Meet our Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Thinking of studying civil engineering at Surrey? If so, take a look inside our Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and check out some of the exciting experiences, great facilities and fascinating academics you’ll find here.

Civil Engineering student using facilities

What’s special about the Department?

We’re a dynamic Department housed on the third floor of the Thomas Telford building. A friendly community, we total more than 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and academics.

You’ll rub shoulders with people working at the forefront of global research in fields like air pollution, water treatment and infrastructure management. We also bring together international experts in events such as the 7th International Conference on Spatial Structures. We’re home to the Global Centre for Clean Air Research, too, which leads local and international initiatives to mitigate the effects of pollution.

Around 35 per cent of the Department's undergraduates are on our unique Surrey/ICE (Institution of Civil Engineering) scholarship scheme. This pairs students with a relevant industrial company early on in their course and shapes their experience. Not only do they spend their year-long Professional Training placement with the organisation, they also benefit from paid summer work placements and receive a generous scholarship bursary of £1,950 every year. Once they graduate, many are offered a full-time role at their industrial company.

Civil Engineering | University of Surrey

Hear about Lily Webb's experience as a Surrey/ICE scholar and the graduate role she went on to at Atkins.

What it's like to study here

You’ll get an incredibly varied learning experience and study in an environment that’s been rated ‘Gold' in the Teaching Excellence Framework. Your average week will combine lectures, seminars, personal tutorials, industry talks, lab sessions and group work, amounting to around 19 contact hours every week for a first-year student.

Recent undergraduates have also taken part in national competitions and international collaborations leading to academic publication.

You’ll have a personal tutor who’ll support you throughout your time at Surrey, too. You’ll be able to schedule an appointment with them whenever you want or need to via our online booking system.

Course highlights

DAD (Design, Assemble, Dismantle) project

As a first-year student, you’ll be challenged to collaborate as part of a group for our Surrey-designed DAD project. Here, you'll work against the clock to design, assemble and dismantle a structure.

Civil Engineering - Design, Assemble, Dismantle 2017 | University of Surrey

The DAD project is an exciting practical group challenge in your first year.

Project work

In your third year, you’ll take on an individual project connected to a real-world industrial or research challenge. Depending on the topic you choose, you might work in our:

If you’re studying on our MEng course, you’ll also get to work on a multidisciplinary design project in your final year, often in collaboration with an industrial company, teaming up with students from other engineering disciplines.

Keynote talks

Along with everyone in the Department, you’ll be invited to attend our regular talks from industry leaders. Recently these have included Nick Prior of Deloitte, who spoke about global infrastructure challenges and opportunities in the post-pandemic period, and Professor Douglas Oakervee – one of the UK’s most distinguished civil engineers – who talked about the challenges of delivering High Speed 2 and other major infrastructure projects.

Professional Training placements

You can secure a year’s valuable work experience in a major engineering consultancy or contractor through our award-winning Professional Training placement programme. Recently our students have gone to over 30 leading civil and environmental engineering companies. These include:

Atkins
Bachy Soletanche
Balfour Beatty
Costain
Hewson.

Our teaching staff

Our teaching staff are all passionate about their particular area of civil engineering and keen to inspire students by sharing their knowledge. Our academics include:

Dr Liang Cui (Programme Leader) – whose research focuses on developing Discrete Element Method (DEM) for modelling granular materials
Dr Juan Sagaseta – a specialist in structural concrete and innovative methods of structural analysis and design
Dr Belen Marti-Cardona – whose research is in hydrological and hydraulic modelling and remote sensing
Dr Martin Walker – an expert in the mechanics of thin shells.

The best part of my course are the lecturers who teach us. An educational institution is only as good as the academics who enrich it, and I’ve always felt supported by the lecturers. Modules that initially seemed mundane sparked an interest when taught by academics who are specialists in their fields. Ramsha Saleem (MEng Civil Engineering, 2017-2022)

Facilities we offer

Student Freddie gives us a tour of some of the facilities undergraduates use in Surrey's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

You’ll work in a range of state-of-the-art laboratories and specialist facilities, including our:

Air Quality Lab, a world-class facility for monitoring air quality
Centre for Environmental Health and Engineering, which addresses water quality and associated health issues around the globe, and is a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for the protection of water quality and health
Materials and Structures laboratory for the manufacture and assessment of structural elements
Surrey Advanced Geotechnical Engineering Lab, which carries out advanced laboratory testing of soils and scaled model tests of geotechnical problems. Our geotechnics and geology lab has recently undergone a £450,000 upgrade
Wind tunnel facilities for pollution dispersion modelling and measurement.

What our graduates go on to

Armed with a civil engineering degree from Surrey, our graduates go on to achieve great things in industry and research. And it's not just us saying that. Surrey was named the University of the Year for Graduate Employment by The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide for 2022. Also, according to the 2021 Guardian University Guide, 97 per cent of our former students are in graduate-level employment or undertaking further education within 15 months of graduation.

Many of our graduates go on to become Chartered Engineers, taking on a high level of responsibility within leading companies. Recently they’ve gone on to roles at: