Jewellery and Silversmithing Birmingham City University

Overview

What's covered in the course?

Our course will immerse you in the world of jewellery and silversmithing as you create pieces in precious and non-precious metals. You will produce pieces by hand and by mechanical means, with a particular focus on manipulating metal.

The practical, design-led nature of the course gives you plenty of opportunity for hands-on workshop experience to hone your skills. You’ll develop practical experience of materials and tools, alongside techniques in drawing and model making to develop your design processes.

You’ll have access to the latest equipment such as laser welders and 2D and 3D CAD software packages, as well as casting and plating workshops.

Dedicated staff with professional experience will offer advice, support and industry contacts. You’ll be encouraged to enter national and international competitions, and you’ll also have fantastic opportunities to work on live projects with industry. The Jewellery and Silversmithing programme is offered at Birmingham City University.

Enhancing your employability skills

We have designed the course to make you the most employable jewellery graduate possible.

In addition to all the basic metalworking skills, you will learn about hallmarking, the history of jewellery and silverwares, gemstones and gem-setting, CAD software, and all about the newest types of digital production technologies. We pride ourselves on the fact that you will learn most of this in a practical way, by actually doing the work and our many connections to the jewellery industry support us in this.

Many of our graduates are now prestigious makers and designers in their own right. Kevin Gray was recently the highlight of the Silver Speaks exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Agnieszka Maksymiuk runs her own successful company. Naomi Newton-Sherlock has become the director of casting company Weston Beamor, while Jack Row runs his own bespoke pen company, which is sold through prestigious outlets such as Harrods.