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Start date
22 September 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
4 years inc. placement year
Places available (subject to change)
20
About the course
Reasons to study
- This course is accredited by the Institution of Chemical Engineers and could help you to achieve Chartered Chemical Engineer status after graduation.
- Your learning will take place in new £18.2 million facilities. Gain hands-on experience using scientific instrumentation in our modern chemical sciences labs.
- Step out of the classroom and into the real world on a placement year, which could enhance your employability prospects.
Chemical engineering is a vital branch of engineering concerned with the analysis and design of chemical processes for manufacturing purposes. Studying this alongside chemistry could introduce you to potentially exciting career opportunities, which allow you to make an impact in a variety of fields, including pharmaceuticals and healthcare, process design and construction, and food science.
Why study Chemical Engineering with Chemistry BEng(Hons)
This Chemical Engineering with Chemistry BEng(Hons) course is accredited by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), meaning it will provide in-depth coverage of modern, industry-relevant chemical engineering material, from the fundamentals all the way to process design. You’ll be prepared to start your journey towards achieving Chartered Chemical Engineer status after completion.
This course will equip you with a solid understanding of the fundamentals of chemical engineering as well as chemistry, with an emphasis on developing skills such as problem-solving, logical reasoning, and imaginative thinking.
You’ll gain relevant real-world experience throughout this course. You’ll be taught by leading academics through lectures, seminars, and sessions, which will be supplemented by modern industry instruments in our specialist chemical sciences and chemical engineering labs, which include pilot-scale rigs. Following your first two years in the course, you’ll put your knowledge and skills to the test in an optional supervised work placement. During this placement year, you’ll:
- Experience working in a real-world environment within the industry, in the UK or internationally.
- Explore employment opportunities within organisations related to your studies and chosen pathway.
- Network with potential employers and construct work experience profiles to prepare for a future Chemical Engineering or Chemistry career.
This course will prepare you for a variety of potentially exciting careers in a range of fields in the industry, as well as for future study. You could work in chemical manufacturing, environmental consultancy, nuclear engineering or oil and gas.
Course detail
Core modules:
The Reactivity and Properties of Carbon Compounds
This module teaches you to recognise a range of functional groups and to name systematically compounds that contain them. Structure and bonding in organic compounds are discussed, as are the concepts of the octet rule, orbital hybridisation, formal charge, bond polarisation and resonance. The importance of molecular geometry is introduced and the basic principles of molecular conformation and of stereochemistry are covered. In preparation for the chemistry to follow, an integrated treatment of the 'language of chemical change' is presented. The ideas of mechanism and reaction intermediates are met, together with the curly arrow symbolism which chemists use to represent the electron movement inherent in chemical reactions. In the second half of the module, the chemistry of the principal functional groups is considered, using the ideas developed earlier. The lecture programme is reinforced by regular tutorials in which problems are worked. Running parallel to the lecture programme is a continuously assessed practical course that introduces you to the basic techniques of preparative organic chemistry.
Physical Chemistry 1
Chemical Engineering Design 1
Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow
Chemical Engineering Labs and Inorganic Chemistry
Mathematics
Core modules:
Physical Chemistry 2
This module covers six topics: equilibrium and dynamic electrochemistry, phase equilibria, colloids and colloidal suspensions, colligative properties, kinetics of composite reactions and quantum theory – basic principles and simple applications. With the exception of quantum theory, material in the other areas builds on that presented in year 1.
Transport Processes and Unit Operations
Chemical and Biochemical Reaction Engineering
Chemical Engineering Design 2
Multiphase Systems
Organic Chemistry 2
Supervised Work Experience
The supervised work experience (SWE) is normally a 48 week placement in a suitable organisation. The actual content of the placement will vary depending on the specific background and demands of individual students and the opportunities available within differing employing organisations. Placements are available both within the UK and abroad and assistance is provided to help find a suitable position. You'll be visited up to twice a year by your University tutor. The SWE provides an opportunity for you to experience employment within organisations related to your chosen pathway and at the same time improve your technical and social skills.
Core modules:
Design Project 1
From the IChemE Accreditation Guide: “In order to meet the learning outcomes associated with the systems approach, the design portfolio must include a major design exercise which addresses the complexity issues arising from the interaction and integration of the different parts of a process or system. It is expected that this major project will be undertaken by teams of students and that this will contribute significantly to the development of the students’ transferable skills such as communication and team working.” A minimum of 30 UK credits of Design Project work is required for IChemE accreditation.
Design Project 2
Safety Engineering and Process Control
Advanced Mass Transfer & Reaction Engineering
Sustainable Industrial Systems
Organic Chemistry 3
On average 31.8%* of the study time on this course is spent with your tutors (either face to face or online) in lectures, seminars, tutorials etc.
*based on 2023/2024 timetables
You’ll be taught through a series of lectures, tutorials, seminars, workshops, problem solving sessions, practicals and directed reading. Assessment will include written exams and coursework including problem solving assignments, practical work, laboratory reports, short tests, and oral and poster presentations.
Your module specification/course handbook will provide full details of the assessment criteria applying to your course.
Feedback (usually written) is normally provided on all coursework submissions within three term time weeks – unless the submission was made towards the end of the session in which case feedback would be available on request after the formal publication of results. Feedback on exam performance/final coursework is available on request after the publication of results.
Huddersfield is the UK’s only university where 100% of the permanent teaching staff are fellows of the Higher Education Academy.*
*permanent staff, after probation: some recently appointed colleagues will only obtain recognition in the months after their arrival in Huddersfield, once they have started teaching.
Further information
The teaching year normally starts in September with breaks at Christmas and Easter, finishing with a main examination/assessment period around May/June. Timetables are normally available one month before registration. As this is a full-time course you may have to attend every day of the week.
Your course is made up of modules and each module is worth a number of credits. Each year you study modules to the value of 120 credits, adding up to 480 credits in total for a bachelor’s qualification and 360 credits in total if you choose not to take the supervised work experience year. These credits can come from a combination of core, compulsory and optional modules but please note that optional modules may not run if we do not have enough students interested.
If you achieve 120 credits for the current stage you are at, you may progress to the next stage of your course, subject to any professional, statutory or regulatory body guidelines
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The University of Huddersfield has been rated Gold in all three aspects of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023. We were the only university in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West to achieve Gold ratings in all three aspects of the TEF among those announced in September 2023. In fact only 13 Universities, out of the 96 that were announced in September 2023, were Gold in all three ratings.
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Further proof of teaching excellence: our staff rank in the top three in England for the proportion who hold doctorates, who have higher degrees, and hold teaching qualifications (HESA 2024). So, you’ll learn from some of the best, helping you to be the best.
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We are joint first in the country for National Teaching Fellowships, which mark the UK’s best lecturers in Higher Education, winning a total of 23 since 2008 (2024 data).
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We won the first Global Teaching Excellence Award, recognising the University’s commitment to world-class teaching and its success in developing students as independent learners and critical thinkers (Higher Education Academy, 2017).
Read more about academic staff at the University of Huddersfield
At Huddersfield, you'll study the Global Professional Award (GPA) alongside your degree* so that you gain valuable qualities and experiences that could help you to get the career you want, no matter what your field of study is. On completion of the Award, you'll receive a GPA certificate from the University of Huddersfield, alongside the specialist subject skills and knowledge you gain as part of your degree, which may help to set you apart from other graduates.
Giving students access to the Global Professional Award is one of the reasons the University won ‘Best University Employability Strategy’ award at the National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2021. Find out more on the Global Professional Award webpage.
*full-time, undergraduate first degrees with a minimum duration of three years. This does not include postgraduate, foundation, top-up, accelerated or apprenticeship degrees.
Entry requirements
BBB-BBCat A Level including Maths and either Chemistry or Physics. The endorsement for practical work is an essential part of Science A Level study, and is a requirement for entry to our degree course. |
120-112 UCAS tariff points from a combination of Level 3 qualifications including A Levels in Maths and either Chemistry or Physics. The endorsement for practical work is an essential part of Science A Level study, and is a requirement for entry to our degree course. |
Merit at T Level including grade B in A Level Maths. |
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If you do not have the appropriate qualifications for direct entry to this degree you may be able to apply to our Science Extended Degree (BCF0).
If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.
Other suitable experience or qualifications will be considered. For further information please see the University's minimum entry requirements.
Facilities
Student support
At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.
Important information
Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons