This degree develops your practical and vocational skills alongside your knowledge of legal theory.

  • Put your legal knowledge into practice while you develop career-enhancing skills.
  • Designed to prepare you for a wide range of careers.
  • Combine your interest in law alongside another subject.

#1 in the UK

for Value Added in Law (Guardian University Guide 2026)

#2 in South West

for Continuation in Law (Complete University Guide 2026)

#3 in South West

for Satisfaction with Teaching in Law (Guardian University Guide 2026)

This degree develops your legal knowledge, research and professional skills. You'll gain a broad understanding of legal systems and criminal law, and expand your knowledge to topics such as EU law, punishment and penology, and cybercrime.

So that you can hit the ground running when you graduate, we've built career planning into each strand of the course, with a focus on the growing number of roles that require related skill sets. These include roles in governance, risk management, advocacy, public policy, HR and finance.

"Having a knowledge of legal concepts is invaluable within organisations and general life... Being able to practise debating, analyse and be concise in talking and writing is really useful. My favorite topic is employment law as I want to pursue a career in Human Resources."

Maisy Ward, final year Law module

What you'll learn

This degree covers tort, contract, criminal, and property law. It also introduces practical skills such as case analysis, negotiation and alternative dispute resolution, drafting, interviewing and mooting.

You'll develop the ability to understand connections between legal topics; this replicates legal and paralegal practice, where problems are rarely neatly packaged. You'll also be supported to develop your professional practice and employability skills throughout the degree.

You'll select from a range of interdisciplinary optional modules including criminology, sociology and business, as well as law options such as cyberlaw, punishment and penology and international law. This will enhance your experiences and provide you with better employment prospects.

We'll encourage you to undertake a work placement in a relevant field. This could include opportunities working with organisations such as the police, government, law firms or councils.

Year one
Gain a broad understanding of English legal systems and criminal law. Contextualise your learning and develop your professional identity and employability skills. Develop skills of case analysis and understand research methods.

Year two
Focus on extending your legal understanding to include subjects such as contract law and EU law. You'll develop a range of skills including negotiation and advocacy.

Continue to contextualise your learning and extend your employability skills by selecting from a range of law, business, criminology and sociology options. You'll also be supported and encouraged to take a work placement.

Year three
Explore property and tort law while developing skills of drafting and presenting. Select from a range of interdisciplinary optional modules, such as cybercrime, leadership and management, and environmental law.

Lectures and seminars will be combined with practical exercises. Your learning will be supported by our VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). 

To find out more about how we teach and how you'll learn, please read our information on Your Learning and Teaching at BSU.

The course will include a variety of assessments including practice based assessments such as drafting and negotiating.

Opportunities

You'll be supported and encouraged to complete a short work placement during the second year, or you could take a ten-month placement between the second and third year by selecting the Professional Placement version of the course.

This course opens you up to a range of careers both within and adjacent to Law and your chosen joint subject. You’ll combine legal knowledge with practical skills (such as contract law with negotiation, property law with interviewing and litigation with mooting). You'll also develop key transferable skills that'll be valuable for other career routes.

The range of interdisciplinary modules gives you the chance to expand your expertise and enhance your experiences. This will also provide you with better employment prospects.

Professional placement year

The Professional Placement Year (PPY) provides you with the opportunity to identify, apply for, and secure professional experience, normally comprising one to three placements over a minimum of nine months. Successful completion of this module will demonstrate your ability to secure and sustain graduate-level employment.

By completing the module, you'll be entitled to the addition of 'with Professional Placement Year' to your degree title.

Before your PPY, you'll work to identify roles of interest and secure a placement. The Placements Team will support through timetabled sessions and 1:1 appointments.

As well as completing a minimum of 900 placement hours, you will complete two assessments demonstrating your skill development, growth in professional behaviours and how the PPY has impacted your future career aspirations.

Facilities and resources

You'll have access to excellent facilities both on and off Newton Park campus. These include:

Our library offers a wide range of law materials. There's also a wealth of material available via electronic sources. These include Business Source Complete, an online legal database, and an increasing range of ebooks. This online material can be accessed on and off campus, enabling you to work at times that suit you.

Fees

Student Annual tuition fee
UK full time £9,535
UK part time £4,768
International full time £17,310

Professional Placement Year

During the placement year, the fee is reduced to 20% of the full time fee. This applies to UK and EU/International students.

  • UK: £1,905
  • International: £3,462

Additional course costs

You may need to pay additional course costs over and above your tuition fees, for example, for specialist equipment or trips and visits. Please check the course Programme Document (linked under the main image on this page) for details of any additional costs. You can also read our Additional Course Costs Policy for further information.

Funding opportunities

Please visit our Funding pages for an overview of the funding options that may be available, including scholarships and bursaries.

Interested in applying?

We're looking for hardworking, articulate applicants with a strong interest in the law, who are also keen to develop their practical skills. Prior law qualifications aren't required.

We accept a wide range of qualifications for entry to our undergraduate programmes. The main ones are listed below. 

All applicants will need to hold GCSE: English (grade C/4 or above), Mathematics (grade C/4 or above), or recognised equivalents. 

  • A Level – grades BBB-BCC. No specific subject required.
  • BTEC – Extended Diploma grades from Distinction Distinction Merit (DDM) to Distinction Merit Merit (DMM). No specific subject required.
  • T Levels – grade Merit. No specific subject required.
  • International Baccalaureate – a minimum of 32 points. No specific subject required.
  • Access to HE courses – Access to HE Diploma or Access to HE Certificate (60 credits, 45 of which must be Level 3, at Merit or higher). No specific subject required.

If you don’t meet the entry requirements above, we may be able to accept your prior learning or experience from outside of formal education. See our Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) page to learn more.

English Language Requirements for International and EU Applicants

IELTS 6.0 - for visa nationals, with a minimum score of IELTS 5.5 in each element.

Course enquiries

For further information about the programme or entry requirements, please email us at admissions@bathspa.ac.uk.

Ready to apply? Click the 'apply now' button in the centre of this page.

Need more guidance? Head to our how to apply pages.

If you’re an international student or based overseas, web-based interviews may be offered. Please contact International Admissions for more information: internationaladmissions@bathspa.ac.uk.

Keep abreast of legal developments and cases by monitoring current events and news items. Visit your local court to observe cases. Undertake work experience within a legal environment.

Programme leader: Timothy Myers
Email: t.myers@bathspa.ac.uk

Three year course

With placement year

If not now, then when?

  • Combine professional skills and opportunities with subject knowledge in an innovative Politics degree.
  • Develop practical and professional skills. Apply both to contemporary challenges, issues and debates.
  • Explore the next stage in your career. Our graduates have gone on to work with leading employers.

Our innovative Politics degree has been designed to enable you to acquire specialised subject knowledge while developing practical and professional skills that you can apply to contemporary challenges, issues and debates.

What do people really mean when they say they’re not 'interested in politics'?

Political action or inaction shapes our lives every day, in ways which are often invisible, or which seem remote or impenetrable. We know that it matters, but we can also feel removed from it: the vast sums of money spent on elections and then nothing seems to change, the narrowness of so much debate and the pointlessness of point scoring, getting power in order to keep it.

We want to try to get under the surface of all these assumptions and ask if it really has to be this way. We want to try to understand the politics of everyday life, as well as the major challenges of climate change, poverty and inequality, the imbalances of wealth and power nationally and internationally, and between elected governments and unelected corporations. Who decides: the local councillor, the member of parliament, or the chairman of the board?

Develop practical and professional skills

Our course draws on a wider range of disciplines, and places the study of politics in historical, cultural and philosophical contexts. You’ll work collaboratively with students in other subjects in your first two years, in order to deepen your understanding and to sharpen your analysis of political ideas, processes and structures.

Explore the next stage in your career

You’ll be able to develop the skills you’ll need in the next stage in your career: how to plan a project, how to measure and evaluate outcomes, how to communicate effectively with different audiences, for different purposes. 

Open Days

Get a taste of life at BSU – come to an Open Day.

Book your place

Bath Spa students become international diplomats for the day

Bath Spa University students had the opportunity to experience working as an international diplomat for the day, joining students from 32 UK universities to participate in a crisis scenario event.

It was the first time that Bath Spa University took part in the prestigious annual event, which was held at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Westminster and organised by the British International Studies Association.

Read the full story
Students at the model Nato event sit around a large table

What you'll learn

Our Politics course takes a creative and collaborative approach to global political issues. Our Politics modules have been carefully designed to encourage you to look across the boundaries between different disciplines.

You'll focus on contemporary change, movements and action. You’ll also explore the historical and philosophical contexts in which political ideas develop, and investigate the social, environmental and cultural impacts of these.

Our perspectives are local and global, and our approach is applied. Understand how the world works, and then take your place in it. You may not become ‘A Politician’ but work in education, the third sector, financial services, health or social care has a political dimension, and demands the skills you’ll develop through your degree.

At BSU, our courses are designed to equip our graduates with the knowledge and skills they’ll need for the real world. To do this, we are continually improving our courses by responding to feedback from students and other stakeholders. This may mean changes may be made to the curriculum. You’ll always be given notice of any such changes.

For more information on how we approach such changes at the university, please read our policies on

Year one
Introductions and foundations: develop your skills in political thinking, and follow a broad curriculum which allows you to ask questions, challenge your own assumptions, interrogate evidence, data and opinions.

Year two
Practical, applied, relevant: this year combines the academic study of Politics with the acquisition of professional skills and the application of your knowledge and understanding to a defined problem or idea.

Year three
Achievement, consolidation, creativity: your final project in the third year brings all this together. You’ll identify your own area of study, develop your proposal and put it into practice. This might be an extended piece of academic writing, but it might also be a pitch to a local employer, a community project or the creation of digital resources.

We use a mix of traditional and contemporary assessments, including essays, group and individual presentations, online reports, surveys, projects, practical tasks and exams. You’ll also learn to communicate key messages visually, as well as in words.

You’ll participate in a variety of activities including lectures, seminars, workshops, practical sessions, masterclasses and field trips.

To find out more about how we teach and how you'll learn, please read our information on Your Learning and Teaching at BSU.

Professional placement year

The Professional Placement Year (PPY) provides you with the opportunity to identify, apply for, and secure professional experience, normally comprising one to three placements over a minimum of nine months. Successful completion of this module will demonstrate your ability to secure and sustain graduate-level employment.

By completing the module, you'll be entitled to the addition of 'with Professional Placement Year' to your degree title.

Before your PPY, you'll work to identify roles of interest and secure a placement. The Placements Team will support through timetabled sessions and 1:1 appointments.

As well as completing a minimum of 900 placement hours, you will complete two assessments demonstrating your skill development, growth in professional behaviours and how the PPY has impacted your future career aspirations.

Facilities and resources

Our Politics course is based at Newton Park campus.

You'll have access to excellent facilities and resources such as:

All modules can be found on our Virtual Learning Environment, Ultra, providing unlimited online access to learning materials such as handbooks, lecture slides, assessment information, discussion boards and other resources.

Our library gives you access to books, academic journals and DVDs and an extensive range of electronic services. It also provides a place for individual study and collaborative work.

Fees

Student Annual tuition fee
UK full time £9,535
UK part time £4,768
International full time £17,310

Professional Placement Year

During the placement year, the fee is reduced to 20% of the full time fee. This applies to UK and EU/International students.

  • UK: £1,905
  • International: £3,462

Additional course costs

You may need to pay additional course costs over and above your tuition fees, for example, for specialist equipment or trips and visits. Please check the course Programme Document (linked under the main image on this page) for details of any additional costs. You can also read our Additional Course Costs Policy for further information.

Funding opportunities

Please visit our Funding pages for an overview of the funding options that may be available, including scholarships and bursaries.

Interested in applying?

We're looking for imaginative, critical and independent people who want to understand the world in order to change it.

You'll be inventive, thoughtful and aware of fresh narratives. You'll also be connected, socially engaged, and keen to challenge the status quo.

Digitally literate, you'll question your sources, and contest received opinion.

We accept a wide range of qualifications for entry to our undergraduate programmes. The main ones are listed below:

  • A Level – grades BBB-BCC. No specific subject required.
  • BTEC – Extended Diploma grades from Distinction Distinction Merit (DDM) to Distinction Merit Merit (DMM). No specific subject required.
  • T Levels – grade Merit. No specific subject required.
  • International Baccalaureate – a minimum of 32 points. No specific subject required.
  • Access to HE courses –  Access to HE Diploma or Access to HE Certificate (60 credits, 45 of which must be Level 3, at Merit or higher). No specific subject required.

If you don’t meet the entry requirements above, we may be able to accept your prior learning or experience from outside of formal education. See our Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) page to learn more.

English Language Requirements for International and EU Applicants

  • IELTS 6.0 – for visa nationals, with a minimum score of IELTS 5.5 in each element.

Ready to apply? Click the 'apply now' button in the centre of this page. Need more guidance? Head to our how to apply pages.

If you’re an international student or based overseas, web-based interviews may be offered. Please contact International Admissions for more information: internationaladmissions@bathspa.ac.uk.

International students should visit our international pages for more information about our entry requirements, fees and scholarships, and student support.

Keep up with the news, but always with healthy scepticism. Never take a story at face value. Read widely and critically around issues that concern you.

Find out more about the people and organisations making changes in the world – changes you want to see, and those you don’t!

Course leader: Dr Rupert Alcock
Email: r.alcock@bathspa.ac.uk 

Three year course

With placement year