Automotive & Transport Design at UCA

Our BSc (Hons) Automotive & Transport Design degree course at UCA Canterbury is an exciting course that focuses on exploring the future of personal and mass transit, and developing solutions that can meet the climate, social, and political challenges of the future. 

We’ll ask you to reconsider everything you think you know about transport. As you begin to design and develop your ideas, you’ll also learn to prototype and test in real and virtual space, using technology including our motion capture suite to explore capacity, ergonomics, and qualitative testing.  

On top of design considerations, you’ll also learn about societal and environmental impacts, policies, implementations, operating expenses, sustainability, and many other factors that shape approaches to transport design.

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
WH10
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS point

International equivalent qualifications

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
WH1B
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements

Course
details

Launch
Launch Week is the first week of your academic journey in the Canterbury School of Architecture and Design and follows on directly from Induction Week. It is an intensive week spent gearing up for your year’s study objectives and getting to know your course staff, peer group and the school community in greater depth.

Design 01 – Sketch and Build
You’ll engage with a series of design projects that will help introduce core skills in concept development and representation, through sketching, model making, diagramming, and time-based media. Using these skills you’ll respond to a design challenge and use digital tools to record and reflect upon the design process.

Design for Equity 01
In this unit, you’ll be introduced to the technological principles, civil regulations, and societal challenges that inform contemporary design and manufacture, with a view to using and engaging with them for your future studies.

Briefs and Positions 01
You’ll prepare a basic set of briefing materials to inform and guide your development of a small-scale design proposal, which you’ll make later in the year.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Design 02 – Iterate and Adapt
You’ll explore the fundamental processes of design practice through spatial or product analysis, deconstruction, documentation and augmentation. To help with this, you’ll learn sketching and drawing, assembly and disassembly, accurate survey and measurement in 3D space, material analysis and documentation of both the physical space or product and their intended programme or market.

Critical Analysis 01
The designer is not a single figure working in isolation, and in this unit, you’ll learn how and why. Through critical engagement with histories and theories of spatial and object design practice, you’ll consider the idea that spaces, objects, and systems all reflect and inform a society’s beliefs, customs and ideas.

Material and Digital Practices
This unit will introduce you to basic ideas around representation as a critical practice, and core theories of the design and production of small-scale objects in 2D print and 3D physical form. Working between the physical and virtual worlds, you will establish a range of techniques in digital and physical representation, building the foundation on which you begin to develop your visual communication skills and technological competence.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curriculum and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

Launch
Launch Week for your second year is all about getting you ready for your next year of study, and re-orientating after your first summer break.

Design 03 – Fabricate and Form
You’lll enhance your approaches to design development and conceptualisation through the further refinement of sketching, model making and visualisation skills, with specific focus on digital representation methodologies, and material and manufacturing constrains and opportunities.

Design for Equity 02
You’ll focus on how non-Western perspectives, culturally diverse contexts and vernacular practices can inform low-carbon approaches to spatial and product design. You will also critically explore the (contested) tools and practices that our industries use to assess ‘environmental’ concerns; developing a holistic understanding of embodied energy costs and the potential disposal or destruction, recycle, or reuse of the spaces and products that you design.

Briefs and Positions 02
In this unit, you’ll prepare a developed set of briefing materials to guide your development of a medium-scale design proposal in a subsequent design unit.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Design 04 – Context and Constraint
You’ll expand your conceptual approach to constraint-based design by undertaking a detailed design project which brings together your technical, conceptual ideation, iterative testing, and narrative production skills in a confident and holistic way.

Pathways and Mentors
In Pathways and Mentors, you will reflect on the design skills, knowledge and techniques you are acquiring and identify potential alternative career paths that you might not yet have considered. In the course of this unit, all students will have the opportunity to engage with a design professional in a structured series of engagement and mentoring sessions.

Critical Analysis 02
This unit builds on understandings from Critical Analysis 01, and issues introduced in the preceding Briefs and Positions unit, to consider how ideas are socially, historically, and culturally located.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, level 4 engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curricular and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.

Launch
For your final Launch week, you’ll be gearing up for your final year of study through a range of activities, which could include a multi-story guest lecture super session, an all staff pecha kucher, Canterbury and surroundings walking orientation tours or a studio launch collaborative making project.

Design 05 – Pitch and Prototype
This unit challenges you to engage with exciting new technologies and to produce compelling digital and physical prototypes through the rapid acquisition and integration of new skills within your workflows. You’ll go on developing your individual and group working skills and start to experience the pace of work in practice as you move toward employment.

Critical Analysis 03
This unit provides a framework for you to establish your own personalised research trajectory. You’ll produce a piece of self-directed research on a subject that is related to the historical, theoretical and critical concerns of your subject discipline. The subject matter will be informed by the specific interests that you have developed.

Briefs and Positions 03
In the Briefs and Positions 03 unit you will prepare an advanced set of briefing materials that will inform and guide your development of a medium-scale design for your Final Major Project.

Opportunity
Opportunity Week is an intensive week of activity conceived and undertaken in collaboration with an external partner(s), and it’ll be driven by the partner’s external knowledge and area of practice – so it could cover anything from politics or law to sport and wellbeing.

Major Project
After defining your own brief and with the support of your tutor, you will develop and complete an expansive project that uses all your skills in design, making, research and project development. The finished work should reflect your deep understanding of contemporary practice.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Industry placement
offer

Preparing graduates for successful careers underpins everything we do, and all students on this course may be offered support to identify and prepare for an industry placement according to their individual needs. We’ll draw on our wide range of contacts within the creative industries to help provide you with opportunities that align with your interests and future career aspirations.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

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Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • BA course: £9,250

Tuition fees - 2025/26

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • BA course: £17,500

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of the Course Information Document for more details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

There are open plan studio spaces for each year of the course, used for group tutorials and personal working. Facilities for the course include: laser cutters, 3D printers, a virtual reality lab, a 3D workshop with machines for working in wood, metals, plastics and ceramics, and fully-equipped computer studios with Macs and PCs running software for design and animation.

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Studios, UCA Canterbury

Digital suites, UCA Canterbury

Architecture TrakLab, UCA Canterbury

Fabrication Lab, UCA Canterbury

Career opportunities

Graduates should expect to leave their studies with an in-depth knowledge of how the industry is evolving alongside social and economic change, as well as the practical skills needed to excel in design-based career paths.

This includes options such as:

  • Freelance designer
  • Industry-specific engineer
  • 2D and 3D specific concept artist
  • Marketing roles
  • Mechanical design engineers.

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

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Entry & portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. International students will be asked to submit an online portfolio. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

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