Chemical Engineering with a Year in Industry

Chemical engineering is the discipline that bridges the gap between laboratory chemistry and industrial-scale production. Where chemists discover how reactions work, chemical engineers design, build, and operate the processes that make those reactions happen at the scale needed to produce the goods that society depends on, from medicines and food to fuels, plastics, semiconductors, and renewable energy systems. It is an engineering discipline that requires both deep scientific knowledge and the practical, quantitative skills to design systems that are safe, efficient, and economically viable.

At Queen's University Belfast, this four-year full-time degree with a year in industry gives you a comprehensive training in chemical engineering alongside invaluable professional experience. You will study the fundamental science of chemical and physical processes and learn to scale them from laboratory bench to production facility, applying the mathematical and engineering tools that allow you to predict, control, and optimise complex industrial systems. The main tools of the chemical engineer, applied sciences, engineering, technology, finance, and management, are all developed in the programme, ensuring you graduate not just with scientific knowledge but with the management and commercial awareness needed to operate and lead in industry.

The year in industry is a central feature of the degree, placing you in a real chemical engineering environment for an extended period and developing the professional competence and workplace understanding that classroom education alone cannot provide.

QUB's chemical engineering programme has strong connections to the pharmaceutical, food, energy, and materials industries in Northern Ireland and beyond.

Graduates go on to careers as chemical engineers in pharmaceuticals, energy, food processing, materials, polymers, water treatment, and environmental engineering. The degree is a route to chartered engineer status and is well regarded for postgraduate study or industrial research. The combination of scientific depth and practical placement experience makes graduates highly competitive in the job market.