Birmingham City University
degree classification calculator
Quick answer: Birmingham City averages your best 100 credits at Level 5 and your best 100 credits at Level 6, weighted 40:60, and rounds the result to a whole number. Its safety net is narrower than most — a one percent consideration band, not two — but it is automatic: land within it with half of all 200 contributing credits in the higher band and you are promoted, with no Board judgement involved. The band applies at every boundary, including the third.
Birmingham City degree classification calculator
Best 100 credits at Levels 5 and 6, weighted 40:60Level 5 — second year
Level 6 — final year
What do I need for a First?
Enter the marks you already have above. These boxes are the credits still to come in each year: a year with no marks yet is counted as all still to come. Change them if that is not right for you.
| Class | Mark needed in every remaining module |
|---|
Class boundaries
| Class | Weighted mark | Uplift rule |
|---|---|---|
| First class honours | 70% or above | or 69% with at least half of the credits that contribute to classification at 70% or above |
| Upper second (2:1) | 60% or above | or 59% with at least half of the credits that contribute to classification at 60% or above |
| Lower second (2:2) | 50% or above | or 49% with at least half of the credits that contribute to classification at 50% or above |
| Third class honours | 40% or above | or 39% with at least half of the credits that contribute to classification at 40% or above |
What do I need for a First?
The planner under the calculator works backwards from Birmingham City’s own algorithm. Enter the marks you have so far, leave the years you have not finished empty (or set how many credits are still to come), and it shows the lowest mark you would need in every remaining module to reach each class. It runs the same calculation as the calculator, using the year weights, the best-credits rule and the secondary rules in the table above, so a class reached through one of those routes shows the lower figure.
The answer is a single mark repeated across every remaining module. Real marks vary, and where only some credits count or a class can be reached through a share of high marks, an uneven spread can sometimes get there with a slightly lower average. “Already secured” means the algorithm gives that class even at 0 in what is left, but you still have to pass those modules.
Best 100 credits at each level, weighted 40:60
Regulation 7.18.3 sets out the calculation in one line: an overall weighted average of the best 100 credits at Level 5 and 100 credits at Level 6, weighted 40:60. Your lowest-scoring 20 credits at each level never enter the sum. There is one calculation, not a choice of two, and Level 4 does not count. A Level 6 top-up degree is classified on all 120 Level 6 credits instead.
Everything is rounded to a whole number, twice
Regulation 7.2.3 says module marks are expressed as whole number percentages, rounding 69.5% up to 70% and 69.4% down to 69%. Regulation 7.19.1 then confirms the same rounding is applied to the average for classification. So the number your class is read from is always an integer, and the regulations acknowledge this openly — the consideration band exists precisely because “the process of rounding marks ... may result in the average for classification coming close to but below a degree classification boundary”.
A one percent band — narrower than most, and automatic
Most universities give you a two percent borderline zone. Birmingham City gives you one: 69–70, 59–60, 49–50 and 39–40. What you get in return is certainty. Regulation 7.19.2 says that if your average is no more than one percent below the next band and at least 50% (100 credits) of the credit that contributes to classification is in the higher band, you are automatically promoted. No Board discretion, no application, no judgement call.
The 50% test counts both levels, not just your final year
This is the detail that separates Birmingham City from the universities it otherwise resembles. The consideration band counts all 200 credits that contribute to classification — the best 100 at Level 5 and the best 100 at Level 6 — and asks whether half of them reach the higher band. Northumbria counts Level 6 only; Leeds Beckett counts the final level only. At Birmingham City a strong second year can carry you over the line, and a weak one can stop you even when your final year is excellent.
The band reaches the third-class boundary
The consideration band table at 7.19.1 includes a 39–40% row for honours degrees. Several universities on this site deliberately stop short of the pass boundary — Northumbria says so explicitly, Queen Mary and Nottingham Trent by omission. Birmingham City does not: an average of 39 can become a Third where half your contributing credit is at 40% or above. You must still meet regulation 7.17.1, which requires an overall average of at least 40% across the modules studied at the level of the award.
A compensated module keeps the mark you earned; a resit does not
Two rules that pull in opposite directions. Under 7.3.2 a module scored 35–39% is automatically compensated where your level average is 40% or above, and 7.3.3 says the original module mark is retained — so the 37 stays in your average rather than being lifted to 40. That is the reverse of Northumbria, where a compensated module enters at the pass mark. But a module passed after re-assessment is capped at 40% under 7.9.3, whatever the resit actually scored. Enter the real mark for a compensated module and 40 for a resit. Final-year dissertations and major projects cannot be compensated at all.
What does not count
Marks earned during a study abroad period do not contribute to the classification (7.4.1, 7.18.3), and pass/fail modules are excluded from the calculation entirely (7.2.4). An Integrated Master’s is classified on the best 100 credits at Level 5, 100 at Level 6 and 120 at Level 7, weighted 20:30:50. The BMus runs on its own 25:75 arrangement across years three and four. These regulations are the Third Edition, approved 15 May 2025 and applying from 1 August 2025; a small number of cohorts who were new in 2022/23 are covered by the Outgoing Academic Regulations instead, and the front cover lists them.
What this calculator does not do
It applies the published algorithm to the marks you enter. It cannot know your programme’s approved variances, any extenuating circumstances, capped resit marks, or how a Board of Examiners will use its discretion. Where a rule is a judgement rather than a formula, the page says so rather than guessing.
Sources
Every figure on this page is read from Birmingham City’s own regulations:
- Birmingham City University — Academic Regulations: Undergraduate and Integrated Masters, Third Edition (approved 15 May 2025, applying from 1 August 2025) — read in full: 7.2.1 to 7.2.4 the 40% pass mark, whole-number module marks with 69.5 rounding to 70, and the exclusion of pass/fail modules; 7.3.2 and 7.3.3 automatic compensation at 35-39% with the original mark retained; 7.3.7 that dissertations cannot be compensated; 7.4.1 and 7.18.3 that study abroad marks do not count; 7.9.3 the capping of re-assessed modules at the pass mark; 7.16.1 the classification bands; 7.17.1 the 40% overall average requirement; 7.18.3 the classification methods table, giving the honours degree as the best 100 credits at Level 5 and 100 at Level 6 weighted 40:60; and 7.19.1 and 7.19.2 the one-percent consideration band and its automatic promotion on 50% of contributing credit.
Regulations change between intakes. Your own cohort’s handbook is always authoritative.