Midwifery

Please note: this course is not open to International students for September 2026.

• Become a competent and compassionate midwife with good communication skills and an understanding of women’s and families' expectations
• Gain essential practical experience on a range of clinical placements in different health care settings
• Learn from a highly experienced and enthusiastic teaching team who provide full support to help you achieve your ambitions
• This degree is designed to meet the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly standards*, the gold-standard for midwifery programmes: and an important quality mark for trusts
• Derby has a 70-year track record in providing high quality healthcare education and strong links with the local NHS trusts.

Journey as a student midwife 

As a student midwife you will learn the art and science of midwifery. Becoming a midwife is life changing. It's intense, exciting and hugely rewarding. You'll provide skilled, knowledgeable and compassionate care and that's exactly what we'll train you to do on this degree. As a student midwife you will need to demonstrate your passion in learning about the health of the woman and newborn to become and autonomous, accountable, safe practitioner. 

Are you ready for the challenge?  

The aims of this course are to develop practitioners who: 

• meet the NMC Standards (NMC, 2019) and are eligible to register on the midwifery section of the NMC professional register
• can transfer and synthesise skills and knowledge to meet the demands of differing practice environments and who recognise both the accountability and responsibilities of the midwife’s role 
• have the knowledge, understanding, skills and cultural competence which ensure care is co-ordinated and tailored to individual women and new-born infants across diverse settings. 

Midwives work through many stages of the mother's journey: pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, labour and birth, postpartum (after childbirth), and the early days of the new-born’s life. You will support women's wellbeing, future reproductive health, and their transition to parenthood. 

You'll work in partnership with women, enabling and empowering their views, preferences and decisions. As a midwife, you will make a vital contribution to the quality and safety of maternity care. 

Learning alongside other healthcare practitioners 

Midwives provide care in many complex, varying situations and you'll always be working with a range of healthcare professionals to promote the best interests of a mother and her baby. This may include GPs, obstetricians, paediatricians, nurses, theatre staff, health visitors, social workers and many more. You will be ideally placed to recognise and act on any physical or psychological changes in the mother, baby or the wider family, and this will usually require you to refer your concerns to other specialist colleagues.   

To prepare you for this, we provide many inter-professional learning opportunities throughout the programme. This might include learning with other healthcare students, particularly for topics like safeguarding, leadership and change management, as well as working alongside practitioners during your placements.  

Midwifery - your questions answered!

In the below video, Senior Lecturer, Debbie Watkinson, answers some of the most frequently asked questions about Midwifery at the University of Derby. 

Placements 

50% of the course is made up of practical placements, so you'll develop essential clinical skills and gain a genuine feel for the practicalities and demands of the profession. This clinical experience is mandatory for registration with the NMC. These placements could be in the community, on antenatal and postnatal wards, in day assessment units, labour wards, and birth centres. There are also opportunities to gain experience in other settings to expand your experience.

You'll be allocated to a local trust where you will follow a rotation between areas in both maternity and other healthcare settings, and allocated a practice supervisor and assessor who will help you complete your competencies. Placement hours are subject to change.

Evidence-based practice  

This course has been designed to encourage you to think critically and apply evidence to underpin your clinical practice. The course will provide you with a wide knowledge base and is underpinned by national policy. When you graduate you will be confident in using an evidence-based approach to support your decision making in complex mental, physical, cognitive and behavioural situations.

Active research

We have many researchers who active in furthering midwifery research, working hard to advance knowledge in different areas of healthcare and the human sciences. Here are some recent research studies they have conducted, which you may find interesting:

• biomedical scientists are examining how air pollution could affect the growth of the placenta
• the Birth Project used the arts to explore the impact of birth, not only on new mothers but on obstetricians, midwives, doulas and birth-partners
• a qualitative study looked at the experiences of mothers who breastfed beyond infancy and the support provided by healthcare professionals.

In particular, our Health and Social Care Research Centre spearheads a range of projects aimed at building healthy, sustainable communities. It's a collaboration between the University of Derby, NHS England and the four Clinical Commissioning Committees across Derbyshire.

Financial support to help you succeed

Don’t let financial concerns get in the way of your ambitions. You will be able to access a funding package made up of tuition fee loans and support for your living costs.

You won’t have to pay any money upfront; tuition and living cost loans work just like a tax on your earnings rather than a commercial or payday loan. You will only start paying back the loans when you are earning above £27,295 per year and you will then pay 9% of any income above £27,295. 

You can also secure grants — which do not have to be repaid — to cover childcare and the costs of travelling to your placement.

Please note that our modules are subject to change - we review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects.

This midwifery degree includes 50% theory and 50% practice. Through our own clinical facilities, and through your placements with trusts, you will gain 2,300 hours of practical experience in the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal periods, as well as in the care of the newborn baby. You will also gain 2,300 hours of theoretical knowledge. 

For the theoretical aspects of the course, you will receive face-to-face and online teaching, as well as studying independently. To meet your practice requirements, you will need to keep an up-to-date ongoing record of achievement.

The Newborn Infant Physical Examination is taught in this course. This is part of a screening programme which screens babies within 72 hours of birth, and students will complete this qualification.

How you're assessed

We assess you in various ways depending on the module, such as by:

• written assignments
• oral examinations (VIVAs)
• objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE)
• written examinations, and
• case studies

This BSc (Hons) Midwifery provides all the theoretical and practical elements you need to meet the NMC standards and be eligible for registration on the midwifery section of the NMC professional register. It will help you to start a new and highly-rewarding career, as a competent, confident and autonomous midwife, who is capable of making a real, positive difference to the lives of women and their new-born infants, partners and families.  

Once you have graduated and are on the register, you should be able to get an NHS position as a Registered (Graduate) Midwife (NHS Band 5) which will progress to band 6 following successful completion of the trust preceptorship programme. This qualification is also recognised in Europe, as well as other countries, so you could look for a midwife position overseas.

Midwives can work in the trust obstetric maternity unit, midwife led unit or in the community. Midwives may specialise in roles such as a diabetes specialist midwife, bereavement services, vulnerable women or safeguarding. 

After several years, you could progress to be a ward-based manager, specialist midwife, researcher or lecturer.  

This is a new course so we don't yet have employment rates of previous graduates to provide. However, similar programmes, such as Nursing, have had exceptional employment rates: up to 95% of graduates being in further study or work six months after they completed their course.

Contextual offers may apply to students who meet certain criteria.

*The University will accept the Senior Healthcare Support Worker Apprenticeship (maternity route only) in lieu of UCAS points or level 3 qualification requirements. 

Health or care experience to demonstrate an insight into the professional values and behaviours associated with health and care environments is required. It is essential for student midwives to be able to communicate effectively with women, their families and the multidisciplinary team.

Please note that admissions for the course is conducted on a gathered field basis. To find out more about the definition and process of a gathered field please see our Gathered Field Policy.

If you do not meet the entry requirements for this course, you may be considered for our BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing course. Studying the BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing course will provide you with an understanding of compassionate care of mothers and can pave the way towards postgraduate study to enable you to register on the midwifery section of the NMC. Our admissions team will get in touch with you should this option be available to you after your interview. You can study BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing at our Derby or Chesterfield site, starting in either March or September.

Additional entry requirements

• Interview: Yes view interview details
• An Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service certificate cleared by the University is required for this course. We will contact you with information on how to complete this once you have applied
• An Occupational Health Assessment and Clearance by the University is required for this course. We will contact you with information on how to complete this when required

Further information about our fees and support you may be entitled to

Additional costs and optional extras

Additional information about your studies

Teaching hours

Like most universities, we operate extended teaching hours at the University of Derby, so contact time with your lecturers and tutors could be anytime between 9am and 9pm. Your timetable will usually be available on the website 24 hours after enrolment on to your course.

Course updates

The information provided on this page is correct at the time of publication but course content, costs and other individual course details do change from time to time and are updated as often as possible, so please do check these pages again when making your final decision to apply for a course. Any updated course details will also be confirmed to you at application, enrolment and in your offer letter.

If you are thinking about transferring onto this course (into the second year for example), you should contact the programme leader for the relevant course information as modules may vary from those shown on this page.

Minimum numbers

Please note that this course is subject to minimum numbers in order to run.