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University of Portsmouth

UCAS Code: LM40 | Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)

Entry requirements

A level

B,B,C-C,C,C

96-112 points, to include a minimum of 2 A levels.

96-112 Tariff points from the Access to HE Diploma.

Cambridge Pre-U score of 42-46.

GCSE/National 4/National 5

3 GCSEs at grade C or above to include English and Mathematics/3 GCSEs at grade 4 or above to include English and Mathematics.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

25

25 points from the IB Diploma, to include 3 Higher Level subjects.

Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)

H3,H4,H4,H4,H4-H3,H3,H3,H3,H4

Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.

Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

DMM-MMM

96-112 Tariff points to include a minimum of 2 Advanced Highers.

Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.

T Level

M

UCAS Tariff

96-112

96-112 points, to include a minimum of 2 A levels, or equivalent.

96-112 points from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate including 1 A level, plus the Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate.

About this course

This course has alternative study modes. Contact the university to find out how the information below might vary.

Course option

3years

Full-time | 2025

Other options

4 years | Sandwich | 2025

Subjects

Sociology

Criminology

**This is a Connected Degree**

Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.

**Overview**

People are not born criminals. On this course, you’ll explore how human relationships and social structures influence behaviour. You’ll discover how power dynamics and inequalities create crime. And you’ll see people who break and enforce the law in a new light.

With many diverse options to choose from, you can tailor this BSc (Hons) Sociology with Criminology degree around topics that fascinate you – from identity issues, such as race and sexuality, to issues of experience, such as happiness, gang crime or serial killing.

Modules are taught by experts who draw directly from their research activity – to give you the latest knowledge in the field. .

Course highlights

- Explore topics informed by our latest research, from a curriculum constantly updated to reflect new ideas in areas as diverse as black studies, gender, class and inequality

- Learn how to persuade others through evidence-based argument, by taking a critical look at different ideas of society, crime and justice

- Go beyond issues of crime to explore the human experience more broadly – from migration to inequalities, from food to celebrity culture

- Practice analysing human behaviour through social research, so you can gain insights to help improve people’s wellbeing

- Customise your degree to match your ambitions: some modules reduce the amount to time you’d need to train for a policing career or as a probation officer

**Careers and opportunities**

Studying a combination of sociology and criminology opens up a wide range of potential careers, both in and out of the criminal justice system. Whether you’re attracted to careers that involve working closely with other people, or roles that call for rigorous and structured thinking, you’ll be well prepared.

This is because you’ll graduate with a set of skills that are transferable to all kinds of professions. Those skills include:

- insight into people and social dynamics

- critical thinking and analysis

- qualitative and quantitative research

- the ability to shape and communicate an argument

For proof that a wide range of employers value these skills, look at the diversity of roles our recent graduates have taken on. They include: police officer, recruitment consultant, litigation paralegal, digital forensics assistant and victim support caseworker.

What areas can you work in with a sociology with criminology degree?

You’ll graduate ready to pursue a career or further training in areas such as:

- health and social care

- law enforcement

- probation

- counselling

- advertising, marketing and media

- teaching and lecturing

- human resources and recruitment

- business administration and personnel management

You could also progress into research-related jobs or pursue further research and study at postgraduate level.

What jobs can you do with a sociology with criminology degree?

Job roles you could take on include:

- social researcher

- probation officer

- investigative analyst

- police officer

- human resource manager

- counsellor

- teacher

- charity worker

- detention custody officer

Modules

Year 1
Core modules in this year include:
- Criminal Justice (20 credits)
- Developing your Sociological Imagination (40 credits)
- Research Design and Analysis (20 credits)
- Theorising Social Life (20 credits)
- Understanding Criminology (20 credits)

There are no optional modules in this year.

Year 2
Core modules in this year include:
- Doing Sociological Research (20 credits)
- Questioning Criminology (20 credits)

Optional modules in this year include (20 credits each):
- Consumer Society: Critical Themes and Issues
- Contemporary Terrorism and the Global Response
- Crimes of the Powerful
- Digital Cultures: Exploring the Digital in the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Drugs and Society
- Emotions and Social Life
- Empire and Its Afterlives in Britain, Europe, and Africa
- Engaged Citizenship in Humanities and Social Sciences
- Equality Or Liberation? Theorising Social Justice
- Family, Career and Generation
- Gang Crime
- Gender and Sexuality
- Global Environmental Justice
- Global Security
- Hate Crime
- Health, Wellbeing, and Happiness
- Intercultural Perspectives On Communication
- Marketing & Communication
- Modernity and Globalisation
- Nationalism and Migration: Chaos, Crisis and the Everyday
- News, Discourse, and Media
- Penology and Prison
- Policing and Society
- Principles of Economic Crime Investigation
- Professional Experience
- Puritans to Postmodernists: American Literature
- Race and Racism
- Risk and Society
- Social Power, Elites and Dissent
- Sociology of Culture: Taste, Value and Celebrity
- The Sociology of Education
- Transitional Justice & Human Rights
- Understanding Personal Life
- Victims of Crime: Key Players in Criminal Justice
- Wildlife Crime: Threats and Response
- Work, Employment and Society
- Youth Crime, Youth Justice

Placement year (optional)
Have the opportunity to do a work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates.

Year 3
Core modules in this year are:

Optional sociology modules in this year are (20 credits each):
- Challenging Global Inequality
- Consumer Society: Critical Themes and Issues
- Emotions and Social Life
- Equality or Liberation? Theorising Social Justice
- Family, Career and Generation
- Food, Culture and Society
- Gender and Sexuality
- Health, Wellbeing and Happiness
- Introduction to Teaching
- Nationalism and Migration: Chaos, Crisis and the Everyday
- Professional Development
- Professional Experience: Recruiters and Candidates
- Race and Racism
- Social Power, Elites and Dissent
- Sociology of Culture: Taste, Value and Celebrity
- Understanding Personal Life

Optional criminology modules are:
- Black Criminology, Race and the Criminal Justice System
- Consumer Society: Critical Themes and Issues
- Contemporary Terrorism and the Global Response
- Crime and New Technologies: Theory and Practice
- Dangerous Offenders and Public Protection
- Dissertation
- Economic Crime and Fraud Examination
- Emotions and Social Life
- Equality Or Liberation? Theorising Social Justice
- Family, Career and Generation
- Gender and Crime
- Gender and Sexuality
- Green Crime and Environmental Justice
- Health, Wellbeing and Happiness
- Introduction to Teaching
- Major Project
- Miscarriages of Justice
- Money Laundering and Compliance
- Nationalism and Migration: Chaos, Crisis and the Everyday
- Policing: Law, Policy and Practice
- Policing: Communities, Intelligence and Information
- Political Extremism
- Professional Development: Recruiters and Candidates
- Professional Experience
- Race and Racism
- Social Power, Elites and Dissent
- Sociology of Culture: Taste, Value and Celebrity
- The Sociology of Education
- Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders
- True Crime - the Making of a Genre
- Understanding Personal Life

Assessment methods

You'll be assessed through:

- written essays
- group and individual presentations
- group and individual projects
- seminar participation
- examinations
- a 10,000 word dissertation

You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so you can improve in the future.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£9,250
per year
International
£17,200
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni

Course location:

University of Portsmouth

Department:

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Read full university profile

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.

78%
Sociology
78%
Criminology

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.

Sociology

Teaching and learning

78%
Staff make the subject interesting
89%
Staff are good at explaining things
78%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
69%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

78%
Library resources
89%
IT resources
82%
Course specific equipment and facilities
68%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

95%
UK students
5%
International students
20%
Male students
80%
Female students
83%
2:1 or above
16%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
C
C

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.

Sociology

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.

£21,000
high
Average annual salary
99%
high
Employed or in further education
55%
high
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

16%
Welfare and housing associate professionals
13%
Protective service occupations
9%
Business, finance and related associate professionals

We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Sociology

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£25k

£25k

£25k

£25k

£29k

£29k

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.

Explore these similar courses...

This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.

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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Course location and department:

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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?

Have a question about this info? Learn more here