Marketing
Marketing is the heartbeat of any business. Kickstart your future with this multi-accredited course offering hands-on learning, internships, and real-life projects to build your portfolio.
How to apply Apply through UCAS Book an Open Day Chat to us/filters:format(webp)/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/08-subjects/marketing/Chloe-Buckley_-Marketing-Undergraduate_49756.jpg)
UCAS Code
N700
Start Date
September 2027
Location
Cardiff
Campus Code
B
UCAS Points
96
UCAS Code
N701
Start Date
September 2027
Location
Cardiff
Campus Code
B
UCAS Points
96
Course overview
You’ll leave with valuable experience and credentials from CIM, PRCA, and IDM, ready to make your mark.
Putting you at the epicentre of business, learn hands-on how to shape consumer experiences, anticipate needs and drive value across diverse industries. Our marketing degree prepares you for your future through real-world experience. No matter what career you see yourself entering, you’ll graduate with confidence, knowing exactly what skills and value you can bring to an employer or your own business.
Accreditations and memberships
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Accredited by The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and Institute of Data and Marketing (IDM) and membership with Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA).
Why study this course?
What you'll study
Build your knowledge and develop the skills to think like a marketer.
In your first year, you’ll explore how marketing works, why consumers make the choices they do, and how brands connect with their audiences. You’ll also develop your creativity, collaboration, research and communication skills, giving you a strong foundation for the rest of your degree.
Discover what marketing really means and how it shapes the way businesses understand customers, create value and make decisions. You’ll explore the marketing mix and develop the mindset needed to think like a marketer.
Why do we choose the brands, products and experiences we do? Explore the psychological, social and cultural influences behind consumer decisions, using marketing theory to understand what drives attitudes, motivations and purchasing behaviour.
Get creative with branding in this cross-disciplinary module, working alongside students from other creative courses. You’ll collaborate on ideas, experiment with design and innovation, and develop the teamwork and problem-solving skills needed in today’s creative industries.
Turn marketing ideas into engaging campaigns and creative content. You’ll explore campaign planning, messaging and communication channels while developing your creativity and learning how to connect brands with audiences in meaningful ways.
Put your marketing knowledge into action and build real-world experience.
In your second year, you’ll develop your digital marketing, branding and reputation management skills while tackling strategic challenges with students from other disciplines. You’ll also gain hands-on industry experience through a seven-week marketing placement, putting your learning into practice and building your professional confidence.
Take your digital marketing skills to the next level, developing and evaluating campaigns across a range of digital channels. You’ll use data and digital tools to create customer-focused strategies while building confidence in planning, implementation and performance analysis.
Explore what happens when a brand’s reputation is put at risk and how marketers can respond. You’ll develop strategies to reposition a damaged brand and create a time-sensitive crisis response, applying branding, public relations and ethical communication in a real-world challenge.
Tackle a strategic challenge linked to a real-world issue, working in interdisciplinary teams to develop and present a solution. You’ll strengthen your problem-solving, collaboration and communication skills while applying your knowledge beyond marketing.
Put your marketing knowledge into practice through a seven-week workplace experience with an employer. This module is embedded with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), giving you the opportunity to apply your learning to a real marketing project, explore how theory is used in industry and gain valuable professional experience.
Gain recognition for completing a sandwich year in industry and reflect on the experience through a portfolio of evidence. You’ll document your professional development, and the skills and knowledge gained during your placement.
Bring your marketing knowledge together and prepare for your future career.
In your final year, you’ll tackle complex marketing challenges, explore the future of customer experiences and complete a substantial research project. You’ll also work with industry and students from other disciplines, developing your professional skills, networks and confidence as you prepare for life after graduation.
Design and manage a substantive marketing research project, applying advanced marketing knowledge to a complex challenge. You’ll develop your research, project management and problem-solving skills while producing a significant piece of work that demonstrates your ability to work independently and make informed professional decisions.
Explore how organisations create memorable experiences and deliver value through services. You’ll apply service and experiential marketing theory to design and defend your own innovative solution, developing your strategic thinking and understanding of experience-led marketing.
Work with industry partners and students from creative disciplines to respond to real-world challenges and emerging opportunities. Using design thinking and agile approaches, you’ll develop and pitch innovative campaigns, solutions or experiences while building industry connections and gaining feedback from professionals.
Prepare for your next step by exploring the future of marketing and your place within the profession. You’ll develop a personal and professional development plan while building your confidence in networking, career planning, communication and reflective practice.
We regularly review our courses to keep pace with changing skills and employer needs. If a review leads to significant changes, we’ll contact you to explain what’s changing for the coming year.
Teaching and Assessment
Bring marketing to life through practical learning, real-world projects, and industry experience. From creative assessments to professional placements, you'll build the skills and confidence to thrive in a fast-moving marketing career.
You'll learn from lecturers who combine academic knowledge with real-world marketing and business experience. Teaching and learning are designed to be interactive and practical, using case studies, live briefs and employer-led challenges to bring marketing concepts to life. You'll be encouraged to explore ideas, work collaboratively, and develop solutions to real business challenges, helping you build the confidence, skills, and commercial awareness needed for a successful career in marketing.
Our BSc (Hons) Marketing course offers a dynamic blend of assessment methods to gear you up for a thriving marketing career. There are no exams, and the assessments are as varied as the world of marketing itself, coursework will include visual journals, reports and presentations, and you will also get to try out concept mapping and content creation.
We encourage a hands-on approach to teaching. Students learn by doing, putting their theory into practice in immersive environments and real-life scenarios.
Instead of just reading textbooks and listening to lectures, we'll ensure you have countless first-hand experiences and opportunities to get actively involved in your chosen profession, gaining practical skills that will prepare you for your future career.
From hands-on projects and real-world simulations to industry collaborations working with real clients, tackling real problems, and developing the skills employers are looking for. We create graduates who are prepared for the future. People ready to build their careers.
Real-world experience is at the heart of the degree. As part of the accredited Marketing in Action module, you’ll have the opportunity to complete a seven-week marketing placement, applying your learning in a real organisation, working on projects and gaining insight into the day-to-day realities of marketing. You’ll also benefit from guest speakers, industry-led activities, career development opportunities and real-world marketing challenges throughout your degree. These experiences give you the chance to build practical skills, develop professional confidence and make valuable connections, helping you understand how your marketing knowledge can translate into your future career.
Our Cardiff campus provides a modern learning environment where you can collaborate, create, and develop your ideas. With access to Mac suites, dedicated study spaces, quiet learning pods, and extensive library resources, you'll have the tools and flexibility to support both academic study and project-based work.
Course Leader
Callum Evans
Callum Evans joined the University of South Wales in 2023 as Course Leader for the BSc Marketing degree. As a former part-time mature student at USW, he understands the challenges and opportunities faced by learners from a wide range of backgrounds and is committed to creating a supportive, engaging, and student-centred learning experience.
Callum holds a BA (Hons) Business, MSc Marketing, a PGCE, and is a Fellow of Advance HE. Prior to joining USW, he taught in Further Education and spent almost a decade working as a Project Manager with SSE plc, a FTSE 100 company, experience that helps him connect marketing theory with contemporary business practice.
"The course covered a range of areas such as PR, digital marketing, and fundamentals of marketing allowing me to gain a wide knowledge of the subject."
Chloe Buckley, Marketing student
Entry Requirements
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
How to applyContextual admissions policyAsk us a question96 UCAS points or above
Typical qualification requirements:
A Level:
CCC
BTEC:
BTEC Extended Diploma Merit Merit Merit
Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate:
Pass the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Diploma with Grade C in the Skills Challenge Certificate and CC at A Level
Access to HE:
Pass the Access to HE Diploma and obtain a minimum of 96 UCAS tariff points.
T Level:
P (A* - C)
Additional requirements include:
The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
International studentsPre-Sessional EnglishEnglish language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 4 overall and a minimum of 4 in each component or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Fees and Funding
Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).
*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.
Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
Laptop
The University has computers available on campus and laptops for loan. However, it is highly recommended that you have your own personal laptop, which will be capable of running Microsoft Office 365. As a student you will be able to download a free copy of any software relevant to the course.
Cost: Up to £250
Textbooks
Text books are provided via the USW library but students may wish to purchase their own private copies. This cost is optional.
Cost: Up to £400
Internship
Students are offered the opportunity to complete an internship during their second year of study. Students undertaking an internship may incur costs associated with travel and expected workplace attire and this will vary according to the placement
Cost: Up to £300
Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).
*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.
Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
Laptop
The University has computers available on campus and laptops for loan. However, it is highly recommended that you have your own personal laptop, which will be capable of running Microsoft Office 365. As a student you will be able to download a free copy of any software relevant to the course.
Cost: Up to £250
Textbooks
Text books are provided via the USW library but students may wish to purchase their own private copies. This cost is optional.
Cost: Up to £400
Internship
Students are offered the opportunity to complete an internship during their second year of study. Students undertaking an internship may incur costs associated with travel and expected workplace attire and this will vary according to the placement
Cost: Up to £300
Work, earn and learn!
This course is also available through Network75, a combined work and study route.
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How to apply
All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS
You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time).
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Apply direct
Marketing
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Full-time, 3 years
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September
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Cardiff
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Apply direct
Marketing
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Sandwich, 4 years
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September
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Cardiff
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If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
Applicants accepted through advanced entry may study a different combination of modules to those advertised, as they will be joining a course already in progress. You will be contacted and advised about these modules once your application has been processed and an offer made.
International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
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