Everything you need to know...
-
Tuition fees
Home: £12,990 for the course
International/EU: £21,030 for the course -
Course duration
2 Years
-
Study location
-
Start date
September 2027
-
Placement year available?
Yes
Course summary
- Explore machining, joining, surface engineering and low-carbon processing
- Integrate Industry 4.0/5.0 with digital supply chains for smarter factories.
- Optimise digital twins with industrial analytics, AI and machine learning.
- Work in CAD, metrology, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping.
- Complete a supervised research project and dissertation.
MSc Digital Manufacturing prepares you to design and justify data‑driven solutions that improve manufacturing performance, resilience and sustainability. The course is designed to help you progress into diverse roles across manufacturing sectors – where connected systems, data-driven decision-making and sustainable production are priorities.
More ways to study this course
If you already have relevant work experience or prefer to focus on your degree, you can apply to our MSc Digital Manufacturing course without work experience. For more flexibility to balance your studies with other commitments, explore our part time option.
Come to an open day
Find out more at our postgraduate open days. Book now for your place.
Employability
94% of our postgraduate students are in work or further study 15 months after graduating (2023/24 Graduate Outcomes Survey)
How you learn
The MSc Digital Manufacturing course is closely linked to ongoing research – through research-informed teaching, laboratory-based activities, industry and research-centre collaboration, and a substantial supervised dissertation.
You’ll learn from research-active academics who share current industrial challenges and emerging technologies. You’ll also have opportunities to undertake projects – within Sheffield Hallam, in the workplace, or where appropriate, with an industrial mentor or research centre such as the Advanced Food Innovation Centre (AFIC), or the Engineering, Materials and Built Environment research group (EMBER).
You’ll be assessed mainly through coursework designed around authentic outputs – from technical reports and portfolios to practical deliverables and presentations. You’ll then develop your research capabilities before completing your project and dissertation.
You learn through:
- interactive lectures and seminars
- laboratory and computer-based sessions
- CAD, metrology, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping
- guided tutorials and problem-solving classes
- analytics, optimisation and quality approaches
- project workshops, manufacturing data, monitoring outputs and digital workflows
- online learning resources
- preparation, practice and independent study
Digital Manufacturing key themes
You’ll study a range of key themes on MSc Digital Manufacturing, including advanced manufacturing processes, digital manufacturing systems and digital engineering and prototyping. You’ll also have options to broaden your expertise through AI concepts and applications, robotics, autonomous systems and process improvement methodologies (including discrete‑event simulation, lean and Six Sigma).
You’ll apply advanced engineering knowledge to improve real manufacturing systems, combining modern production processes with powerful digital tools. You’ll learn how advanced machining, forming, joining, surface engineering and additive manufacturing influence component performance. You’ll also learn how to make design and process decisions using principles such as process-structure-property relationships, design for additive manufacture, and sustainable/low‑carbon manufacturing with life cycle thinking.
Alongside this, you’ll develop the systems-level digital capability needed for smart factories. You’ll integrate Industry 4.0/5.0 concepts, enterprise and shop‑floor data with industrial IoT, digital process monitoring and control, and digital twins/cyber‑physical production systems – preparing you to make evidence‑based decisions in complex manufacturing environments.
Course support
You’ll be supported in your learning journey towards highly skilled employment through a number of key areas. These include:
- structured learning materials, early formative feedback within modules and supervisor guidance
- access to specialist support services to help with your personal, academic and career development
- access to our Skills Centre with one-to-ones, webinars and online resources, where you can get help with planning and structuring your assignments
- industry-specific employability activities such as live projects and networking opportunities
Applied learning
Work experience
You’ll have the opportunity to source a work placement of up to 12 months, applying your knowledge in a real-world setting and enhancing your professional development. You’ll be supported throughout, reflecting on your experience and sharing progress with your placement academic supervisor as part of your assessment.
Placements are competitive and require formal applications. To support you, you’ll complete a placement preparation programme covering the UK recruitment process. You’ll also have access to a database of placement opportunities aligned with your course.
Live projects
You’ll work on industry-informed case studies and realistic production scenarios that reflect current manufacturing challenges, such as improving quality, increasing efficiency and optimising processes. Laboratory activities mirror real industrial workflows, including metrology, reverse engineering, scan-to-CAD and rapid prototyping.
You’ll also tackle digital manufacturing challenges that integrate shop-floor data, analytics and optimisation, helping you build skills aligned with smart manufacturing. Many activities are team-based, giving you experience of planning, collaboration and delivering outputs aligned to professional engineering environments. These experiences help you develop your problem-solving, decision-making and communication skills.
Field trips
Field trips allow you to experience real manufacturing environments first-hand, helping you link theory to practice while gaining insight into current industrial technologies and processes. You’ll have opportunities to connect with professionals and experts in the field, interacting with practitioners, researchers and industry leaders through workshops and alumni events.
Guest lectures
Your learning is supported by contributions from industry practitioners and collaborators. As guest speakers they’ll provide valuable insight into real-world challenges, professional expectations and emerging trends, helping you understand how your learning applies in practice.
Competitions
You’ll be encouraged to take part in engineering competitions such as SHU Racing. These are excellent opportunities to apply your skills, solve complex problems and showcase your creativity and teamwork. They’re also a great chance to build confidence and engage with industry professionals and potential employers.
Industry links and networking opportunities
Strong industry connections are integrated throughout the course through projects, teaching and collaboration. You’ll have opportunities to connect with industrial partners, research centres and, where appropriate, external mentors, gaining insight into professional practice and commercial considerations. You’ll work with real tools, data and business contexts, developing practical skills alongside advanced technical knowledge and preparing you for a career in digital manufacturing.
Your dissertation may also involve an industry-linked project, providing valuable experience of applying your knowledge to real-world challenges. We have links with organisations including the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), Lucideon Ltd, Rolls-Royce, Photocentric Ltd, Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), Sheffield Forgemasters, BAE systems and other companies operating in advanced materials, additive manufacturing and digital manufacturing.
Modules
Module and assessment information for future years is displayed as currently validated and may be liable to change. When selecting electives, your choices will be subject to the core requirements of the course. As a result, selections may be limited to a choice between one of two or more specified electives in some instances.
You will be able to complete a placement year as part of this course. See the modules table below for further information.
Year 1
Compulsory modules
This module aims to help you develop a strong understanding of advanced manufacturing processes, including machining, forming, joining, surface engineering, and additive manufacturing. You will learn how these processes affect material properties and performance, and how to design parts for additive manufacturing. The module will also introduce sustainable manufacturing approaches and life cycle thinking. You will build skills in process optimisation, quality control, and the use of metrology and AI tools, supported by hands-on laboratory experience and inclusive engineering practices.
You will study topics such as:
- Next-generation manufacturing technologies
- Additive Manufacturing
- Smart manufacturing: optimisation, quality, and AI
- Sustainable and low-carbon manufacturing
This module will be delivered via a mix of lectures, tutorials and laboratory sessions.
This module will develop your understanding of reverse engineering hardware and software tools, and through practical examples, their use within the wider Computer-Aided Design (CAD) workflow.
You’ll study topics such as:
- CAD
- Introduction to contact and non-contact metrology
- Assessing errors in scan data
- The hierarchy of importance for areas of scanned geometry
- Assessing scan to CAD inaccuracies
- Integration of processed scan data into the CAD workflow
- Optimisation of resultant geometry
- Use of rapid prototyping technologies including 3D printers
This module aims to develop your systems-level understanding of digital manufacturing and transformation. It enables you to integrate assets, data, enterprise systems, digital twins, analytics, optimization, and people. You will design, justify, evaluate, and communicate digital manufacturing solutions that improve performance, sustainability, resilience, and decision-making in complex contexts.
You will study topics such as:
- Industry 4.0/5.0 and smart manufacturing
- Digital Twin and cyber-physical production systems
- AI and machine learning in manufacturing
- Industrial IoT
- Digital process monitoring
- Cloud manufacturing and digital supply chains
- Digital transformation, sustainability, and governance.
This module will be delivered via a mix of lectures, tutorials and laboratory sessions.
This module will advance your professional development through the completion of, and reflection on, meaningful work experience. In this module, you will undertake a work experience (minimum duration and expectations as per HESA regulations). Your personal Placement Academic Supervisor (PAS) will be your key point of contact during your work experience and will support you in reflecting on your experience, learning and contribution to the placement organisation.
The placement will:
- Allow you to apply the skills, theories and behaviours relevant to, and in addition to, your course
- Enable you to enhance your interpersonal skills in demand by graduate employers - communication, problem solving, creativity, resilience, teamwork, etc.
- Grow your network and relationship-building skills
- Provide you with insights into the industry and sector
Elective modules
This module will develop your theoretical and practical expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) allowing you to develop analytical skills in data science technologies and solve problems using AI.
You will study topics such as:
- Overview of AI and its role in solving engineering and scientific challenges
- Machine learning fundamentals
- Neural networks, deep learning, fuzzy systems, and evolutionary algorithms
- Design and critical evaluation of AI-based systems for solving complex engineering and scientific problems
This module provides a comprehensive overview of process improvement tools including discrete-event simulation (DES), lean and six sigma. You will understand how these tools are used to improve the quality, efficiency, and profitability of a system by critically applying them in a variety of industrial sectors.
You will study topics such as:
- Philosophy: Lean thinking, characteristics of lean, agile operations, sustainable lean enterprises
- Analysis & Mapping: takt time, system thinking, value stream mapping, and DES
- Improvement: Continuous improvements, 5S, Kaizen, Six Sigma
- Management and control: Kanban, Just-in-time, Visual based management, demand smoothing
This module introduces you to the growing field of robotics and autonomous systems. You will gain understanding of fundamental and emerging concepts required to theoretically and practically design and programme these systems, including sensors, actuators, grippers, manipulators, their mechanics and control, robotic hardware and software and their interfacing, robot locomotion and perception, and robotic applications.
You will study topics such as:
- Devices and systems for robotics and autonomous systems
- Smart systems with autonomous capability, such as driverless cars, unmanned boats, and autonomous mobile robots used in warehouses
- Collaborative robots, robots that can work alongside humans
- Autonomous robots in manufacturing
- Advantages and disadvantages of autonomous systems
- Autonomous robot navigation, control and sensing data analysis
- Methods from mathematics and physics; kinematics and dynamics, graph theory, search algorithms), machine vision and artificial intelligence (AI)
Final year
Compulsory modules
The Project and Dissertation module represents the capstone in your learning journey. It is your chance to push the boundaries of knowledge, showcasing originality through major research.
You will complete an intellectually rich masters-level research project with the support of an academic supervisor.
This module allows you to:
- Develop your own original ideas on a topic of your choosing
- Work alongside active researchers and receive one-to-one guidance
- Contribute to the field of your choosing and advance it in a meaningful way
- Gain insight into the day-to-day activities of a research scientist
In this module you will develop the skills needed for high-quality research and scientific excellence. You will cultivate the essential skills required to prepare for dissertation work. You will develop a comprehensive plan for an original piece of research, supported though taught sessions that allow you to understand research project frameworks, as well as one-to-one support from a dedicated academic supervisor.
This module allows you to:
- Understand the importance and process of planning research to ensure high-quality work
- Learn how to search for research literature and evaluation
- Develop a critical faculty to examine and evaluate the quality of academic research
- Improve your academic writing abilities, with the potential of developing publishable research
Future careers
This course prepares you for a career in:
- digital manufacturing engineering
- Industry 4.0/5.0 transformation
- manufacturing analytics/industrial data
- process optimisation and quality engineering
- advanced manufacturing (including additive manufacturing)
- automation/robotics-enabled manufacturing
Graduates can go on to secure careers in:
- digital manufacturing engineering
- Industry 4.0/5.0 or smart manufacturing engineering
- additive manufacturing engineering
- manufacturing systems engineering
- automation and robotics engineering
- digital twin engineering
- Industrial IoT engineering
- manufacturing data analysis
- industrial AI or machine-learning engineering
- process improvement engineering
- manufacturing quality engineering
- CAD, reverse engineering or prototyping engineering
- manufacturing research and development engineering
- digital transformation consultancy
Graduates can go on to work for aerospace, automotive, energy, medical-device, advanced-engineering, robotics, automation and manufacturing-technology companies, as well as engineering consultancies and research organisations.
Examples of organisations operating in these areas include Rolls-Royce, Siemens, BAE Systems, GE Aerospace, Boeing, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, ABB, Renishaw, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC).
Equipment and facilities
You’ll learn in specialist engineering teaching spaces and research environments that support digital manufacturing, Industry 4.0/5.0 and advanced manufacturing, with access to campus labs and research facilities across SHU.
Facilities, software and digital tools include:
- digital learning platform and online resources
- remote software access
- CAD labs, CAD/CAE tools and industry-standard software platforms
- robotics and automation laboratories
- Industry 4.0 demonstrator
- laser scanning and reverse‑engineering facilities
- metal, polymer, composite and ceramic facilities
- precision workshop facilities
- digital process monitoring and industrial IoT
- data‑driven simulation and analytics toolsets
You’ll study within our School of Engineering and Built Environment, with access to high quality facilities that support research and teaching, including specialist labs such as robotics, additive manufacturing and precision. Furthermore, Sheffield Hallam is rated Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 for teaching quality and graduate outcomes.
Where will I study?
You study at City Campus through a structured mix of lectures, seminars and practical sessions as well as access to digital and online resources to support your learning.
City Campus
City Campus is located in the heart of Sheffield, within minutes of the train and bus stations.
City Campus map | City Campus tour
Adsetts library
Adsetts Library is located on our City Campus. It's open 24 hours a day, every day.
Explore the libraryEntry requirements
All students
Normally one from
- an honours degree (2.2 or above) in a science or engineering subject
- suitable professional qualifications in an engineering field
- a degree in any discipline plus at least one year of relevant experience
- a diploma in a technological area plus at least three years of relevant experience
If English is not your first language, you will need an IELTS score of 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in all skills, or equivalent
Additional information for EU/International students
If you are an International or non-UK European student, you can find out more about the country specific qualifications we accept on our international qualifications page.
For details of English language entry requirements (IELTS), please see the information for 'All students'.
Fees and funding
Home students
Our tuition fee for UK students starting full-time study in 2027/28 is £12,990 for the course. The tuition fee displayed above is for the full course. For this work experience route, your fees will be payable over two years, based on credits studied per year. The fee includes dedicated employability support to help you prepare for work experience. It does not guarantee you a placement and if a placement is not secured the work experience fee will still be charged. If a placement is not secured you will transfer to the standard version of the course to complete your remaining credits, where the balance of your course fees will be due in year one in line with completing the course.
If you are studying an undergraduate course, postgraduate pre-registration course or postgraduate research course over more than one academic year then your tuition fees may increase in subsequent years in line with Government regulations or UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) published fees. More information can be found in our terms and conditions under student fees regulations.
International students
Our tuition fee for International/EU students starting full-time study in 2027/28 is £21,030 for the course. The tuition fee displayed above is for the full course. For this work experience route, your fees will be payable over two years, based on credits studied per year. The fee includes dedicated employability support to help you prepare for work experience. It does not guarantee you a placement and if a placement is not secured the work experience fee will still be charged. If a placement is not secured you will transfer to the standard shorter version of the course to complete your remaining credits. We will inform the Home Office and the course end date on your visa will be adjusted accordingly. The balance of your course fees will be due in year one in line with completing the course.
Scholarships and financial support
Find information on scholarships, bursaries and postgraduate student loans.
International scholarships up to £3000 ›
Alumni scholarships up to £2000 ›
Postgraduate loans for UK students ›
Additional course costs
The links below allow you to view estimated general course additional costs, as well as costs associated with key activities on specific courses. These are estimates and are intended only as an indication of potential additional expenses. Actual costs can vary greatly depending on the choices you make during your course.
General course additional costs
Additional costs for School of Computing and Digital Technologies (PDF, 242.1KB)Legal information
Any offer of a place to study is subject to your acceptance of the University’s Terms and Conditions and Student Regulations.
