Interior Design
Entry requirements
96 UCAS Tariff points from a minimum of 2 A Levels (or equivalent), including Grade C in Art, Design or Media subject.
UCAS Tariff Points accepted.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
3 GCSEs at grade C, or grade 4, or above, including English.
UCAS Tariff
UCAS Tariff points from a minimum of 2 A Levels (or equivalent), including Grade C in Art, Design or Media subject.
You may also need to…
Attend an interview
Present a portfolio
About this course
**Interior designers work with clients to create attractive, safe and functional rooms and spaces. Study BA (Hons) Interior Design at ARU in Cambridge, and develop your creative vision.**
As an interior designer you might work with homeowners, public bodies and businesses. You'll consider the use of furniture, lighting, flooring, artwork and decoration, decor and colour pallettes to create residential or commercial spaces that people enjoy using.
To become a professional interior designer you'll typically need a university degree in interior design or a related subject. Practical experience is also valuable and here at ARU, you'll receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience.
With our small studio groups, your tutors will really get to know you and your work, and help you become a resilient interior designer with a distinctive creative voice.
Our BA (Hons) Interior Design scored 95% for Academic Support and 93% for Teaching on my Course in the National Student Survey 2023.
Exciting and intriguing interior spaces offer experiences that make us want to return again and again. Discover how you can embed stories into your designs – stories that help others to develop social connections and make your designed spaces important to the community.
By studying BA (Hons) Interior Design at ARU, you’ll explore the relationships between design, experience and narrative.
Based in our dedicated interior design studio in Cambridge, you'll learn to create effective design proposals. Your studio work will include:
- preparing 2D plans and elevations
- developing fully realised 3D drawings
- creating built models
- considering the use of furniture, lighting and materials
- looking at small- and large-scale interior design projects.
You'll also learn about project management, professional communication, budgeting, and specification skills.
Throughout the course, you’ll be encouraged to propose design questions, such as: How can public spaces cater for multiple activities and users? How much space do we need to live in? How do major brands reinvent themselves to respond to new markets?
We think your ideas and design skills are important. You’ll develop these by working in small teams at different stages of your degree, sometimes alongside students from other creative courses.
There’s the opportunity to get inspired on European field trips, and to study abroad for a semester – with funding available to help cover the cost.
You can also see your designs become reality in live projects briefs with our partner organisations - our students recently worked with Cambridge Library Services to re-design the café interior at Cambridge Central Library - and foster professional relationships through Design Bench, a series of industry networking meetings.
**Industry-standard facilities**
As well as our dedicated interior design studio, you’ll have use of all our creative facilities including:
- 3D workshops for physical media including wood, plastic, metal and clay
- specialist printmaking workshop
- dedicated Mac and PC suites with the latest software including Adobe Creative suite
- Ruskin Gallery, a professional digital art gallery
- photography and media facilities including darkrooms; studios; film processing; digital printing suite; video editing; and professional equipment loans
- life drawing studio.
**Careers**
Our BA (Hons) Interior Design degree will prepare you to work with architects or in spatial design practices on residential, commercial, hospitality, health, lighting, entertainment or furniture design projects, or to set up your own interior design practice after graduation. The creative skills you develop will help you find a career in the visual arts, film, television, event and theatre design, or exhibition and museum design; while the management skills will be useful for project management roles on creative projects.
Modules
Year 1 core modules: Design Context and Technology; Studio Culture 1; Visual Communication. Year 2 core modules: Critical Issues and Debates; Digital Media in Application; Studio Culture 2; Ruskin Module. Year 3 core module: Studio Culture 3; Human Behaviour Research Project. Modules are subject to change and availability.
Assessment methods
Our studio projects will allow you to focus on your creative development, while you’ll also demonstrate your process and creative decisions through a combination of portfolio, written and practical studio work.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
Cambridge Campus
Cambridge School of Art
What students say
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.
Design studies
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.
Design studies
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 about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Design studies
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£16k
£18k
£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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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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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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