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Published: 07 July 2025

Five reasons to study Aerospace Engineering at Surrey

What makes our aerospace engineering degrees different and what’s the secret behind our graduates’ success? Here we reveal five reasons why you should choose the University of Surrey for your aerospace engineering degree.

1. Fantastic work placement opportunities

Surrey won Best University Careers/Employability Service in the UK in 2022. You can take advantage of our renowned Professional Training placement programme and get a year’s valuable work experience with a globally renowned company or a specialised supplier or contractor within the aerospace supply chain. Many students go on to receive graduate job offers from their placement companies.

Students have recently gone on placement to:

  • Williams Racing
  • Airbus
  • GE Aviation
  • Lockheed Martin
  • Rolls Royce

Read about student Natália Gogolová's placement experience with Formula 1 legends, Williams Racing.

We also have a superb graduate employability record, with 96 per cent of our School of Engineering undergraduate students going on to employment or further study (Graduate Outcomes 2024, HESA)​.

2. Flexibility with common first year

Whether you opt for our Aerospace EngineeringMechanical Engineering or Biomedical Engineering courses, you’ll study a common first year, which means you can swap to a different pathway, if you decide it’s a better fit, up until the end of your first year.

3. Compete in prestigious competitions

Learning at Surrey isn’t just about lecture theatres and labs. Our students compete in prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) competitions - with great success!

In 2021 and 2022 our team claimed top prize in the UAS (unmanned aerial system) competition, coming second in 2023. Our Peryton Space team has recently won four competitions, including the UKSEDS Satellite Design Competition (SDC) in 2023 and 2024, In-Orbit Servicing and Manufacturing (IOSM) in 2024, and the Mach-23 1.5 km Rocketry Competition in 2023.

Surrey also won the Virtual Dynamic Event at Formula Student (the world’s largest student motorsport competition) in 2020.

4. Award-winning maths support

Maths skills are crucial to studying Aerospace Engineering at degree level, and at Surrey we help to bridge the gap between school and University. As a first year student you can attend maths ‘bootcamps’ alongside your modules where you’ll apply mathematical concepts to solve real-world problems, as well as making use of our Maths and Statistics Advice (MASA) service.

Our maths support programme also supports Foundation Year students and recently won a prestigious award.

5. Professionally accredited courses

Our Aerospace Engineering degrees are accredited by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), which means you’ll be well on the way towards chartered status after studying at Surrey. Our MEng courses fully meet the academic requirements to become a Chartered Engineer, while our BEng programmes partially meet the academic requirement and can be supplemented by further study.

These are just five reasons why Surrey is ranked in the UK top 10 for Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 and 12th in the UK for Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering by the Complete University Guide 2024

Discover more about our programmes in Aerospace Engineering.

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