Mechanical Engineering with Placement Year

BEng Hons

  • UCAS code H307
  • Entry year 2026 or 2025
  • A level requirements ABB
  • Duration Full time 4 years
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We welcome applications from the United States of America

We've put together information and resources to guide your application journey as a student from the United States of America.

Overview

Top reasons to study with us

  • Get real-world experience with our placement years

  • Brand new state-of-the-art facilities

  • Practical hands-on courses including lab-based sessions and project work

Mechanical engineers use their skills in almost every industry, and you’ll find their expertise in nearly everything you see and use in everyday life. They design and develop products, systems and machinery to tackle all sorts of challenges, from renewable energy to household appliances, from robotics to manufacturing equipment, from aerospace components to healthcare solutions. As a mechanical engineer you get to use your creativity to design and develop products and systems, build protypes, analyse and test until you find your solution.

Throughout your career you will frequently work across teams of engineers from other branches of the discipline, so it’s crucial to have a broad understanding of general engineering and its applications. At Lancaster, your first year is dedicated to exactly this, and you’ll share this experience with all our School of Engineering students, regardless of their specialisation. We think this makes you a well-rounded graduate, with excellent teamwork and communications skills, prepared for your future career.

What to expect

Our four-year BEng Hons Mechanical Engineering with Placement degree starts with your general engineering first year and includes core themes of design, materials, manufacturing, thermodynamics and heat transfer, along with mathematics.

In Year 2 is where you start to specialise in mechanical engineering and you will learn core themes such as the science of materials, mechanics, fluids and thermodynamics, and also machine design and control, which includes the opportunity to apply these principles to applications like mobile robotics.Working in our two new engineering buildings with state-of-the-art facilities, you’ll develop your creativity and technical skills as you design, build and test to solve real-world problems.

In your final year you will undertake an extended individual project which gives you the opportunity to conduct research and pursue your interests in an engineering application of your choosing. Students tell us this is one of the academic highlights of their time here. They’ve tackled things like wind turbines design and control, hydrogen production for zero carbon transport, novel inspection robots for monitoring nuclear sites, laser additive manufacturing of high-performance coating, and much more.Alongside your project work you will study themes such as dynamic systems, computer aided engineering and product design.

Take further steps towards professional engineering with management skills, project management, and industry engagement. Sustainability, safety, ethics and quality management are kept in focus too.

Your placement

In Year 3, you will undertake a year in industry that will enable you to apply the knowledge and skills learnt so far and gain invaluable experience. We have extensive links built through our leadership in research and have students undergoing placements with multinational corporate companies to smaller specialist SMEs. Once you have completed your placement, you will write an extended reflective piece about your time spent with the company.

Personal Development

You will develop valuable transferable skills that make you highly desirable to future employers, such as working in collaboration, communication, and the ability to design, build, and implement a system or device. You will grow practical skills in diagnosis and testing, system maintenance, digital proficiencies, and the ability to consider and maintain work safety practices in a range of environments. With a year’s experience added to your CV, you will be a standout graduate.

3 things our mechanical engineering students would like you to know:

  • The multi-disciplinary first year is brilliant for future careers when project work will include colleagues from other engineering specialisms
  • Each year of engineering has been better than the previous one, and you build up more independence as you go. From first year introductory labs, all the way to your very own project, research and supervisor
  • All of us engineers share the same newly built facilities. We have access to the labs and maker spaces a lot of the time for both personal and academic use

Course accreditation

Institution of Mechanical Engineers logo Engineering Council logo

Careers

Mechanical engineers lead the design and build of the things we use and see in our everyday lives. This dynamic discipline, which involves a high level of mathematics, physics and other STEM subjects, is applicable to a virtually limitless range of scenarios and situations. From the cars we drive to the buildings we live and work in, mechanical engineers have been involved in building our world every step of the way. You will graduate with a broad range of skills that make you highly desirable, such as the ability to think creatively, develop solutions to problems, manage projects, apply practical and technical knowledge and to be confident in decision making. It’s unsurprising then that our graduates go on to work within a wide range of sectors and industries, from Aerospace to Energy, Maritime to Rail and more. Graduates from our Engineering degrees are well-paid too, with a median starting salary of £29,000 (HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey 2023).

Here are just some of the roles that our BEng and MEng Mechanical Engineering students have progressed into upon graduating:

  • Design Engineer – Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon Ltd
  • Graduate Engineer – Johnson and Johnson
  • Graduate Mechanical Engineer – Frazer-Nash Consultancy
  • Air Integration Engineer – BAE Systems
  • PhD Candidate – Lancaster University
  • Graduate R & D Engineer – Laing O’Rourke
  • Sustainability Design Engineer – Queen’s University Belfast
  • Graduate Manufacturing Engineer – BAE Systems
  • Junior Test Engineer – RAL Space
  • Process Engineer – Unilever
  • Marine Engineer Officer (Submariner) – Royal Navy
  • Aerospace Engineer – BAE Systems

Lancaster University is dedicated to ensuring you not only gain a highly reputable degree, you also graduate with the relevant life and work based skills. We are unique in that every student is eligible to participate in The Lancaster Award which offers you the opportunity to complete key activities such as work experience, employability/career development, campus community and social development. Visit our Employability section for full details.

Entry requirements

These are the typical grades that you will need to study this course. You may need to have qualifications in relevant subjects. In some cases we may also ask you to attend an interview or submit a portfolio. You must also meet our English language requirements.

Find more about these qualifications and others not shown here

Learn about how we will assess your application

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Contact Admissions

If you are thinking of applying to Lancaster and you would like to ask us a question, please complete our enquiry form and one of our team will get back to you.

International foundation programmes

Delivered in partnership with INTO Lancaster University, our one-year tailored foundation pathways are designed to improve your subject knowledge and English language skills to the level required by a range of Lancaster University degrees. Visit the INTO Lancaster University website for more details and a list of eligible degrees you can progress onto.

Contextual admissions

Contextual admissions could help you gain a place at university if you have faced additional challenges during your education which might have impacted your results. Visit our contextual admissions page to find out about how this works and whether you could be eligible.

Course structure

Enhancing our curriculum

We continually review and enhance our curriculum to ensure we are delivering the best possible learning experience, and to make sure that the subject knowledge and transferable skills you develop will prepare you for your future.

We will publish more detailed information about the structure of this degree course for 2026-entry in June 2025, ahead of our summer undergraduate open days. This will include overviews of the core modules you will take and examples of optional modules which may be available to you.

Fees and funding

We set our fees on an annual basis and the 2026/27 entry fees have not yet been set.

As a guide, our fees in 2025/26 were:

Home International
£9,535 £29,820

Fees and funding information

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Scholarships and bursaries

Details of our scholarships and bursaries for students starting in 2026 are not yet available.

You can use our scholarships for 2025-entry applicants as guidance.

Important information

The information on this site relates primarily to 2026/2027 entry to the University and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.

The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.

More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.

Our Students’ Charter

We believe in the importance of a strong and productive partnership between our students and staff. In order to ensure your time at Lancaster is a positive experience we have worked with the Students’ Union to articulate this relationship and the standards to which the University and its students aspire. View our Charter and other policies.

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