Marketing with Foundation Year

The highlights

• Once you've completed your Foundation Year, you can continue on the general BA (Hons) Marketing degree or choose:
  • BSc (Hons) Digital Marketing
  • BA (Hons) Marketing, PR and Advertising
  • BSc (Hons) Marketing and Data Insights
  • BA (Hons) Marketing and Management
  • BA (Hons) Marketing and Consumer Psychology
• This marketing degree is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), meaning if you graduate with a 2:2 or higher, you’ll gain exemptions towards CIM Certificate and Diploma modules to help fast-track your professional marketing career
• We equip you with the skills, confidence and creativity to shape an organisation’s marketing strategy and help it develop a customer-led approach to business opportunities.
• You’ll learn how to combine all elements of the marketing mix and how to get the best from in-house teams or outsourced agencies.
• You will tackle real marketing projects for employers and then develop this experience through placements and internships.

Foundation Year - helping you to achieve more

Including a foundation year as part of your four-year study programme will give you a head start in your academic and professional life. The foundation year offers the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence – with extensive support from our expert staff – before you advance to stage one of your honours degree. It could also be beneficial if you are planning a career change and want to get to grips with aspects of subjects which are new to you.

Our degrees with a foundation year are continuous, meaning that you won’t need to apply again once you have successfully completed the first year.

Marketing – your questions answered

In the below video, Senior Lecturer, Devi Gill, answers some of the most frequently asked questions about Marketing at the University of Derby.

Marketing is exciting and fast-paced and is now relevant to almost all organisations, whether they operate in the private, public or third sector. Every business has a requirement to market their goods or services. Some have in house teams that create campaigns, and others outsource them to creative agencies. However, all have a requirement to plan, implement, and monitor marketing activity if a business is to be successful or profitable.

With the rise of digital media, the number and variety of marketing channels has grown. This increasingly complex landscape has had a knock-on effect on jobs, creating a need for more specialist roles in sub-sectors such as content marketing, affiliate marketing, social media management, search engine optimisation and data analysis. We have responded to these changes in the profession through our modules and courses, to reflect the need for these specialist skills.

We equip you with the skills, confidence and creativity to shape an organisation’s marketing strategy and help it develop a customer-led approach to business opportunities. You’ll learn how to combine all elements of the marketing mix and how to get the best from in-house teams or outsourced agencies.

CIM accreditation

This degree is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), the leading professional body for marketers worldwide. This means that CIM has independently assessed our marketing degree and is happy that it reflects their priorities and high standards. CIM accreditation is a quality mark that employers look for.

Real world experience

On this marketing degree, we take you beyond the classroom, giving you opportunities for real world experience. Thanks to our strong links with employers, you'll get the chance to work on real marketing projects, meeting clients and presenting your proposed solutions to their challenges. Recently, our students found themselves drawing up plans to:

• promote new events
• raise a company's profile through social media
• attract more visitors to a destination, and
• create a brand identity for a pub-based arts venue.

Using our industry contacts, we'll support you to find internships and placements, provide a varied programme of interesting guest speakers and draw on fascinating real world case studies to bring marketing concepts and principles to life.

Year in industry and study abroad

In addition to the 30 hours of work experience that everyone is expected to undertake in their second year, you also have the opportunity to take a placement year between years two and three of your degree. This would super-charge your employability and your prospects after graduation. We can help you find a placement and provide support during your year away. 

Or why not study abroad for a semester? It's a great chance to experience a different country and culture, perhaps develop an additional language, make new connections and bring back new ideas. 

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.

Our teaching methods will be varied, interactive and engaging. You will take part in:

• Lectures and seminars — led by our own tutors as well as occasionally, by guest speakers from the marketing world
• Individual and group-based practical assignments, such as creating advertising slogans, blogs, infographics, social media profiles, videos and TV commercials. Many of these will be for real company briefs.
• Visits to exhibitions, trade fairs and companies
• Placements and internships
• Research projects.

How you are assessed

You will be assessed through coursework, which will incorporate individual assignments as well as group tasks. These focus on applying what you have learned to real business scenarios and producing the kind of work that might be expected in a marketing role, for example:

• Written reports based around research, including data and case studies
• Visual presentations
• Creative outputs such as infographics, short advertisements, films or bespoke projects for clients
• Online assessments

At levels 4 and 5, you will take part in a lot of group work, which prepares you for the marketing workplace, but at level 6, you will be working independently more so you can deepen your research and critical analysis skills.

Who you'll meet 

Dr Devi Gill - Devi teaches across a range of modules in the areas of digital marketing, branding, market sensing, and design and creativity for marketers. Her research interests lie in the areas of brand heritage, authenticity and corporate social responsibility.

Tracy Powell Tracy's background is in Strategic Management specialising in Marketing and Operations. Tracey still works in practice as a business mentor, working on a range of strategic projects applying digital marketing and consumer behaviour theories to improve business performance.

Dr Amir Modjtahedi - Amir teaches modules in the areas of marketing operations management, marketing research skills, data analysis, and quality management systems. His research interests lie in improving productivity for organisations by adapting existing technologies and considering the impact of emerging technologies.

2025 entry

These are the typical qualification requirements for September 2025 entry.

Contextual offers may apply to students who meet certain criteria.

English language requirements

IELTS: 6.0 (with at least 5.5 in each skills area)

2025/26

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

Additional costs and optional extras

There is a huge range of job opportunities in marketing and related sectors. You could work for a creative or marketing agency or decide to work on the client-side as an in-house marketing expert. Here are the types of role you could go onto — you may be more suited to some of these than others if you've taken a specialist modules:

• Agency roles such as Account Executive, Account Manager, Content Manager
• In-house marketing roles such as:
  • Marketing Officer or Manager
  • Brand Manager
  • Market Analyst
  • SEO Analyst
  • Social Media Manager
  • PR and Communications Executive
  • Digital Marketing Officer
  • Internal Communications Executive
• Self-employment: increasingly, people are choosing to work for themselves, either by setting up their own marketing agency or by working as an independent freelancer. 

Further study

If you want to continue your studies at masters level, this degree provides an excellent springboard to an MSc in Marketing Management.

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.

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.