Bachelor of Arts - English Literature and Journalism (Honours)

BA (Hons) English Literature and Journalism combines critical reading with reporting practice: literary study across periods and theory alongside news writing, media law and ethics, and multimedia journalism produced to professional standards.

The combination suits students drawn to writing as craft rather than only as information delivery, and it produces the feature writers, critics and cultural journalists that literature-only degrees prepare intellectually but not practically.

Journalism modules supply the legal framework, deadline discipline and clip portfolio that editors require, while literature modules build the reading range that specialist cultural coverage demands. Entry is possible at five points per the export, with January starts alongside each September cycle.

Counselling should distinguish this route from its language-based sibling clearly, because the fee difference is substantial: this literature pairing runs at £16,800 while English Language and Journalism is recorded at £13,750, despite sharing the journalism modules that carry the vocational weight. Students choosing between them are effectively paying £9,000 across three years for literary rather than linguistic content. Both produce employable journalists; the choice should turn on genuine subject preference and the family budget rather than on assumptions about prestige, and either way the clip portfolio matters more than the transcript at hiring. Whichever route a family selects, the shorthand training and media-law modules should be treated as the employability core rather than as obligations beside the literary reading.

Newsroom entry pays £19,000–£23,000 with communications roles higher, and freelance culture writing typically supplements rather than replaces salaried work early on. Graduates qualify for the Graduate Route’s 18-month allowance under post-2026 rules, with dependants excluded on taught study.