Geotechnical Engineering

Overview

Understanding this risk is the underlying philosophy of the Geotechnical Engineering degree from University of Leeds. It brings together expertise to ensure that you’ll have the understanding and skills to address a range of geotechnical problems including shallow and deep foundations, soil structure interaction, ground as a source of energy, environmental geotechnics, and slope and ground stabilisation.

Geotechnical engineers integrate the skills of investigation, characterisation, analysis and design to deal with uncertainty and risk within a business context. These skills are developed in six core modules: geotechnical investigation and characterisation; groundwater pollution and contaminated land; geotechnical engineering; foundation engineering; energy geotechnics; and constitutive models and numerical analysis and Transport Infrastructure Strategy.

You will also undertake a research project and an integrated design project related to transport infrastructure, which give you the opportunity to address complex problems encountered in practice.

Career opportunities

There is an international shortage of geotechnical engineers. The most significant risk for any construction project is the ground. Geotechnical engineers bring together the underpinning geological science and the practical engineering aspects of the ground to deal with uncertainty. These three facts mean that anyone with advanced knowledge of geotechnical engineering will have a rewarding career across a broad sector of design and construction since all civil and geotechnical engineering projects require geotechnical expertise.

Geotechnical engineers work for client organisations including major asset owners, international consultants, main contractors and specialist consultants and contractors. The range of knowledge and skills that geotechnical engineers acquire means that they can develop either as technical experts or managers.