Economics and Finance with Business Foundation Year
UCAS Code: LN31
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
GCSE/National 4/National 5
GCSE English Language at grade C (or 4) and Maths at grade C (or 4).
UCAS Tariff
About this course
At Keele University, we’re different. Nestled in 600 acres of countryside in the heart of the UK, we have a big campus but a small and cosmopolitan community. We’re proud to be ‘University of the Year for Student Experience’ in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017, in addition to having been ranked No.1 in the National Student Survey 2014-2016. This is because it’s more than green and lovely, it’s a place of research and academic excellence too.
This course provides excellent preparation for a wide range of subjects relating to business, management, accounting, finance and economics. The Business Foundation Year has been developed in consultation with Keele Management School which has a long established and growing international reputation. Study of the theory of business and management goes hand in hand with investigation into up-to-date case studies and training in academic literacy, numerical and computational skills.
After you have completed your Business Foundation Year, you could progress on to the Economics and Finance degree. This programme will enable you to develop and demonstrate practical skills, which are highly attractive to employers. You will also have the option to take a placement year between years two and three of your studies to enhance your experience and knowledge.
You will explore the economic behaviour of households, businesses and governments, the functioning of markets and the effects of fiscal and monetary policies. You will examine the behaviour of financial institutions, such as banks, hedge funds and portfolio managers, their instruments and how they interact in markets. Wider contemporary issues such as the ethics of banking and lending markets will also be analysed.
The course will equip you with a range of skills and capabilities, both subject-related and more general lifelong skills, such as analytical ability, critical thinking and advanced numeracy. Every year, at least one statistical module is compulsory, to prepare you to take advantage of the professional opportunities made possible by the Big Data revolution. All these skills will help you prepare for a graduate career and/or for further study.
The Uni
Keele University
Keele (Central)
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We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Finance
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Economics
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Finance
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?Over 2,000 students graduated with a degree in finance in 2015, and a sign of the strength of the finance industry, numbers are on the up. Over half of finance graduates go into the finance industry, with accountancy and financial advice roles particularly popular. It's also quite common for finance graduates to go into jobs which require you to take more training and gain professional qualifications — finance graduates who take further study are more likely to be studying accountancy than finance. About a third of graduates start their careers in London - but Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham are other popular locations for finance graduates to work.
Economics
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?This is a degree in demand, as business increasingly needs workers who can examine and explain complex data. And yet the number of economics graduates fell by nearly 10% last year, which means demand is even greater. As so many economic grads go into banking and finance, it's not surprising that over half of all 2015's economics graduates who did go into work were working in London. And don't think it's just the finance industry that's interested in these graduates - there's a significant number who enter the IT industry to work with data as analysts and consultants. It's quite common for economics graduates to go into jobs such as accountancy and management consultancy which may require you to take more training and gain professional qualifications - so don’t assume you won’t have to take any more exams once you leave uni. And the incentive to take them, of course, is better pay, which will be on top of an already healthy average starting salary of over £30,000 for graduates working in the capital.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Finance
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£24k
£27k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Economics
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£17k
£26k
£23k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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