This course includes a 9-12 month paid work placement during year three. You will get the opportunity to create valuable contacts and develop transferable skills that will prepare you for a competitive work environment. Our strong links with industry can help you find a placement, in the past our students have completed placements with Dow Chemical Company, GSK, Pfizer and Kodak. You will develop a solid understanding of the main areas of chemistry before focusing on and area that is interesting or important to you through a substantial research project worth half the credits of the final year. Plus, you will spend many hours in our labs gaining hands-on experience and developing your research, mathematical and computational skills. With more of an emphasis on research than our BSc degrees, backed up with analysis, interpretation and problem solving together with significant opportunities to develop transferrable professional skills, you can acquire all the attributes needed to be a self-sufficient working chemist. The school is currently going through the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) re-accreditation process.

Career prospects

Chemists play a vital role in tackling society’s most urgent challenges – from biofuels and clean water to developing new pharmaceuticals. A degree in chemistry opens the door to a wide range of careers both inside and outside the lab, with the MChem providing excellent grounding for future research scientists.

Our graduates are sought after by a wide range of employers looking for excellent communication skills, experience in a lab environment, advanced IT skills and confidence in analysing varied information. With a chemistry degree, you can pursue a range of exciting research careers in areas such as the discovery of new medicines and vaccines, improving understanding of environmental issues and the development of new chemical products and materials using greener processes.

The logical and practical training you’ll gain on your course is also highly valued in fields such as marketing, sales, management or finance. Scientific journalism, publishing and teaching are also potential career routes. Previous graduates have gone on to work as development chemists, technical graduates, patent analysts, accountants, and quality control scientists.

Graduate careers

• Research Scientist
• Technologist
• Associate Consultant
• PhD Researcher
• Formulation Scientist