Bachelor of Arts - Advertising and Marketing Communications (Honours) (with placement year)

This sandwich route runs the Advertising and Marketing Communications curriculum around a placement year in the communications industry — agencies, in-house brand teams, media owners or PR consultancies — stretching the course to four years with both September and January entry recorded in the portal export. Taught levels match the standard degree through campaign planning, creative development, media strategy and digital communications.

The placement year in this field is effectively a twelve-month portfolio engine: everything shipped — posts, campaigns, decks, results — becomes interview material, and placement students return with the client-handling scar tissue that final-year group projects then benefit from. Agencies recruit placement students through spring assessment days, and the faculty’s industry links across the Midlands communications scene feed the vacancy pipeline.

Portfolio mechanics favour this variant measurably: UK creative-industry graduate schemes commonly require work examples at application, and placement-year students apply with a year of professionally produced campaign material where standard-route peers submit coursework. The four-year plan runs on the £16,800 taught-year fee with the customary reduced placement-year charge, and both September and January entries appear across the export’s three cycles.

Counselling honesty: in a portfolio-first industry the sandwich year is closer to mandatory than optional for students without family connections into the business, and its salary — commonly £17,000–£20,000 pro rata — funds much of the extra year. Graduation falls around 2030 inside the 18-month Graduate Route regime for post-2026 applicants; dependants remain excluded on taught study; and placement-year tuition is customarily reduced, to be confirmed with DMU at offer.