Product Design Engineering
Product design engineering is a discipline that integrates creative design thinking with rigorous engineering knowledge to develop products that are functional, manufacturable, commercially viable, and well suited to the people who will use them. The product designer's challenge is to move from an identified need or opportunity to a physical or digital product that works reliably, can be produced at scale, is safe and durable, and resonates with its intended users. This requires a range of skills that no single traditional discipline encompasses, which is exactly what a specialist programme in product design engineering provides.
At Manchester Metropolitan University, this three-year full-time programme develops your creativity and problem-solving from the outset through project-based learning across all years of the degree. You will work on live industry-led projects alongside academic coursework, developing the multi-disciplinary awareness and transferable skills that industry prizes. The programme covers industrial design, mechanical engineering principles, materials science, manufacturing processes, human factors, and product development management, giving you both the creative toolkit and the technical grounding to move from concept through to a fully resolved design.
The course includes a sandwich year and work placement, ensuring that you have direct professional experience in an industrial design or engineering context before you graduate.
Graduates from product design engineering programmes work as product designers, design engineers, industrial designers, R and D engineers, and technical project managers across manufacturing, consumer goods, medical devices, automotive, aerospace, and the broader engineering sector. The combination of creative and technical skills is one of the most versatile in the graduate market, valued across a remarkably wide range of industries. Further study at postgraduate level in product design, engineering design, or innovation management is available for those who wish to deepen their expertise.