A student midwife at a maternity bedside listening with a handheld doppler held against a pregnant woman's abdomen, representing the antenatal care and clinical assessment focus of Midwifery degrees.

DEGREE GUIDE

Midwifery

What do Midwifery degrees involve?

Midwifery degrees teach you how to provide care, support, and medical expertise to women and babies throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal care. You will explore key areas such as antenatal and postnatal care, labour and birth management, neonatal health, maternal mental health, and midwifery-led care. These courses help you develop strong clinical, communication, and decision-making skills while learning how to monitor pregnancies, assist with deliveries, and provide emotional and medical support to mothers and families. You will also gain extensive hands-on experience through clinical placements in hospitals, maternity units, and community settings. With professional accreditation and practical training, you’ll graduate ready for a rewarding career as a registered midwife in the NHS or private healthcare.

Example
Modules

Foundations of Midwifery Care: Build essential knowledge and skills across antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care, with a focus on supporting safe and individualised experiences.

Anatomy and Physiology for Midwives: Study the structure and function of the reproductive system, pregnancy physiology, fetal development, and the physical changes in childbearing.

Public Health in Midwifery: Explore the wider health context, from health promotion and disease prevention to policy & social factors influencing maternity care.

Common Degree Names

💼 Clinical placements are a core and compulsory part of all Midwifery degrees, often from Year 1.
🌍 Study abroad is rarely offered due to NHS clinical training requirements.

BSc (Hons) Midwifery
BSc (Hons) Midwifery with Public Health
BSc (Hons) Midwifery and Women's Health

Midwifery is a vocational BSc degree combining theory with practical NHS placement. Approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

A prepared newborn resuscitaire with a radiant warmer, folded towel and knitted baby hat in a hospital delivery room, representing the labour, birth and newborn care elements of Midwifery degrees.

Level 3 (A-level / IB Diploma (HL) / Scottish Highers)

Midwifery combines scientific understanding of pregnancy and birth with hands-on care for mothers and babies. Because you'll need to understand human biology and respond to clinical situations, universities look for a science background – but they're equally interested in evidence that you genuinely care about supporting people.

Subjects that strengthen your application:

Biology – essential or strongly preferred by most providers
Chemistry, Psychology, or Health & Social Care – useful as supporting subjects
Maths – helpful for drug calculations and data interpretation

✨ Biology plus another science or Health & Social Care is a widely accepted combination. This is a clinical course requiring interviews, enhanced DBS checks, and occupational health clearance – see Other Requirements.

Universities may also accept:

BTEC Extended Diplomas in Health and Social Care (being phased out) or Applied Science (being phased out), often with specified science units; some universities require specific biology-related content
BTEC National Extended Certificates or National Diplomas in Health and Social Care or Applied Science, alongside A-levels including a science subject (usually Biology or Chemistry)
T-Levels in Health (which offers a 'Supporting the Midwifery Team' specialism)
IB Career-related Programme (IBCP) with a science or health-related subject (such as Biology, Psychology, or Sociology) at Higher Level among your IB subjects (minimum two, ideally three), alongside your Career-Related Study; a Health and Social Care pathway would be directly relevant

Midwifery degrees are approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and lead to professional registration. Always check specific course requirements.

Level 2 Qualifications (GCSE / MYP / National 5)

Most courses ask for:

GCSE English Language, Maths, and Science at grade 4/C or above, or equivalents such as National 5s or MYP

📘 Strong English and Maths support communication and safe calculations in practice. Separate Sciences can be an advantage, but Combined Science is widely accepted.

💬 Interviews
Midwifery degrees require interviews as part of their admissions process. These are usually Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs), designed to assess communication skills, values, and your suitability for patient-facing care.

🔒 DBS Check

An enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is required before you start clinical placements, as you'll be working directly with patients including mothers and newborns. Any serious criminal convictions may affect your ability to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

⚕️ Health Check

An occupational health check is required to make sure you can meet the physical demands of the course and placements, including immunisations required for healthcare workers.

🔍 Work Experience
Universities don't set a specific number of hours, but they do expect you to show you understand what midwifery involves — and experience is the most convincing way to do that. Direct maternity experience is hard to come by, and universities know this. What they're looking for is evidence you've developed key skills: communication, empathy, resilience, and the ability to support people during vulnerable moments. Volunteering in care homes, hospitals, community health settings, or with charities supporting families all count. Part-time work involving caring for others or communicating with people in difficult situations is also valuable. Free virtual programmes (such as Springpod or NHS Health Education England) offer structured insight into the profession. What matters most is being able to reflect on what your experiences taught you about caring for people during significant moments in their lives.

✨ Personal Statement Tips

What draws you to midwifery specifically - is it supporting women through pregnancy and birth, the combination of clinical skills and emotional care, or something else? If you've spent time in caring roles, volunteered in relevant settings, or talked to midwives about their work, reflect on what you learned about the realities of the profession. Reading about maternity care, birth experiences, or the role of midwives in supporting families can deepen your understanding. This is a demanding career with shift work and emotional intensity, so admissions tutors want to see you understand that and are motivated by the meaningful, hands-on nature of the role.

If your qualifications don't match the usual entry requirements, there are some other possibilities.

🌱 Foundation Year in Health Sciences or Life Sciences

Some universities offer a foundation year if you don't have the required science subjects or grades. This adds an extra year but leads directly into the full degree.

🎓 Access to HE Diploma (Nursing & Midwifery, Health Professions or Science)

A well-established and widely accepted route into Midwifery. Make sure your course includes strong biology and health content, and aim for Distinctions in your science units — Midwifery courses are competitive.

💼 Level 3 Apprenticeships

A Maternity Support Worker apprenticeship carries UCAS tariff points from 2026 and provides directly relevant clinical experience that can support a university application, particularly when combined with a foundation year.

Is this degree right for you?

Members can explore whether this degree fits who they are:

Skills you'd develop and whether they match your strengths
How this aligns with your interests, motivators and values
Career paths and where graduates end up

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Skills you would develop in X degree

Skill Name

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Is this a good fit for you?

Use the tabs to explore the kind of person that this would be a good fit for. Do you share the Interests, Motivations, Values, Work identity and skills that people who thrive in this course tend to have?

Not sure what these things are? Explore your Identity Tree with us first.

Interests that connect well with a Midwifery degree

Students who enjoy this degree often share these interests. You don't need to feel strongly about all of them, and interests develop over time. If one or two catch your curiosity, or sound like something you'd like to know more about, that's a good sign.

The Human Body & How It Works: Reproductive anatomy and pregnancy physiology are central. You'll study how the body changes during pregnancy, how fetal development progresses, and how the body adapts during and after birth.

Health, Illness & How People Are Cared For: You'll learn to care for mothers and babies through pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period, including recognising complications, supporting recovery, and providing sensitive care around pregnancy loss and bereavement.

Learning, Education & Development: Fetal development and early newborn care are core to the degree. You'll study how babies develop before and after birth, how they adapt to life outside the womb, and how early bonding and feeding shape the first weeks of life.

Students who thrive in a Midwifery degree are often motivated by

Movement and Physical Activity

You're energised by work where your body is part of what gets the job done. Training and competing, dancing or performing, coaching others through physical activity, the hands-on side of nursing, midwifery, dentistry or veterinary practice, or the operational work of being a paramedic, firefighter or outdoor instructor: the actual job happens through what you do with your body. You'd rather be the one doing the physical work than the one analysing or organising it from a desk.

Building and Sustaining Relationships

You feel energised by work where the people you work with aren't passing strangers but become known to you across years: clients, patients, students, customers. Forming new connections matters, but the deeper energy comes from the slower work of staying present, remembering the small details, picking up where you left off. You come most alive when someone you've known for years is back in front of you, and you take up the conversation as if no time had passed.

Practical Problem-Solving

You're energised by finding fixes to real-life issues, whether they're mechanical, technological, or social. You're motivated by problems you can see, touch, or experience directly, and you get satisfaction from solutions that work in practice, not just in theory. You'd rather build a prototype than write a report about one.

Decision-Making and Responsibility

You're energised by being the person who makes the call: weighing up options, choosing between difficult alternatives, and standing behind the decision once it's made. You don't need to manage people to feel this; what you want is to be making consequential choices yourself rather than executing other people's. The weight of being the decider, including when things go wrong, feels like a challenge you rise to rather than a burden you avoid.

Helping or Serving Others

You feel driven to support others directly, whether that's providing care, offering help, or doing work that improves the quality of life of people or animals. The satisfaction of knowing your effort made a tangible difference to another living being is what carries you, more than abstract achievement or recognition. You come most alive when the person or animal in front of you is better off because of what you've just done.

What makes Midwifery click for the students who love it?

Few moments matter as much as a birth, and being trusted to be part of one is what pulls them towards midwifery. The course is hands-on from the start, with placements in birth centres and on wards, learning to support a woman through labour. Part of the training is following a few women through pregnancy and beyond, seeing how much the relationship matters. They are drawn to the responsibility too, learning to read a labour and act when it does not go to plan. Being there, calm and steady, when a baby arrives safely is what they are training for.

These are the skills that students who love this degree tend to enjoy using. You don't need to be great at them already, but if they sound like you, that's a good sign.

Skill Name

Skills that suit this degree

You don't need to be great at these already — but if you enjoy using them or want to get better at them, that's a good sign.

Are you drawn to supporting people through big, emotional moments, staying present when others might feel overwhelmed?
Do you find it natural to talk about sensitive or personal things in a way that puts people at ease?
Do you cope well when plans change suddenly - staying calm and adjusting rather than freezing?
Do you naturally reflect on experiences afterwards - thinking about what happened and what you'd do differently next time?

Careers a Midwifery degree could lead you to

Midwifery

What do Midwifery degrees involve?

Example Modules

Common Degree Names

Is this degree right for you?

Skills you would develop in X degree

Skill Name

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Is this a good fit for you?

Careers a Midwifery degree could lead you to

Example
Modules