This is the shortest of our UK subject lists and the one with the most important caveat attached, so we will put both up front. We list 11 Engineering master's in the UK across 11 universities — one each, with no institution carrying two — and hold a verified tuition figure for 7 of them.
The cheapest three are not engineering degrees
The bottom of this price list reads £18,700, £19,200 and £19,500. All three are MSc Engineering Management — at the University of Huddersfield, the University of Portsmouth and Coventry University. A fourth, the University of Warwick's MSc Engineering Business Management, sits at £37,460.
Engineering management is a real and useful qualification, but it is a management degree taught to engineers. It is not a technical master's, it will not deepen your specialism, and in several countries it does not carry the same professional recognition for engineering practice. If you searched for a cheap UK engineering master's and the first results came back under £20,000, this is why — and it is the single most useful thing on this page.
Core engineering on our list starts at £24,795, with Brunel University of London's Aerospace Engineering MSc, followed by the University of Essex's Computer Engineering MSc at £25,925. That is roughly a third above the headline floor, and it is the honest number to budget from if a technical degree is what you want.
The numbers, and what they mean
Across the 7 verified programmes the annual tuition runs from £18,700 to £37,460, with a median of £24,795.
Read that top figure carefully, because here the unverified rows matter. All four programmes we have not yet checked sit at the expensive end — the University of Glasgow at a listed £34,470, the University of Bristol at £36,500, King's College London at £40,450 and Imperial College London at £45,000. So the verified range understates the top of this market rather than the bottom. We will not quote those four as verified figures, but you should know the ceiling is higher than £37,460.
Twelve months, all of them
All 11 run 12 months, which is the usual UK shape and the main structural difference from a German or Finnish engineering master's running 24. One year of tuition and living against two is the comparison worth doing properly, and for engineering it comes with a real trade-off: a 12-month degree leaves little room for the industrial placement or long research project that a technical CV benefits from.
Where the 11 are
By city: London (4), Coventry (2), and one each in Bristol, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Huddersfield and Colchester.
Eleven programmes across eleven universities is a scattered list rather than a market, and we would rather say that plainly than dress it up. Our UK engineering coverage is thin — thinner than our Computer Science, Business and Finance lists, which carry 52, 47 and 28 programmes respectively. Specialised engineering master's that we do hold sit in their own small groups: a couple in mechanical, one each in chemical and electrical. If engineering in the UK is your plan, treat this page as a starting sample and expect to work from university sites directly for the rest.
Entry requirements
Where an English requirement is recorded it is IELTS 6.0 on 3 programmes and 6.5 on 6. No programme on this list asks for 7.0, which is a lower bar than the same subject commands in several other destinations.
Our listings record no academic cut-off for these, so we will not quote one. What decides an engineering application is usually the match between your bachelor's specialism and the master's — an aerospace master's expects aerospace or mechanical foundations, and a conversion is rarely on offer at this level. We have written separately on reading an IELTS requirement properly.
The stay-back, briefly
The Graduate Route is covered in post-study work visas explained. It lasts 2 years for applications made on or before 31 December 2026 and 18 months from 1 January 2027, with 3 years for doctoral qualifications. Engineering graduates should also check whether the specific role they want sits on the Skilled Worker route, because that — not the Graduate Route — is what turns a UK degree into a long stay.
Browse the set: Engineering in the UK, master's only, or the subject across every destination we list.
Catalogue figures counted from our published listings on 20 October 2026: 7 of 11 programmes carry a tuition figure verified against the university's own page, and the four unverified ones are the four most expensive. Graduate Route durations from GOV.UK, read 17 October 2026. Check the current figure for your intake before you apply.