Zoology BSc

Course description

Our three-year BSc Zoology course is about animals, their evolution, and their interactions with each other, the environment and biodiversity conservation.

You'll study microbes, invertebrates, birds, fish, mammals, and humans and learn how they evolved, how their physiology works, how they behave, and how they respond to global change.

You’ll even discover how their biodiversity is maintained and lost, and use this knowledge to help us address important issues such as tropical wildlife conservation, disease outbreaks, and maintaining functioning ecosystems.

Explore your modules in detail

At Sheffield, you’ll be encouraged to be creative, think independently, and express your ideas. You'll be in the lab completing in-depth practicals, and studying animal anatomy and physiology in our Alfred Denny Museum of Zoology. You'll learn off campus too, carrying out fieldwork in the Peak District, visiting zoos, aquariums, and other scientific spots around the country, and embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime field course in the UK or abroad.

As you progress through your degree you’ll have the option to specialise in key areas, such as biodiversity conservation, evolutionary biology, genetics or ecological modelling.

No matter what areas of zoology you choose to study, you'll develop practical laboratory and transferable skills that make our graduates attractive to employers, including project management, problem-solving, communication skills, and data analysis.

All this experience will prepare you for your third-year research project where you could be laboratory based, field-based, focus on computer modelling, or even science communication.

Gain extra experience as part of your degree

You can add an extra year of research experience with an integrated masters (MBiolSci), or spend a year on a work placement and gain transferable skills working with a top employer.

Explore our other zoology courses:

• Zoology MBiolSci
• Zoology with Placement Year BSc
• Zoology with Placement Year MBiolSci

With Access Sheffield, you could qualify for additional consideration or an alternative offer - find out if you're eligible.

• Standard offer
• Access Sheffield offer

English language requirements |

You must demonstrate that your English is good enough for you to successfully complete your course. For this course we require: GCSE English Language at grade 4/C; IELTS grade of 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in each component; or an alternative acceptable English language qualification

If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the school/department.

Equivalent English language qualifications

Visa and immigration requirements

Other qualifications | UK and EU/international

Graduate careers

You won't be short of career options with a degree in zoology from Sheffield.

Employers seek out our graduates because of their ability to communicate complex ideas to a range of audiences, handle data, and work to deadlines, independently and as part of a team.

If conservation or ecological consultancy is something that you're passionate about, the RSPB, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and the Wildlife Trusts are just some of the places where our graduates now work. Roles can cover environmental management, sustainable forestry, crop protection and breeding, and climate change mitigation.

Further study is another popular route, with graduates going on to complete PhDs and masters courses in the biosciences, specialising in areas such as ecology, evolution and conservation.

A good degree from a great university can take you far, whatever you want to do. We also have graduates putting their transferable skills to good use in marketing, human resources, science communication, IT and teaching with Top 100 employers like GSK, Google and Aldi.

You can find out more about where a zoology degree can lead to on our careers webpages.