Business Management and Sustainable Practice with Placement Year

Gain a solid grounding in the fundamentals of business management, while gaining skills for the future as industries move towards a sustainable future. 

The world of business is changing at an exponential rate as companies work towards sustainability goals across net zero carbon, social responsibility and environmental sustainability, and companies will require managers of the future to have a solid grounding in how to move businesses forward whilst adapting to meet these priorities.

Our modules have the United Nations Sustainable Development goals and the UNESCO sustainability competencies embedded as part of your learning, so you’ll develop skills to be at the forefront of embedding change and responsible management in organisations. Real world learning is a key part of your studies – from working on live industry briefs, guest speakers from the business world, and the opportunity to complete a placement year between your second and third year, you’ll have opportunities to put your skills into practice before you graduate.

Boost your employability with a placement year

You’ll have the opportunity to take a placement year to put the skills you’ve learned into practice in a real-world environment. We'll support you to find your placement and throughout your year in industry. Placements allow you to gain valuable experience to add to your CV, make industry contacts and help you to narrow down what kind of role you may be interested in after graduation. 

Tailor your degree

All our Business Management degrees have a common first year. After that you can continue on our Business Management and Sustainable Practice, or you can choose one of our other specialist pathways:

• Business Management with Placement Year
• Business Management, Supply Chain and Logistics with Placement Year
• Business Management and Entrepreneurship with Placement Year
• Business Management and Finance with Placement Year
• Business Management and Human Resource Management with Placement Year
• Business Management and Marketing with Placement Year
• Business Management and Business Technology with Placement Year

Please note that our modules are subject to change - we review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects.

You will learn through interactive lectures and seminars, debates and discussions, field trips, from practitioners drawn from across the private, public and third sector. You will draw on both theoretical and contemporary literature and work with live case study briefs. There is a high of practical application in the module coupled enabling you to apply the concepts and models learnt in the module in business settings.

Due to the variety of modules studied on the course you’d be well suited for a range of roles across areas such as:

• project management
• analysis
• consultancy
• operations
• human resource management
• marketing
• sales
• logistics
• finance.

As well as specialist roles in the field of change management, sustainability and zero carbon.

2025 entry

These are the typical qualification requirements for September 2025 entry.

Contextual offers may apply to students who meet certain criteria.

2025/26

Further information about our fees and support you may be entitled to.

Additional information about your studies

Teaching hours

Like most universities, we operate extended teaching hours at the University of Derby, so contact time with your lecturers and tutors could be anytime between 9am and 9pm. Your timetable will usually be available on the website 24 hours after enrolment on to your course.

Course updates

The information provided on this page is correct at the time of publication but course content, costs and other individual course details do change from time to time and are updated as often as possible, so please do check these pages again when making your final decision to apply for a course. Any updated course details will also be confirmed to you at application, enrolment and in your offer letter.

If you are thinking about transferring onto this course (into the second year for example), you should contact the programme leader for the relevant course information as modules may vary from those shown on this page.

Other courses you might like

• Business Management BA (Hons)
• Business Management and Sustainable Practice BA (Hons)

Contact us

If you need any more information from us, eg on courses, accommodation, applying, car parking, fees or funding, please contact us and we will do everything we can to help you.