“We were given such an array of knowledge and experience across every sector in the industry.”
BA (Hons)Fashion and Beauty Media
Apply on UCAS
Starting in: 2025
Register your interest- 3 years
- 4 years with foundation year
UCAS code: FBT3
Institution code: S30
UCAS points: 48Flexible entry options available
Campus: Southampton City CentreView on Google Maps
Why study fashion and beauty media with a foundation year
Use your passion for fashion and beauty to become a multi-skilled storyteller – guided by our industry experts and using professional facilities to deliver content and campaigns for UK brands.
- Top0in the UK for learning resources in media studies, out of 89 institutions (NSS 2024)
- Top0in the UK for learning resources in design studies, out of 78 institutions (NSS 2024)
- 0thUK uni for sustained employment (Longitudinal Educational Outcomes 2022)
- If you've got a passion for creative design but aren't quite ready to undertake a full honours degree, Solent University’s Design Foundation Year is perfectly suited to students who may not be from a fashion-related background or whose qualifications do not meet the admissions requirements for the three year BA (Hons) Fashion and Beauty Media degree.
- Solent ranked 8th in the UK for teaching quality in communication and media studies (out of 88 institutions) (The Times Good University Guide 2025)
- Solent ranked 11th in the UK for student satisfaction in communication and media studies (out of 91 institutions) (Complete University Guide 2025)
- You will be taught by award-winning industry professionals who have worked at some of the UK’s leading fashion and beauty brands.
- Our unique teaching strategy will see you working under the banner of our inhouse brand, 'Carbon', our real-world 360° media platform, where you'll create live content on digital, print and web.
- Access to professional-standard facilities, including a digital reprographics lab, our recently rebuilt colour and black-and-white darkrooms, finishing and film processing rooms, a modern multimedia lab featuring 24 iMacs with Adobe Creative Suite and Final Cut Pro, plus large professional photographic studios and associated make-up and styling rooms.
- Creatively using AI and prompt engineering to develop new career opportunities in an emerging landscape.
- Industry work placement of more than 100 hours.
- Prestigious guest speakers, from Queenie Yang, Asia Editor of Vogue International to luxury brands such as Alexander McQueen and Chanel.
- Our students go on to work for a range of luxury and high street brands such as Charlotte Tilbury, Fenty, Asos, Zara, PLT, Vogue, Elle, Alexander McQueen and L’Oreal Paris, plus a range of influencer marketing and communication agencies worldwide.
- A creative, multi-disciplinary environment for world-leading research in media, culture and the arts – you will learn from experts in their field.
- Carbon was nominated as the Student Magazine of the Year (internationally) by the media platform Stack.
- You’ll be assigned a personal tutor who can assist you with pastoral support to help you make the most of your learning.
Course overview
To help get you up to speed, the Design Foundation Year provides all the creative, technical and study skills needed for entry onto a degree-level art, design or fashion course. Upon completion, you will be able to progress onto the BA (Hons) Fashion and Beauty Media degree.
The fashion and beauty industry is increasingly looking for dynamic and multi-skilled practitioners to produce a range of 360° content across editorial and commercial platforms. The fashion and beauty media degree will support you to become a fashion and beauty industry storyteller, using words, pictures, film, virtual and digital graphics to create the innovative and sustainable editorial and promotional campaigns of the future, through our in-house brand, Carbon.
This exciting real-world course, run by industry experts, teaches you how to create fashion and beauty content and plan impactful, sustainable social media strategies, create trend-driven story-telling, design industry-ready campaigns, and analyse markets to understand how the editorial and commercial worlds of fashion and beauty connect. You'll design innovative and fresh ways to engage audiences and translate a passion for fashion and beauty content to a global multimedia stage.
If you’re unsure whether you’d best suit a career in PR, editorial, marketing, trend forecasting or creative content design we will help you to explore the wealth of opportunities and future trends the fashion and beauty industries have to offer. This course will allow you to keep your options open and gain a professional portfolio in a wide variety of media disciplines that you refine and specialise as you progress towards a career that’s right for you.
You will study a range of industry focused modules including influencer marketing, fashion and beauty photography, social media strategy, virtual fashion, circular fashion and sustainability, PR and media business alongside key modules on styling and writing for fashion and beauty print and digital platforms.
Work from our final year students across our fashion-related degrees is showcased at Graduate Fashion Week (GFW). In 2023, seven students have been shortlisted by the Graduate Fashion Foundation across a number of different categories at the GFW23 awards. Read more about the students and their work.
Any questions?
Contact international admissions
Email: Call:Course features
Specialist facilities
This course has access to specialist facilities
Further studies
After successfully completing your studies, there's an opportunity to continue your studies at Solent
Top-up option
If you have an appropriate Level 5 qualification, you can top it up to a degree in just a year
Who is this course for?
Our design foundation programme is ideal for students who aren’t quite ready to undertake a full undergraduate degree, either because they aren’t from a fashion-related background, or they don’t quite meet the entry requirements.
Solent's Fashion and Beauty Media course is ideally suited to students who want to develop professional written, photographic, digital and design skills to create innovative and exciting promotional and editorial campaigns for leading fashion and beauty brands, magazines and social media. Students will want to develop their own, unique method of storytelling to create a varied portfolio of industry-ready content from the first day of their studies, be introduced to leading industry experts, work on real-world briefs with known editorial and marketing brands and collaborate with like-minded students from other fashion disciplines.
What does this course lead to?
This course can lead to a wide variety of careers in fashion and beauty marketing and promotion, social media strategy and content creation, magazine journalism, influencer marketing, PR, fashion and beauty photography, event management, advertising and within digital creative agencies offering editorial and commercial content production.
Graduate stories
Hear from Solent alumni about where their careers have taken them and how studying at Solent prepared them for their future.
Meet the team
The course team consists of industry professionals and experienced academics who have backgrounds within the fashion, beauty and media industry. The team has a wealth of contacts and experience in journalism, PR, marketing, graphic design, content creation, photography and event management, all of which enhances the student learning experience.
The University cannot guarantee any particular members of staff will teach specific aspects of the course in the future, but will endeavour to ensure the teaching team maintains their balance of experience and qualifications.
Facilities
Course facilities include an extensive media loans programme, providing access to high-end DSLR cameras such as the Canon 5D MKII, an extensive range of lenses (including many ‘L’ series and Prime lenses), 35mm cameras, medium format cameras (645, 6x7 and 6x9), large format 5x4 cameras and lenses, and a full stock of accessories – light meters, tripods, flash guns, remote-controlled boom-mounted flash systems and more.
You’ll also have access to our digital reprographics lab, featuring commercial-standard and large-format printers, flatbed scanners, three Hasselblad drum scanners scanning up to 5x4 size and a colour-calibrated ProMac-based reprographic suite. Our recently rebuilt colour and black-and-white darkrooms are of the highest industry standards and students can also freely use our in-house colour film processing machine. Additionally, we have finishing and film processing rooms, a modern multimedia lab featuring 24 iMacs with Adobe Creative Suite and Final Cut Pro, plus large professional photographic studios and associated make-up and styling rooms.
What you'll study
Core modules
Industry Skills
In a progressive and supportive manner, you will build your confidence to communicate your ideas in both a visual and written manner that is in keeping with industry practices.
Industry Awareness
This module helps you to appreciate and understand how decisions are made to plan effective industry specific scenarios.
Materials and Methods
This module introduces you to a range of technical skills appropriate to your future learning. You will learn, experiment and research other practitioners’ works to help you develop your own ideas.
Research and Ideas Development
This module places importance on both independent study and communication between students and is designed to establish strong and supportive peer networks.
Personal Development Planning
This module provides a programme of Personal Development Planning (PDP) tools. The three concepts of personal development, improving learning and performance, and forward planning to achieve goals are brought together in this module.
Degree-related Project
In other modules you have had the opportunity to develop research, design and communication skills. This module is designed to help you now apply these skills to your own project.
How you will learn and be assessed
You will learn by:
You may be assessed by a combination of:
- Digital portfolios
- Live and simulated client briefs
- Sketchbooks
- Films
- Case studies
- Collaborative learning
- Creative design projects
- Debate
- Design based portfolios
- Feature articles
- Individual and group projects
- Reflective accounts
Solent’s curriculum framework builds on our unique, creative and applied approach to teaching. The transformation of students’ lives is at the heart of our mission as a university, and our curriculum – informed by the latest theory – reflects this shared educational vision.
Find out more
Study support
The student achievement team are on hand to help you succeed during your studies at Solent. They aim to contact you at key times during your time here with personalised information, advice and guidance, by email or phone.
The disability advice team provides information, advice and guidance for disabled students.
All students can access Succeed@Solent, Solent's online guide to getting better grades. It offers extensive, practical information and advice on topics such as academic writing, research and presentations.
Why choose the industry?
The UK is the third largest apparel and footwear market worldwide, after China and the United States, with a market size of approximately £57.92 billion pounds. (Euromonitor International).
Studying Fashion and Beauty Media can make graduates well-placed to work in various roles in fashion, media and marketing, in a number of roles including; content creator, magazine journalist, marketer, press officer, fashion photographer, event manager or social media manager amongst others.
Solent's diverse guest lecture programme features industry professionals from journalism, social media, advertising, styling, business, trend forecasting and international media as well as brand collaborators, fashion influencers, publishers and marketing professionals. In the past few years, guest speakers have included editors from Vogue International, Grazia, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, VICE, Wonderland, Alexander McQueen, The Daily Mail, Goat, WGSN, Trend Spot, The Sunday Times, Oasis, Topshop, Google.
You could earn:
Magazine journalist
Senior staff: £18,000 to £35,000
At entry level typical starting salaries range from £15,000 to £26,000, although many are as low as £12,000. With experience, your salary is often negotiable. Senior staff (senior staff writer, sub-editor or features editor) usually earn between £18,000 and £35,000. If you work on a major publication or become editor-in-chief of a magazine, your salary will be anything from £22,000 to £65,000+.
Creative director
Starting salary: £20,000 to £28,000
Starting salaries for advertising creatives are between £20,000 and £28,000.Experienced creative directors, who manage small teams, can earn between £40,000 and £60,000.Experienced creative directors can earn higher salaries of £80,000+, depending on the size of the agency.
Social media manager
Typical salary: £25,000 to £45,000
As an assistant or junior social media manager your starting salary is likely to be between £20,000 and £28,000, depending on your experience. Social media managers typically earn between £25,000 and £45,000. With substantial experience, in roles such as head of social media, your salaries can range from £50,000 to in excess of £60,000.
The stated salaries are published on prospects.ac.uk.
Graduate stories
Hear from Solent alumni about where their careers have taken them and how studying at Solent prepared them for their future.
“We were given such an array of knowledge and experience across every sector in the industry.”
Solent Futures
The Solent Careers team is committed to getting students into great careers.
While you are studying, the team can help you with finding work experience or placements, link you with a mentor, check your CV, or offer one-to-one guidance.
If you're in your final year, we also have graduate job opportunities just for Solent graduates.
6th
UK uni for sustained employment
Longitudinal Educational Outcomes, 2022
Further study
Thinking about studying further than an undergraduate degree? Alumni can get 20% off their postgraduate study.
MA Creative Direction for Fashion and Beauty
Take charge and lead a wealth of fashion and beauty brands to success with your innovative and creative vision on this practice-based master's degree.
MA Visual Communication
Do you have an eye for design? Would you like to help influence the future of visual communications? Our MA Visual Communication degree is ideal for creatives keen to refine their practice, working as part of an interdisciplinary group of students.
Tuition fees
The tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year are:
- UK, EU (settled status) and Channel Island full-time fees: £9,250 per year
- International full-time fees: £15,050 for foundation level. Fees will increase for year 1.
- International full-time fees: £17,750 per year
For further information, please visit our tuition fees page.
Extra course costs
While most course costs are covered by your tuition fees, some essential resources and optional extras may need to be paid for separately. These additional costs are listed below. For advice on budgeting and managing your money, please contact student.funding@solent.ac.uk.
The 2025/26 other costs are not yet available. For guidance, previous other costs have been:
Compulsory costs
Foundation year - Portfolios, A4 ringbinders, and basic drawing materials will be required, approximately: £150
External hard drive (minimum 2TB): £50-£60
Printing of own brand magazine: £80 approx
Year two - compulsory printing: between £60 to £100 (dependent on project size)
Year three - compulsory printing/production and website: £300
Final Major Project (End of Year Show artefacts): approx. £300
Optional costs
Year one - Mac computer, study trips and software: £1,200
Year two - optional study trips: £200
Year three - optional study trips: £300
Bursaries, scholarships and financial support
Solent University offers a range of bursaries and scholarships that provide financial assistance or waive fees for tuition or accommodation. Each bursary or scholarship has specific eligibility criteria. Check out our bursaries and scholarships pages to find out more.
Solent EU Welcome Scholarship (Fee Discount)
This scholarship is available to students from an EU country, with EU nationality, who are applying for an undergraduate course starting in September 2025. The scholarship will reduce your tuition fees to £10,500.
Find out more about the scholarship
Cost of living support
At Solent, we understand that the cost of living crisis may be of some concern. To help, we've put together some detailed information to show what support is available and how to make your money go further.
Graduation costs
There is no charge to attend graduation, but you will be required to pay for the rental of your academic gown (approximately £45 per graduate, depending on your award). You may also wish to purchase official photography packages, which range in price from £15 to £200+. Graduation is not compulsory, so if you prefer to have your award sent to you, there is no cost. Extra guest tickets will go on sale after results publication and will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis. The cost per ticket is currently £15. Please note, we do not guarantee there will be any extra tickets available to purchase.
Student finance videos
Student finance Video transcript, with a description of visuals available.Student funding - the essentials Video transcript, with a description of visuals available.
Entry requirements
Please select an option below:
Key entry requirements
48 UCAS tariff points
- from A-levels, a BTEC Extended Diploma at PPP or BTEC Diploma at MP, T-level Pass (D or E) or equivalent.
- For further information about UK qualifications, please contact admissions.
Key entry requirements
As a general guide, we look for qualifications that are equivalent to the British high school A-levels.
If you are applying from outside the UK, find information about entry requirements, visas and agents for your country here.
For further information about EU qualifications, please see our course entry requirements document.
Key entry requirements
As a general guide, we look for qualifications that are equivalent to the British high school A-levels.
If you are applying from outside the UK, find information about entry requirements, visas and agents for your country here.
For further information about international qualifications, please see our course entry requirements document.
Note to all international students requiring a visa
All international applicants need to be aware that the English language requirements to attend Solent University, and the English language requirements to obtain a visa from the Home Office, may be different. This means that if you meet the Solent University language requirement to gain a place on the course, you may still have to meet additional requirements to be granted with a visa by the Home Office.
We strongly advise all applicants to visit the Home Office website which outlines all the requirements for a successful visa application.
48UCAS points
Any questions?
Contact international admissions
Email: Call:How to apply
Full-time
Any student applying for the first year of a full-time/sandwich undergraduate course must apply through UCAS (University and Colleges Admissions Service). This includes mature, overseas and EU students.
Nearly all schools and colleges offer their students the facility of applying electronically through the UCAS website using 'Apply'; it may also be used by those applying independently in the UK and overseas. This facility and all course information can be found on the UCAS website: www.ucas.com.
Your application should reach UCAS by 31 January if you hope to enter a course the following autumn. Early application is advised for the most popular subject areas. Late applications may be made until the end of June. The UCAS Code for the University is S30, code name SOLNT.
Find out what happens after you apply
Contextual offers
Solent endeavours to offer learning opportunities to students from all backgrounds. When we receive and review an application, we take into consideration the context and personal circumstances of applicants when making a decision, which means our advertised entry tariff could be reduced.
Language requirements
Applicants who do not have English as their first language will be required to demonstrate an approved level of proficiency in the use of the English language. The agreed minimum requirements for this course are:
- IELTS minimum 6.0 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each individual component
- TOEFL IBT minimum 80 with a minimum of 20 in each individual component
- Duolingo English Language Test - 115 overall with minimum of 95 in each component or equivalent.
Qualifications are checked before enrolment, and international students must bring their original certificates or certified copies when coming to study at the University.
Pre-Sessional English programme
The University also offers a pre-sessional English programme for international students who wish to improve their level of English before starting a degree course.
Make your application
- 3 years
- 4 years with foundation year
