Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning

at University of Westminster - Marylebone Campus United Kingdom

The expansion of new media technologies and sophisticated customer profiling – covering everything from media consumption to recreational preferences – have increased the choice and importance of creative decisions in marketing strategy. Developed with input from current ‘marcomms’ practitioners, our professionally-focused degree will equip you with the creative and specialist knowledge, skills and capabilities to select the right media channels and craft the most effective messages.

You can also boost your employability by gaining additional qualifications with the Institute of Data and Marketing (IDM) and/or the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). Our status as a CIM Graduate Gateway institution entitles you to apply for exemptions from modules on its professional qualifications, while you can gain IDM’s Award in Digital Marketing during the Digital Marketing Essentials module.

Top reasons to study with us

• Professionally-focused course with chance to gain additional professional qualifications from the Institute of Data and Marketing (IDM) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
• Digital Marketing Essentials module incorporates content for IDM Award in Digital Marketing and the final-year Direct and Interactive Marketing module provides opportunity to gain the IDM Diploma in Digital Marketing
• Marketing degrees share a common first year, giving greater flexibility when choosing your specialism
• Option to spend one semester or one year studying abroad at one of our partner institutions, gain valuable work experience, or a combination of both. For example, one previous student worked as a marketing executive for ICG Medical
• Opportunity to study a foreign language as an optional module in each year of study
• Hear from experts and mingle with marketing students by joining the student-run Westminster Marketing Society or gain experience working for the student-run Westminster Business Consultants
• Optional placement year to gain valuable work experience, for example, one of our previous students spent six months working as a podcast assistant for MailOnline, while another worked at IBM
• Guest lectures from industry practitioners have previously included speakers on Google analytics and from organisations such as IBM, Tableau, Coca Cola and LinkedIn
• Programmes are delivered by a multicultural and international teaching body, who come from professional practice and/or regularly publish in top international journals

Building surveying offers an exciting, dynamic profession focused on the physical, functional and economic performance of buildings – new builds, building control, refurbishment work, restorations, maintenance and design.

Fully accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE), our degree aims to equip you with the professional and technical skills and knowledge needed to become a building surveyor.

You may be called on to report and advise on the condition of various property assets, identifying defects and structural problems, designing, specifying and administrating refurbishment projects or interpreting the meaning of 'repairing obligations' in a lease, for example. You could go on to work in private practice, the public sector, building control, property management or the conservation of historic buildings.

Our construction courses share a common first year, allowing you to gain knowledge of the different professional roles and the interdisciplinary nature of the modern construction industry. At the end of the second year, should your interests change, it's possible to switch pathway. You’ll mix with students from across the various pathways, broadening your social circles and networks, and be taught by our professionally qualified lecturers, who will share their experience of working in the property, construction and surveying sectors prior to joining academia.

Our central London location and numerous industry contacts, which include Great Portland Estates, Mace, Lendlease, The Portman Estate and The Crown Estate, enable us to invite practising professionals to give guest lectures and regularly contribute to the course. They provide buildings as case studies for coursework, learning materials (drawings, reports, client briefs etc.) and come into the University to give face-to-face formative feedback on students’ work. We aim to create authentic learning activities to ensure you are business-ready for employment.

Economists tackle anything from interpreting and forecasting market trends or individual business performance by country, region or market, to advising businesses, governments and individuals on everyday and strategic decisions. These can encompass areas as diverse as international trade, profit maximisation, pricing decisions, forecasting revenues or consumer demand, to managing the national health service, tackling unemployment or inequality.

You’ll learn to analyse and predict the impact of economic, social and public policy issues on a variety of stakeholders, including consumers, investors, businesses, and how to source and provide the most appropriate insight to inform future decision-making and strategy.

As the role of data in informing decision-making grows, this degree expands your crucial skills in data gathering, handling and interpretation, quantitative analysis and forecasting. You will use industry-standard software, including SPSS, Excel,Eviews, Minitab and other statistical packages, to analyse data, build models and produce forecasts. You will also develop key soft skills such as communicating complex economic ideas to a non-expert, a logical approach to formulating and solving problems, presentation skills and teamwork.

In an increasingly urbanised world, there is growing international demand for urban design graduates. These courses will equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to participate in this rapidly expanding profession. Urban design involves shaping the physical setting for life in cities. The pace of urban change, and the challenge of making cities efficient, sustainable and meaningful, demands creative solutions to design and management. The Urban Design courses at Westminster provide a coherent approach to issues that face our cities, combining structured academic study with live design projects, allowing you to develop practical skills, a theoretical understanding and an informed approach to sustainable urban development.

Our Urban Design programme is one of the largest and longest established in the UK. It enjoys an excellent reputation and our graduates are highly respected in the profession. Our students are from a variety of professions and backgrounds, including architecture, landscape architecture and planning, from the UK, Europe, and across the globe. They range from recent graduates seeking to expand their skill base before commencing their career or those considering a shift from an allied profession, to established professionals seeking to specialise or develop a more informed critical approach. Our central London location allows you to interact with a huge variety of practitioners and organisations, as well as drawing on the city's huge range of resources; you will be at the heart of the debate over the future of cities.

The MArch is a long-established and well-respected course that is prescribed by the ARB and validated by the RIBA to give exemption from the second stage of professional education. The emphasis of the course is on innovative design work, and on developing a caring and critical approach to the study and practice of architecture.

The course fosters diversity of choice, interpretation and approach, whether in design projects or more academic research. The former focuses on sophisticated design programmes (in formal, technical, professional or urban terms) that demand rigour and self-criticism. The latter focuses on your major dissertation, an extended piece of specialised research into architecture and its historical or theoretical contexts.

The course has three main objectives: to develop your design ability through project-based experimentation; to present an evaluation and critique of your coursework within a broad cultural context, and in light of technical, economic and legal constraints; and to promote the articulate explanation and representation of quality and value in design projects.

Architecture is a fascinating subject involving wide-ranging academic, practical and vocational activities. It requires creativity and imagination, as well as the inventive employment of environmental and technical knowledge.

Architecture is normally studied with a view to becoming a professional architect, but as it embraces the fields of art, history and science, it also opens doors to a range of postgraduate study options and other forms of career development.

At the heart of our course is a rich choice of design studios, in which students are taught in small groups by current practitioners, reflecting London’s dynamic architecture scene. There are also lecture courses in environmental and technical studies, history and theory of architecture, as well as numerous opportunities to engage with the architecture profession through construction site visits, mentoring and a work placement.

Field trips are offered in the second year and there are opportunities to study abroad, with the most recent destinations including Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and China.

Events play an essential role in the business, cultural and sporting life of all countries. In recent years an exciting new profession has emerged with event planners designing and organising a diverse range of events, and marketing the great variety of destinations and venues in which they take place.

This course is specifically designed for people who want to enter or make further progress in, management-level careers in the fast-expanding field of event management. London is an ideal place in which to study events with many venues on the doorstep.

This course explores the strategic development, design and logistical organisation of many different types of event.  You will also learn how events and conferences contribute to enriching the lives of communities and improve communications in business, politics and professional life. The dissertation will give you further opportunity to research a conference or events topic in depth. The course is taught by experienced academics and industry practitioners, providing valuable insight into this exciting industry sector.

Whether caused by politics, environmental issues or world health crises, the global economy is ever changing and of growing concern to businesses. Monitoring and predicting the impact of economics on business is now a top priority, raising the demand for graduates who understand how markets work and how local and international issues can affect competition and performance.

Combining the study of economics with general business management, this degree is designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge to analyse individual company and industry performance within the context of global economics. Using live and historical data in our state-of-the-art Financial Markets Suite (FMS), you’ll apply economic theory and practice to real-world businesses, learning how to plan, evaluate economic trends and become better placed to help firms make effective business decisions. 

To help you support future business and management decisions, we’ll examine how and why businesses emerge, exist and expand – studying their global environment, relationship and interactions with employees, providers of capital, customers, competitors, government and other regulatory bodies. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of the economic, qualitative and quantitative techniques and ideas used to analyse and solve business problems in a global marketplace. 

Taught by academics with substantial business experience across the range of business disciplines, through consultancy or knowledge exchange, there is an emphasis on learning through practice, so you graduate with the breadth of knowledge and capabilities to respond proactively and creatively to contemporary business issues and challenges. Throughout the course, you’ll also develop a range of transferrable skills highly prized by employers, such as critical evaluation, self-direction and problem-solving, as well as a sound grasp of analysis, presentations and negotiation techniques.

You’ll be capable of holding positions of significant responsibility and authority in public companies, private businesses and government agencies. Past Business Management graduates have found successful employment as management, marketing and advertising trainees, as trainee accountants and brand managers, recruitment consultants, retail managers and as assistants in market research, PR and global branding.

Our Architecture and Environmental Design BSc encompasses the ‘artistic’ and the ‘scientific’ to create a new generation of architects who are not only architecturally competent and environmentally aware, but also able to explore the spatial poetics with an evidence-informed approach, selectively evaluate design options, and quantify the building performance and environmental benefits and impact of their designs.

You will develop your creative space- and form-making, environmental design, technical and analytical skills, as well as your critical thinking and awareness of the wider architectural context.

Half of your time on the course will be spent on studio-based design activities and half on bioclimatic, historical, cultural, socio-economic and professional studies. All modules have a strong interdisciplinary approach that highlights the added value that environmental architects bring to the building industry and to society.

This course will give you professional skills that can be used both in architectural practice and environmental design consultancy. Professional architects with a specialisation in environmental design, sustainability and low-carbon design are particularly sought after at the moment, both in the UK and internationally.

Modern organisations increasingly rely on digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things, Big Data, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and data analytics, to improve their business processes and provide increased value to customers. However, integrating these new technologies into existing operations can prove complex and costly – it requires a unique skillset that combines business acumen and digital competence.

Open to graduates from any subject area, this course is ideal for aspiring digital business professionals who want to enhance their skills and career prospects by becoming business oriented, but with sufficient understanding of the latest technology to envisage, plan and manage digital initiatives successfully. It will prepare you to manage digital business challenges and lead at the forefront of digital transformation.