About this course
Every organisation needs marketing. Whether they’re promoting a product, selling a service or communicating a concept, marketers manage and influence demand. Without them, businesses can’t operate.
Marketing isn’t all about catchy slogans and attention-grabbing adverts — it’s about generating business insights, conducting thorough and relevant research, and making evidence-based and insight-driven decisions. From business to the public sector to personal branding, marketing stretches far beyond the commercial. It’s an ever-growing discipline, where fresh perspectives like yours are in constant demand.
At NBS, you’ll get more than just a marketing degree. You’ll get real, practical, CV-bulking experience; Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) qualifications and more built into your course; and professional behaviours and habits introduced into your lifestyle. By the time you graduate, you’ll be a credible strategic marketer, with the confidence and tools to work your way up to senior industry roles.
-
Get additional qualifications from the CIM and Market Research Society (MRS) built into your course -
Join the number one university in the UK for employability (Uni Compare 2025) -
Elevate your prospects and get real marketing experience on a year-long placement or half-year internship -
Prepare for the workplace at a business school which champions professionalism
15
What you’ll study
Our marketing degree is unashamedly broad. You won’t be confined to a single specialism — instead, you’ll gain skills and knowledge applicable to any context in the marketing industry. If you’d like to, you can home in on your preferred areas when you choose your optional modules from Year Two onwards.
You’ll take a deep dive into the marketing strategies and campaigns of well-known brands and organisations, apply your learning to them across multiple modules, and devise new creative solutions and strategies which could boost their performance. In the past, case studies have included Ben & Jerry’s, Paul Smith, charities, gyms and music venues, and you’ll get to pick your own in Final Year.
Some study highlights on this marketing degree include:
- CIM, Marketing Research Society (MRS) and Google Academy qualifications built into your modules, so you don’t have to spend any extra time on them outside of your BA Marketing studies.
- The chance to do a year-long placement in Year Three, with full support from us while you prepare and complete it. The level of support we provide our marketing placement students sets us apart from other business schools.
- Additional placement and work experience opportunities throughout your marketing degree to bolster your CV, with the chance to explore opportunities at NBS’s many networking events and placement fairs.
- Regular talks from guest speakers who work in organisations like those featured in your studies. These often involve NBS alumni, so you can get a genuine insight into what your life could look like after graduation.
- The option to internationalise your marketing knowledge by studying abroad for either a half year or full year, or by choosing to do a marketing placement overseas.
The essential core marketing modules are:
Fundamentals of Marketing
This module introduces you to a range of core marketing models, concepts and theories. You will learn about the principles of design, idea generation, and the development process of launching new products. It also provides insights into how organisations operate within a marketing context and examines the importance of the customer and how marketers can satisfy the customer by delivering value using various methods through the design and implementation of a 'marketing mix'.
The Marketing Environment
This module will extend your understanding of the nature and scope of the internal and external environment, including the global market. You will use important analytical techniques to identify key drivers in the internal and external environment and consider the impact upon the organisation and its marketing activities. You will consider which factors are uncontrollable, and how an organisation might respond to them, as well as factors within the micro and internal environment which may be manipulated to the benefit of the organisation and its customers. The module will alert you to the factors which influence the operation and success of organisations, and explore some of the opportunities and challenges that these pose to market oriented organisations in today’s dynamic marketing environments.
Business Analytics
Data forms an integral part of our daily lives. From social media posts and emails to text messages and loyalty cards, data now transforms how organisations respond and operate. The practice of ‘Business Analytics’ invites the statistical exploration and interpretation of data to assist organisations in making sense of the data to improve their competitive edge. This module therefore develops your analytical skills and introduces you to the use of software tools to examine data that can ultimately positively impact decision-making and management practice of an organisation.
And you will broaden your understanding of business through these marketing aligned modules:
Foundations of Managing and Organising
The success of all organisations depends ultimately upon its people. This module examines the key theories that underpins how organisations manage, motivate, organise and develop their staff. It therefore focuses on the core operations of organisational life and considers the factors that impact the attitudes and behaviours of the workforce and how this can ultimately impact the overall success of an organisation.
Accounting and Finance for Managers
The financial set-up of an organisation can impact its activities at both a strategic and operational level. This module introduces the theories, systems and approaches that organisations can implement to assure that the accounting and financing operations support the decision making and the overall control of the business. You will learn about accounting principles and techniques from a user perspective and understand the relevance of both financial reporting and accounting information and how it benefits all users, both external and internal to an organisation.
The core personal development module is:
Personal and Academic Development
This module supports your transition to university, invites you to become more self-aware and guides you in the development and completion of personal, academic and professional goals through the undertaking of CPD (continuing professional development). These activities and other experiential learning opportunities contribute to your abilities to meet the requirements of other modules and enhance your employability skills in readiness for 2nd year. You will also learn about the importance of responsible, sustainable and ethical practice within a business and marketing context.
All students will complete a two-week insight internship at the end of Year One, giving you an opportunity to engage in hands-on work experience. This is a compulsory element of the course and is very important to develop your practitioner skills and to enhance your employability.
The essential core marketing modules are:
Buyer Behaviour
Understanding the buyers and their needs, in customer and business markets, is one the key first steps of developing an effective marketing strategy. During this module, students will be exposed to organisational and core consumer behaviour theories as well as a variety of psychological and sociological theories relating to consumer behaviour (both pre-and post-consumption) to understand what influences consumer decision making and consumption behaviour.
Students will directly apply theories and models to case organisations in different marketing contexts. This will support your understanding of these models and theories and their use/ utility in practice.
Research for Marketing
This module provides students with the opportunity to design and undertake their own case study based real-world market research project. Market research provides essential insights to management teams to help them make informed business decisions about product, service, and brand management which is a vital part of achieving competitive advantage.
The research for marketing module is practical with learning by doing, and through experience, a key feature of your work. Students will understand the key steps of the market research process - from responding to an initial client brief and ensuring your response and work recognises ethical research practice, to preparing market sector insights from published data and undertaking original research with real participants, ensuring your work and, ultimately, reporting back your findings.
Through this approach and work you will become familiar with the two main approaches of qualitative and quantitative research and the relevant technical terms and theory of each approach. The module is accredited by the Market Research Society (MRS) and students have the opportunity to gain recognition with the MRS.
Delivering Customer Value
The creation and delivery of value are core to marketing and are the lifeblood of organisations, the satisfaction of their customers, the engagement and activities of all their employees and ultimately their success.
This module, builds on understanding from Fundamentals of Marketing in Year 1. Through the application of theory to practice you will explore and interrogate how customer value has been interpreted by organisations, if they are creating and delivering value, what changes and improvements are need and why they are needed. In doing so, the connection to strategy and brand positioning are recognised along with, for example, decisions related to the importance of relationships and experiences and the marketing mix and its integration.
Creating Promotional Campaigns
Want to create marketing campaigns that stand out? This module gives you the tools to plan, execute, and manage strategic marketing communications that engage audiences and drive results. You’ll learn how to analyse market trends, develop creative strategies, and coordinate the right mix of promotional tools to build strong customer relationships. From crafting compelling content to measuring campaign success, you'll explore the entire marketing communications process. You’ll also dive into how businesses communicate internally and externally, and how strategies adapt across different markets—including global and international contexts.
With a mix of individual and team projects, this module prepares you to think strategically and execute campaigns with confidence – essential skills for careers in marketing, branding, and digital communications.
Second half of Year Two
You can either select one of our unique opportunities initiatives below or continue with your taught modules.
Option 1 – Study Abroad
Experience life in another country by studying at one of our partner universities. Choose from a host of countries in Europe or go further afield and study in the USA, South America, Australasia and South East Asia. This is a great opportunity to develop your independence and explore another culture.
Option 2 – Enterprise Project
Explore your entrepreneurial side and start to develop the meaningful and practical skills needed to run your own business. Supported by NTU Enterprise, NTU's centre for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise, during this opportunity you'll work alongside other young entrepreneurs and a dynamic network of mentors and advisors, to develop your own ideas into a live enterprise project.
Option 3 – Internship
Get a taste of the working world and gain some essential industry insight with a 16-18 week work placement. The experience will allow you to put your learning in to practice, with the experience gained improving your future career prospects, and sharpening your interpersonal and professional skills.
Option 4 – Continue with taught modules
If you didn't fancy doing any of the above options then you can continue your studies at university. With a mixture of both compulsory and optional modules, the first will enhance your knowledge and skills set in your area of study, with the later allowing you to tailor your learning experience.
Students on Sandwich courses are eligible to choose the Enterprise project or continue with taught modules in the second half of their second year. They are not eligible for options 1 and 3. However, they are able to use their sandwich year to study or work abroad.
Or
You will broaden your learning via these optional modules (select one):
Digital Marketing
Online marketing is now at the hub of customer-centric communications, meaning graduates are expected to understand the importance of digital campaign planning. This module will provide you with the skills and knowledge to understand digital marketing planning at an organisational level, including the implementation, measurement and evaluation of successful campaigns. You will learn to appraise different planning approaches and marketing environmental factors that influence online marketing activity, and also review the similarities and differences between online and traditional marketing concepts and applications.
You will explore the key stages in online development using relevant business models, and analyse the ways in which the Internet has changed the marketing mix elements and how organisations employ them creatively in the digital environment. As part of your skills development you will learn to review buyer behaviour characteristics of the online consumer and explore how organisations can respond to meet changing behaviour and expectations. You will also learn how to apply relevant tools and concepts from this unit to design, measure and monitor an annual online marketing plan.
Or
Exploring Strategy and Innovation
This module provides an understanding of business development and strategy with particular reference to processes of strategic management, innovation and business development in the global context.
It will develop your understanding of competitive advantage and introduce you to key concepts in strategy, organisational change and development, all drawn from different cultural contexts. You will examine the nature of innovation and the process involved in bringing it about. This module also seeks to demonstrate how innovation can provide competitive advantage for business firms operating in local, national and international environments.
Over the course of the module you will:
- study profitability and the nature and purpose of corporate and competitive strategy in a global context
- explore corporate direction, goals, mission and vision
- analyse the business environment, methods and techniques of analysis and its relevance to competitor and customer development
- explore the nature of technological change and its links to innovation
- classify innovation and innovative activity
- analyse the process of innovation and different perspectives on the process.
Or
Managing the Global Supply Chain
Covering various areas of marketing and operations, this module will provide you with a practical understanding of the structure and organisation of supply chains, including sustainability and ethical issues. You will be introduced to aspects of operations, logistics and procurement, and further develop your understanding on the importance of the flow of goods and information in providing value through global delivery systems.
The core personal development module is:
Applied Professional Development
Following on from the Personal Development module in Year One, this module supports you to build upon and reflect on your personal and professional skills, attributes and behaviours. You will attend a conference with a varied programme of events focused on the future of work, and later in the module you will immerse yourself in a period work or work-like experience to develop a range of skills designed to enhance your employability.
Placement year
In year three, you have the option to take a placement year. This time spent working in business provides our students with crucial work experience, which is highly prized and much sought after by employers upon graduation. We have links with a wide range of sectors, firms and organisations that offer student placements. If you have decided to undertake a placement year then this will last for a minimum of 48 weeks during your third year.
Our Employability Team is here to inspire and enhance every stage of your career planning and as a graduate of NTU, you will be able to access their services for three years after your course has finished.
Services they provide include:
- finding placements, internships and part-time work
- pursuing self-employment
- taking gap years and time out
- getting into volunteering
- providing advice on further study.
Or
Taught modules
If you have decided to continue with your studies please view the 'final year' tab for your list of modules.
The essential core marketing modules are:
Strategic Brand Management
What makes a brand truly unforgettable? This module dives into the key concepts, theories, and frameworks that shape strategic brand management, helping you understand how businesses create and maintain strong, competitive identities in a crowded marketplace.
You’ll explore how to apply branding models to real-world situations, ensuring organisations stay differentiated, relevant, and aligned with their values. Through case studies and practical projects, you'll learn how to manage brand strategy, engage stakeholders, and use business intelligence to make data-driven decisions.
Innovation in Marketing
This module will allow you to understand the relationship between marketing and innovation. You'll develop your knowledge and skills to be able to understand approaches to innovation and how to embed and nurture innovation throughout the marketing function. Being able to deal with the challenges of a fast-moving marketplace is a key skill for any marketer.
Future Marketing
Through this module you will consider new and emerging marketing activities and technologies of the 21st Century. You will learn to recognise concepts, emerging trends and technologies within business, and their influences on the social, economic, technological, political, legal and environmental landscape of the future. This module is not purely about using historical data to view new developments, it will also provide you with an insight into how innovations in business are arrived at and how both projective speculation and criticality are found in entrepreneurial endeavour both nationally and internationally.
Plus one optional module from:
Applied Business Research Project
For this module you will undertake a purposeful, individual, in-depth study of a relevant topic, developing your independent learning, critical thinking and knowledge of research techniques relevant to your subject area. The project will develop your ability to manage a major piece of work, for which you will be completely responsible, and will be completed over a period of several months. You will learn to utilise and improve your time management and communication skills, as well as test your initiative and resourcefulness. To support your development during this module you will study essential skills such as critical thinking, conducting a literature review, understanding the appropriate research framework, practical research methods and skills, report and academic writing skills.
Sustainability in Enterprise Project
This module is designed to give you a deeper understanding of sustainability issues affecting firms. It incorporates a live consultancy experience, where you are required to apply your knowledge to critically review aspects of enterprise practice and infrastructure and recommend ways to reduce carbon emissions. You will learn how to critically review sustainability issues presented by an enterprise and analyse evidence, arguments, concepts and data to formulate sustainability and carbon management recommendations for an enterprise.
You will broaden your learning via these optional modules (select one):
Digital Marketing Strategy
Customer behaviour has dramatically changed with the digital revolution. This module provides you with insights into the digital customer experience and highlights ways to adapt to this changing market, allowing you to fulfil customers’ strategic needs. It will provide the knowledge and skills to select appropriate channels to market to meet objectives. It will also help to ensure you provide the desired customer experience by understanding the customer's journey while complying with relevant legislation and regulation.
Or
Managing Creativity, Design and Innovation
The development of successful products and services involves complex processes and is dependent on how well research, design and innovation activities are integrated with other functions in the organisation. This module will develop your understanding of the relationships between creativity, design and innovation and explore and debate a range of perspectives concerning their nature. It will develop your critical awareness of theories related to the origins and role of creativity at individual, team and organisational levels, and teach you to appreciate, understand and contemplate some of the issues facing organisations trying to harness the potential from their creative resources.
Or
International Strategic Management
During this module you will use a strategic management viewpoint to examine international business with an integrative framework. You will study the main trends that facilitate the globalisation of markets, and explore how small, medium and large organisations build their international strategies. You will also study new insights into contemporary international management challenges.
You will cover a range of topics including: ·
- the conceptualisation and theorisation of international strategy
- multinational companies in the context of globalisation and regionalisation
- integrated global, multi-domestic, international and trans-national strategies
- developing international strategic capabilities and achieving international excellence
- corporate social responsibility and multinational strategy
- traditional and new modes of entry to international markets.
The core personal development module is:
Developing Professional Impact
This module aims to provide you with an increased understanding of how to make a positive impact and manage your own continuing personal and professional development as you progress into graduate employment, further academic study or future entrepreneurial opportunities. The module will expand your horizons and challenge your actions, attitudes and behaviours both in relation to subject specific issues and also holistic business concerns such as global citizenship and sustainable business practices. It will encourage you to build on your strengths, be more curious, and explore a range of possibilities as you embark on your next steps.
We regularly review and update our course content based on student and employer feedback, ensuring that all of our courses remain current and relevant. This may result in changes to module content or module availability in future years.
Don’t just take our word for it, hear from our students themselves
Video Gallery
How you're taught
NTU is TEF ‘Gold’-rated for teaching and learning, and one of the UK’s top 15 universities for Marketing and Public Relations (Guardian University Guide 2025). Our teaching team boasts professionals who’ve worked with major names like E.ON, NHS, Marston’s, Experian, Shell and Boots — so you can dip into a huge pool of expertise as they help guide you through your course. On this marketing degree, our doors are always open. This level of support isn’t typical in big business schools, but we’re proud to provide it.
As well as lectures, seminars and presentations, you’ll learn by:
- Experiencing marketing beyond the classroom. Observe active marketing departments on field trips to successful businesses and get involved with NBS’s jam-packed calendar of networking events, including career fairs, placement fairs, guest lectures and more.
- Completing placements and internships. You can opt to do a paid professional placement in Year Three, a 16–18-week internship in Year Two, and other short-term internships throughout the course. During these, you’ll get real, hands-on work experience and build meaningful relationships with employers. Some students secure job offers from them before they’ve even graduated!
- Making your own choices.As the course develops, so will your options. If you dream of studying abroad, take an extended stay with one of NBS’s global partners or even complete a placement overseas. Prefer to stay local? If the internship or enterprise project pathways don’t appeal, you can simply continue with your taught modules. It’s a versatile offer, built around your own preferences.
How you're assessed
Assessments on this marketing degree are focused on authenticity. This means you’ll produce things you’d expect to produce in industry, like reports, briefing papers, consumer personas, communication plans, posters and creative assets produced on Canva. In the real world, marketing is a team effort, so there will be at least one group assessment each year.
Presentation skills are vital to any marketer, so there will be individual and group presentations throughout, and in your final year you’ll pitch to real clients — but don’t worry, by this time you’ll be confident enough to breeze through it! There are no closed-book or in-person exams.
Careers and employability
Our graduates stand out
Marketers are in constant demand, but you’ll still need to stand out when it comes to finding graduate employment. Putting your learning into practice is our priority, so we won’t just teach you about the industry — we’ll show you how to get into marketing jobs and give you countless chances to experience what it’s really like before you’ve even graduated. Recruiters have compared some of our graduates’ CVs to those of marketing practitioners with over a decade of experience. That’s an incredible feat to achieve in three or four years!
Not only will you be able to impress employers with extensive amounts of experience and additional qualifications, but you’ll have an in-depth understanding of marketing theories, excellent commercial awareness, and a plethora of transferable skills under your belt to suit any facet of marketing.
Boots, Rolls Royce, Experian, Next and Unilever are just a handful of companies our graduates work for, with roles varying from marketing executives and social media managers to business development managers and risk analysts.
Personalisation at NBS — what it means for you
NBS is a community of over 8,500 learners, drawn from countries, cultures and academic backgrounds all around the world. We’re big in every sense — from our industry reputation, to our global community of ambitious students and successful graduates, to the sheer range of opportunities we provide. Study with NBS, and you’ll benefit from our partnerships with universities and businesses on every continent.
We’re proud to provide our students with a very personal experience, built around their own specific needs, interests, and ambitions. It’ll be the same for you: whether choosing your own specialist modules or picking your preferred means of hands-on, experiential learning, we’re here to help you gather the skills, knowledge and experience to gain that vital competitive edge. Your future and employability come first, and everything you’ll experience at NBS has a purpose — from industry networking events and prestigious guest speakers, to the personal and professional development modules that’ll support each step of your university journey. Book onto an NTU open day to find out more.
Campus and facilities
You’ll mainly be studying in the Newton building, at the centre of our vibrant City Campus. Here, you’ll learn in bright, modern classrooms and lecture theatres, and access dedicated IT suites equipped with a hub of industry-standard software — from all the usual Microsoft packages to specialist software like SPSS. Our Employability Hub is conveniently located in the same building as your lectures, offering comprehensive career advice and help finding marketing placements.
NTU’s City Campus has everything you’ll need to keep occupied between lectures. As well as the Boots Library with its beautiful roof garden, there’s a 100-station gym; convenient cafés, bars and restaurants to suit every taste; our Students’ Union and popular Global Lounge; and much, much more!
If that’s not enough, just take a few steps off campus, and you’ll find yourself in the beating heart of Nottingham — one of the UK’s top 10 student cities, and one of the top 25 in all of Europe. It’s a city brimming with history, culture and things to do: enjoy lush green spaces, galleries, cinemas and vintage shopping by day, and an acclaimed food, drink and social scene by night.
Take a Virtual Tour to see for yourself where you’ll be studying.
Entry requirements
UK students
Standard offer: 120 UCAS Tariff points from up to four qualifications.
Contextual offer: 112 UCAS Tariff points from up to four qualifications.
To find out what qualifications have tariff points, please use our tariff calculator.
Additional requirements for UK students
There are no additional requirements for this course.
Contextual offers
If you don’t quite meet our entry requirements, we might be able to make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (such as where you live and the school or college you attended), your experiences and your individual circumstances (you may have been in care, for example). This is called a contextual offer, and we get data from UCAS to help make these decisions. We do this because we believe everyone with the potential to succeed at NTU should have the opportunity to do so, no matter what barriers you may face.
Meeting our entry requirements
Hundreds of qualifications in the UK have UCAS Tariff points attached to specific grades, including A-levels, BTECs, T Levels and many more. You can use your grades and points from up to four different qualifications to meet our criteria. Enter your predicted or achieved grades into our Tariff calculator to find out how many points your qualifications are worth.
Other qualifications and experience
NTU welcomes applications from students with non-standard qualifications and learning backgrounds, either for year one entry or for advanced standing beyond the start of a course into year 2 or beyond.
We consider study and/or credit achieved from a similar course at another institution (otherwise known as credit transfer), vocational and professional qualifications, and broader work or life experience.
Our Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer Policy outlines the process and options available for this route. If you wish to apply via Recognition of Prior Learning, please contact the central Admissions and Enquiries Team who will be able to support you through the process.
Getting in touch
If you need more help or information, get in touch through our enquiry form.
International students
Academic entry requirement: 120 UCAS Tariff points from up to four qualifications. We accept equivalent qualifications from all over the world. Please check your international entry requirements by country.
English language requirements: See our English language requirements page for requirements for your subject and information on alternative tests and Pre-sessional English.
Additional requirements for international students
If you need help achieving the academic entry requirements, we offer a Foundation preparation course for this degree. The course is offered through our partner Nottingham Trent International College (NTIC) based on our City Campus.
English language requirements
View our English language requirements for all courses, including alternative English language tests and country qualifications accepted by the University.
If you need help achieving the language requirements, we offer a Pre-Sessional English for Academic Purposes course on our City campus which is an intensive preparation course for academic study at NTU.
Other qualifications and experience
If you have the right level of qualifications, you may be able to start your Bachelors degree at NTU in year 2 or year 3. This is called ‘advanced standing’ entry and is decided on a case-by case basis after our assessment of your qualifications and experience.
You can view our Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer Policy which outlines the process and options available, such as recognising experiential learning and credit transfer.
Sign up for emails
Sign up to receive regular emails from the International Office. You'll hear about our news, scholarships and any upcoming events in your country with our expert regional teams.
Getting in touch
If you need advice about studying at NTU as an international student or how to apply, our international webpages are a great place to start. If you have any questions about your study options, your international qualifications, experience, grades or other results, please get in touch through our enquiry form. Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world.
Policies
We strive to make our admissions procedures as fair and clear as possible. To find out more about how we make offers, visit our admissions policies page.
