Real Estate with Foundation BSc Honours

Course summary

Our degree courses with Foundation year offer the opportunity to prepare you for advanced study before you progress on to a full honours degree at the University of Westminster.

Whether you do not feel ready for degree-level study, don’t have the right qualifications, want to change your subject specialism or return to study after an absence from education, we aim to encourage a broad range of students to undertake our Foundation year in order to progress onto their full honours degree with us.

The Foundation year is designed to give you the opportunity to explore new ideas, opening up new perspectives on the key debates within your chosen field. Core modules accelerate your academic and professional development, bringing together like-minded students to think about the ‘big ideas’ within your discipline. You will also take modules from areas closely related to your chosen field, giving you the chance to develop a cross-disciplinary perspective on your course.

On successful completion of the Foundation year, you will be able to move on to study for the Real Estate BSc Honours degree over a further three years study.

Buying and renting property for professional or personal purposes is one of the most important – and expensive – decisions for a business or individual to make. Real estate offers a dynamic and exciting career requiring a skillset combining economic, interpersonal, management, planning, public policy and sales expertise.

Accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), our degree covers all aspects of real estate, including buying and selling, valuing, developing, planning, managing and investing in various property markets – commercial, industrial and residential.

Our professionally oriented course has been designed with input from major employers, capitalising on our excellent industry contacts, which include Barrett Homes, Savills and British Land. With the headquarters of many major property firms close by, our central London location enables us to invite a wide range of professionals to give guest lectures and regularly contribute to the course. They provide work placements, content for coursework and help with assessment, providing a valuable practitioner perspective.

We arrange various site visits, so you can experience real-life estate strategies and see developments from construction through to completion. In the past, for example, students visited Lendlease’s nearby Elephant Park development, part of a £2.3 billion regeneration programme on 28 acres of land in the centre of Elephant and Castle. There are also optional international field trips, which have previously included visits to Brookfield Properties and Cushman and Wakefield in New York, as well as Savills in Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The course will allow you to complete the academic requirements of membership status of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. There are opportunities to enhance your CV by attending our Employer evenings.

Additionally, the course also offers practical experience opportunities, with the option to spend a year in industry between Year 2 and Year 3. Alternatively, you'll have the chance to explore international perspectives through a year abroad, providing you with valuable real-world experience.

Recent graduates have found work within large and small property companies, local authorities, developers, health trusts, investment firms, landed estates and many other property-related areas.

Top reasons to study with us

• The course is accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
• Excellent industry links with property firms and construction companies, including Lendlease, Knight Frank, Chase and Partners, RICS and Falcon Chambers
• Street walks taking in Marylebone, Euston and Fitzrovia, and street talks incorporating King's Cross redevelopment, Baker Street and Mayfair
• Central London location enables us to invite directors of leading property firms to deliver guest lectures, previously from NEC Contracts, Mendex, Luton Borough Council, HTA Consultants and BREEAM
• Put theory into practice on a year-long work placement or gain international experience studying abroad
• Opportunities for internships. For example, one student previously worked at Barratt Homes
• Contractors, developers, professional consultancies, client organisations, central government and local authorities all employ our graduates

Real estate is a dynamic, sociable and high-earning profession. It encompasses most areas of commercial (industrial, office and retail) and residential property. This course gives a thorough understanding of all aspects of real estate, designed to prepare you for employment as surveyors and property advisors.

Transferable skills and competencies are embedded and developed throughout the course. For example, a professional standard of presentation is required for all coursework, which must meet high standards of written English. Projects and studies based on real-world cases help students learn how to solve problems and act with realistic constraints on time, information and resources.

The University's Careers and Employability Service has built up a network of over 3,000 employers around the world, helping all our students explore and connect with exciting opportunities and careers.

This course will prepare you for roles and employment areas such as:

• Property advisor
• Customer services manager
• Estate agent
• Property broker
• Property manager
• Site surveyor
• Property valuer
• Property development
• Property investment

Graduate employers

Our graduates gain employment in a variety of property-related areas, including large and small property advisors, chartered surveyors, property companies, local authorities, housing associations, developers, health trusts, investment firms, and landed estates.

Graduates from this course have found employment at organisations including:

• Savills
• Cushman and Wakefield
• The British Land Company
• Montagu Evans
• Countryside Properties
• Chase and Partners