent English score.
Additional information for EU/International students
If you are an International or non-UK European student, you can find out more about the country specific qualifications we accept on our international qualifications page.
For details of English language entry requirements (IELTS), please see the information for 'All students'.
Modules
Important notice: The structure of this course is periodically reviewed and enhanced to provide the best possible learning experience for our students and ensure ongoing compliance with any professional, statutory and regulatory body standards. Module structure, content, delivery and assessment may change, but we expect the focus of the course and the learning outcomes to remain as described above. Following any changes, updated module information will be published on this page.
You will be able to complete a placement year as part of this course. See the modules table below for further information.
Year 1
Compulsory modules
Engineering And Mathematics In Practice
Foundation Mathematics, Mechanics And Electronics 1
Foundation Mathematics, Mechanics And Electronics 2
Fundamentals Of Materials And Manufacturing
Year 2
Compulsory modules
Electrical Engineering Principles
Fundamentals Of Analogue & Digital Electronics
Maths And Computational Methods
Professional Engineering Practice
Year 3
Compulsory modules
Analogue And Digital Electronic Design
Communication Systems And Computer Networks
Electrical Power, Machines, Control And Instrumentation
Industrial Group Embedded System Project
Year 4
Optional modules
Placement Year
Final year
Compulsory modules
Electrical, Electronic & Sustainable Energy Systems
Project: Implementation
Project: Management And Scoping
Elective modules
Artificial Intelligence And The Internet Of Things
Power Electronics & Control Systems
Fees and funding
Home students
Our tuition fee for UK students on full-time undergraduate degree courses in 2025/26 is £9,535 per year (capped at a maximum of 20% of this during your placement year). These fees are regulated by the UK government and therefore subject to change in future years. We are currently reviewing our tuition fees for the foundation year stage of this course following the Government announcement of fee changes for some foundation year courses and will confirm fees as soon as possible.
If you are studying an undergraduate course, postgraduate pre-registration course or postgraduate research course over more than one academic year then your tuition fees may increase in subsequent years in line with Government regulations or UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) published fees. More information can be found in our terms and conditions under student fees regulations.
International students
Our tuition fee for International/EU students starting full-time study in 2025/26 is £17,155 per year. During your placement year you will pay a reduced fee of £1,200.
Financial support for home/EU students
How tuition fees work, student loans and other financial support available.
Additional course costs
The links below allow you to view estimated general course additional costs, as well as costs associated with key activities on specific courses. These are estimates and are intended only as an indication of potential additional expenses. Actual costs can vary greatly depending on the choices you make during your course.
General course additional costs
Additional costs for School of Engineering and Built Environment (PDF, 142.7KB)Legal information
Any offer of a place to study is subject to your acceptance of the University’s Terms and Conditions and Student Regulations.
Where will I study?
You study at City Campus through a structured mix of lectures, seminars and practical sessions as well as access to digital and online resources to support your learning.
City Campus
City Campus is located in the heart of Sheffield, within minutes of the train and bus stations.
City Campus map | City Campus tour
Adsetts library
Adsetts Library is located on our City Campus. It's open 24 hours a day, every day.
Learn moreLearn more about your department
Engineering and Maths Facilities Tour
Take a look around the Engineering and Maths facilities at Sheffield Hallam University.
