Fashion & Textile Retailing: The University of Manchester

Course description

This inter-disciplinary degree programme equips you for a career in fashion retail management, currently one of the most rapidly-evolving and major growth areas of business.

With the increasingly global nature of retailing, managers and strategists require a wide-ranging knowledge base including an understanding of areas more usually associated with design and marketing such as design processes and e-commerce. The necessary creative and analytical skills are taught through a problem-based approach to practical work in areas such as trend forecasting and fashion promotion. The programme also has an option to incorporate clothing modules to give you the technical knowledge to understand the process of making garments in industry.

Theory, taught through traditional lectures and seminars, covers topics such as fashion management, buyer behaviour, retailing and supply chain strategies and underpins the practical course work.

The programme can also be taken over four years, subject to exam performance at the end of your second year.  The third year can be spent either on industrial experience or with study abroad in an English speaking institution in Hong Kong, Sweden or the USA.

Career opportunities

Employers are seeking multi-skilled personnel who are able to work in multi-functional teams. Graduates from this programme go into various retail sectors of the fashion and textile industries as buyers, marketers and retail managers. Recent graduates have been employed by Arcadia, Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, Matalan, Next and House of Fraser.

Entry requirements

• English language:
  • Grade C or above in GCSE English language.
  • Grade C or above in Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency.
  • IELTS average score of 6 with not less than 5.5 in any one component.
  • Test of English as a Foreign language (TOEFL) minimum score of 550 (paper based); 213 (computer based), 80 (internet-based).
• A level: Grades ABB.
• Unit grade information: The University of Manchester welcomes the provision of unit grade information which, like all other available information, will inform the consideration of applications.
• GCSE: Minimum grade C in English Language and Mathematics.  As this programme leads to a Bachelor of Science, they also require dual science at grade C or above.
• Key Skills qualification: The University warmly welcomes applications from students studying the Key Skills qualification.
• International Baccalaureate: 33 to 34 points overall with three subjects at Higher level.