Master of Business Administration (MBA)

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Course Overview

Attendance

UK Fees £16,500 *
International Fees £19,000 *
Alumni Discount See details
Duration 1 year

* Price per academic year

Course summary

Our innovative Westminster MBA is designed for ambitious business professionals – and recent graduates from any discipline – who don’t want to wait until they have extensive work experience before taking the first steps towards a management career.

Setting you apart in a competitive job market, you’ll graduate with direct experience from a three-month internship and the holistic business knowledge, capabilities and cutting-edge digital expertise demanded by today’s employers.

In the fast-moving global business environment, employers demand multi-skilled, digitally competent graduates with a sophisticated understanding of business and its changing context, one which cuts across the traditional business disciplines that include human resources, management and marketing. To succeed you need a ‘big picture’ approach. You must be capable of adapting to emerging business models, creating new enterprises, leading and managing people effectively and improving processes with digital solutions.

At Westminster Business School, we recognise that future business professionals need the full range of technical and personal development skills – more responsible, resilient, adaptable and versatile than ever before. Our aim is to help you become an aspiring leader and entrepreneur, someone who can add value to any type of organisation. But we believe it’s essential for this transformation process to start early, before you have extensive working experience or have adopted the mindset of one particular employer or business sector. By starting this process early, it’s much easier to develop your skills, learn to think outside the box, and independently lead changes in the business world – wherever your career takes you. It’s also what our employer contacts tell us they’d prefer.

Responding to a shifting market, the Westminster MBA offers a practically oriented, cross-disciplinary, advanced education in modern business: it combines academic rigour, accelerated study, stimulating teaching approaches and practical business leadership experiences, including a three-month internship. We'll support you on your journey to becoming part of the next generation of successful business executives and entrepreneurs.

We’ll introduce you to the latest business methods and technologies in a way that more accurately reflects the corporate and entrepreneurial environment – through interdisciplinary, capability-building thematic modules, which span anything from innovation and design thinking to contemporary challenges, sustainability, management complexity, data analysis and finances. You’ll then apply your learning to practice-based business problems and live business projects and, in doing so, gain sought-after soft skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, personal agility, adaptability and resilience.

Recognising the growing importance of technology, and preparing you for careers in a 2020s digital world, we’ll examine some of the latest developments, including blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud technology, AR/VR, disruptive innovations, the growth of ecosystems and the sharing economy.

We expect our MBA graduates to go on to secure management and leadership roles in corporates, start-ups, SMEs, the public sector and non-profit organisations.

Top reasons to study with us

  • This MBA is ideal for recent graduates and ambitious early-career professionals with the determination to pursue management careers
  • Become business-ready through intensive practical experiences and accelerated study
  • Three-month ‘Management in Action’ internship or project at home or overseas to boost your CV
  • Week-long international consulting project with a client company that has an international focus
  • Career development workshops and masterclasses enhance your global perspective and employability
  • Taught by staff with expertise in strategic management, entrepreneurship, design, innovation, marketing, consumer insight, social media, operations, digital business, psychology, human resources, organisational behaviour, economics, finance, management accounting and leadership
  • Exciting teaching and learning approaches with live case studies, simulations, role-playing workshops and hackathons
  • Engaging assessment methods, including simulations, business challenges, investigating briefs, group pitches and video presentations
  • Excellent facilities include an MBA Boardroom, digital classrooms and our state-of-the-art Bloomberg virtual trading room

Course structure

The MBA follows a strong narrative with a journey of discovery, beginning with diagnosis of business problems/issues, the design of innovative solutions, immersion in digital applications and the development of drive, resilience and diplomacy as part of the student’s personal growth. In addition to the module assessment, capabilities learned are applied during the client projects for Entrepreneurial Mindset, the International Study Consultancy and the Management in Action internship. You will study problem-solving and capability building modules for a total of 180 credits.

Semester 1 (Jan–Apr)

We begin by learning how to conduct a business diagnostic, developing your skills in analysing financial, performance and market data, as well as critical thinking. You’ll learn to confidently identify the symptoms of underperformance and analyse business problems, using your judgement to make informed decisions to improve future market performance. We’ll examine how design thinking and creativity can reimagine business models and help design new products, services and processes. You’ll also gain a better understanding of digital disruptions and how these impact on business operations, business services and performance.

  • Understanding company reports
  • Appraising financial investments
  • Managing big data and software
  • Analysing the macro and competitor environment
  • Coping with uncertainty, crisis and turnaround

  • Creating and commercialising innovative products/services
  • Innovative business model design
  • Planning and branding with digital marketing

  • Developing websites and apps
  • Evaluating new business models in a digitised world
  • Mastering digital technologies – block-chains, artificial intelligence, cloud technology, AR/VR, robotics, 3D printing and the internet of things

  • Developing the entrepreneurial mindset
  • Scaling-up the start-up 

Semester 2 (May–Jul)

We move on to business structure and modern strategies in a changing world, as well as the traits, behaviours and management processes needed for resilient, flexible organisations. You’ll consider some of the contemporary challenges facing business, from the merits of sustainable global growth to the global perspective of business development and need for sensitive, collaborative working in multicultural project environments. You’ll examine the latest insights in innovation and new business models, before participating in a week-long International Consultancy Project advising client(s) to solve an international strategic issue/problem.

  • Mastering resilience, agility, adaptability and critical thinking
  • Creating sustainability and social responsible behaviour
  • Managing and incentivising talent
  • Managing change

  • Developing a global perspective in business development
  • Practicing working collaboratively in multi-cultural environment
  • Negotiating international deals

  • Evaluating the strategic impact of innovation on organisations and economies
  • Analysing the latest knowledge and insights needed by innovation leaders

Advising client(s) to solve an international strategic issue/problem.

Semester 3 (Sept-Dec)

For the Management in Action Internship or Project, you’ll investigate a problem/issue related to innovation and/or digitisation for a client organisation in the UK or overseas – anything from how a digital start-up can compete against digital/conventional rivals, to the impact of digitisation on an organisation’s operation and performance. It’s an ideal opportunity to demonstrate your resourcefulness and ability to ‘think on your feet’.

Investigation of a problem/issue related to innovation and/or digital in an organisation in the UK or overseas.

The Westminster MBA

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Programme specification

For more details on course structure, modules, teaching and assessment Download the programme specification (PDF).

To request an accessible version please email [email protected]

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Prospectus

Get your copy of the University of Westminster prospectus and browse the range of courses on offer.

Request a prospectus

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Get in touch

Contact us for general course enquiries:

+44 (0)20 7911 5000 EXT 65511
(Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm GMT)

[email protected]

Live chat with us
(Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm GMT)

Open evenings

Join us at an open evening online or on campus. Get a feel for student life at the University of Westminster and talk to course leaders and our support teams.

Careers

At the core of our forward-thinking MBA is its focus on preparing you for today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world of work, through a highly practical and experiential programme delivered in partnership with a range of ‘client’ organisations.

Taught in the heart of London, close to many of the city’s national, international and global employers, our emphasis on skills, capabilities and attributes – with multiple opportunities throughout the course to apply these capabilities to real business problems – will provide direct work experience to enhance your CV and narrative when applying for new positions. These applied projects and the final internship/project will not only expand your professional networks, but directly enhance the prospects for early employability after graduation.

By focusing on business-ready skills, hard and soft, we expect a wide range of employers to be interested in our graduates. You will have the capabilities and confidence to adapt to a rapidly changing business world, one characterised by digitisation, hyper-competition, resource scarcity, volatility, complexity and continual business model disruption.

With a growing global network of 3,000 employers, our Careers and Employability Service is here to support you to achieve your full potential.

Build your business network

Build connections with peers and future business leaders.

Develop your CQ

Develop your cultural intelligence – or ‘CQ’ – studying alongside students and staff representing more than 100 nationalities.

Kickstart your career

Learn how to use social media in your job hunt or LinkedIn to kickstart your career.

Industry links

Westminster Business School is one of London’s leading centres for business education based in the heart of London and its political, media and financial services scene. 

Staff who currently teach on this course have extensive professional experience, covering roles such as:

  • a senior management consultant for McKinsey & Company
  • a manager in Savoy Hotel Group
  • export manager for Labaronne-CITAF
  • deputy general manager of QSR Franchise Development Group
  • an equity and structured finance analyst for Bergstrom Capital

Job roles

This course will prepare you for roles such as:

  • Business design lead
  • Business development manager
  • Business/Financial analyst
  • CMS manager
  • CRM manager
  • Digital marketing manager
  • Digital product owner
  • Management consultant
  • Solutions architect
  • Start-up entrepreneur
  • UX manager

Graduate employers

Graduates from the Westminster Business School have found employment at organisations including:

  • Amazon
  • Citibank
  • Financial Conduct Authority
  • Paribas
  • Santander
  • Sberbank
  • Société Générale
  • Standard Chartered
  • World Economic Forum

Westminster Employability Award

Employers value graduates who have invested in their personal and professional development – and our Westminster Employability Award gives you the chance to formally document and demonstrate these activities and achievements.

The award is flexible and can be completed in your own time, allowing you to choose from a set of extracurricular activities.

Activities might include gaining experience through a part-time job or placement, signing up to a University-run scheme – such as mentoring or teaching in a school – or completing online exercises.

Read more about our Westminster Employability Award.

Westminster Employability Award

Course Leader

Teaching and assessment

Your learning experience is designed to develop the capabilities needed by the graduate labour market, integrating practice-based learning and projects alongside academic learning and business theory.

We'll encourage you to keep up-to-date with market trends and regularly review current events, using trade publications such as the Financial Times and the live news streams available in the Financial Markets Suite (FMS). We also hope to invite current practitioners to share current challenges and experiences – past talks within the School have covered current topics in artificial intelligence start-ups and sustainable investment banking funds.

To assist the learning experience, we provide reading lists, lecture and seminar materials in advance via Blackboard, our virtual learning environment. Lectures are recorded using specialist software and similar tools to make sure you can really listen to what is said in class and don’t miss a thing.

How you’ll be taught

Through a variety of teaching methods – from lectures and seminars to live case study analysis, business projects, an international consultancy project and internship – we aim to bring study to life by incorporating real-world experience. A focus on group work and ideas generation will help to develop the strong interpersonal skills expected of top managers.

There is a requirement for ‘self-guided’ learning and you will be expected to develop your own opinions and approaches to problems. Group work is a core component of the programme, which allows you to deepen relationships with classmates, get a more thorough understanding of subjects by interacting with people from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds, and mimic the office environment in which projects are often conducted in small teams across different departments. You’ll be given multiple opportunities to put forth real-life solutions to problems, present business cases or introduce plans for service optimisation.

The teaching team has strengths across multiple subject disciplines, including academic scholarship and practitioner business experience, strategic management, entrepreneurship, design, innovation, marketing, social media, operations, digital business, psychology, human resources, organisation behaviour, economics, finance, management accounting and leadership.

In the following graph you'll find examples of how study time has been distributed in the past (data from the academic year 2022/23). Changes to division of study time may be made in response to feedback and in accordance with our terms and conditions. Learning typically falls into two broad categories:

      • Scheduled hours: examples include lectures, seminars, practical classes, workshops, supervised time in a studio
      • Independent study: non-scheduled time in which students are expected to study independently. This may include preparation for scheduled sessions, dissertation/final project research, follow-up work, wider reading or practice, completion of assessment tasks, or revision
      Year
      1
      15%78%7%
      Scheduled hoursIndependent studyPlacement

      How you’ll be assessed

      We use a wide range of engaging assessment methods, including simulations, business challenges, investigating briefs, group pitches and video presentations.

      The course involves a variety of assessment methods which call on students to propose solutions to real case studies in groups, alone and under short time limits in the case of the ‘hackathons’.

      Presentations and essays are also included in the course content, but it's the focus on practical resolutions to real problems and the encouragement of analytical skills and creativity that make this an attractive course. For example, we encourage a reflective learning journey report following the consultancy or work project undertaken in the placement organisation.

      In the following graph you'll find an indication of what you can expect (data from the academic year 2022/23). Changes to assessment weights may be made in response to feedback and in accordance with our terms and conditions. Assessments typically fall into two broad categories:

      • Practical: examples include presentations, podcasts, blogs
      • Coursework: examples include essays, in-class tests, portfolios, dissertation
      Year
      1
      31%69%
      PracticalCoursework

      Find out more about our MBA modules

      Hear directly from the course team about what you're going to learn in the modules. Modules could be taught by different members of academic staff in some cases, such as during periods of leave or when there are changes of role.

      Why study this course?

      Fantastic facilities

      State-of-the-art Bloomberg-powered Financial Markets Suite (FMS) featuring industry-leading technology and software.

      Combine theory and practice

      Link theory to global practice through real-life case studies, problem-solving and live business projects.

      Business insight

      Strengthen business insight through interaction with businesses and discussions about current market challenges.

      Entry Requirements

      A minimum of a lower second class honours degree (2:2) in any discipline. Work experience is not required but is welcome. Successful students will demonstrate in their personal statement an ambition and capability to excel in management positions within large corporate organisations, small medium enterprises (SMEs), or their own start-up enterprise. We may also interview applicants either in person or online.

      Applicants are required to submit one reference. 

      If your first language is not English, you should have an IELTS 6.5 with at least 6.5 in writing and no element below 6.0.

      A minimum of a lower second class honours degree (2:2) in any discipline. Check the country-specific entry requirements for equivalent qualifications. Work experience is not required but is welcome. Successful students will demonstrate in their personal statement an ambition and capability to excel in management positions within large corporate organisations, small medium enterprises (SMEs), or their own start-up enterprise. We may also interview applicants either in person or online.

      Applicants are required to submit one reference. 

      If your first language is not English, you should have an IELTS 6.5 with at least 6.5 in writing and no element below 6.0.

      What our students say

      Hamidreza Rahimi

      Master of Business Administration (MBA) - 2023

      There is just something about the University's culture and community that makes it incredibly welcoming and supportive, and I think it has to do with how friendly and approachable lecturers, the diverse and inclusive student body, and the excellent resources and support services available.

      Hardik Bansal

      Master of Business Administration (MBA) - 2023

      The MBA offers an impressive range of facilities and resources to support students in their academic and professional development. As a student, I had free access to a plethora of tools including the Financial Times, Microsoft Office 365, LinkedIn Learning, and the Bloomberg Financial Suite.

      Isha Patel

      Master of Business Administration (MBA) - 2023

      The course focused on practical learning, designing value in business, enhancing my critical thinking skills and giving me a holistic understanding of business, finance, resilience and leadership in the professional industry.

      Student work

      In our ‘hackathon’ boot camp, you’ll create a new enterprise, enhancing your knowledge of entrepreneurial thinking and how it applies to new venture creation.

      Boot camps are a great way to mix the real-life decision-making process faced by companies of all sizes with the theoretical learning on your MBA programme. You’ll gain a real-life and practical understanding of how companies are tackling issues and adapting to disruption, and benefit from group work with a team of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences.

      Students brainstorming with post-it notes

      The Westminster Boardroom

      The Westminster Boardroom combines a high standard of design with the latest technology and provides an optimal space for Westminster MBA students to hone their boardroom skills.

      Learn new skills

      Responsible business leadership

      Understand the importance of ethics, shared value, sustainability and collaboration as a responsible business leader.

      Enhance your digital literacy

      Enhance your digital literacy, learning how to collect and use data from Bloomberg, Datastream and Fame.

      Improve your problem-solving skills

      Improve your problem-solving and business diagnostic skills to better understand and tackle business issues.

      Fees and Funding

      UK tuition fee: £16,500 (Price per academic year)

      When you have enrolled with us, your annual tuition fees will remain the same throughout your studies with us. We do not increase your tuition fees each year.

      Find out how we set our tuition fees.

      Paying your fees

      If you don't wish to pay the whole amount of your fees at once, you may be able to pay by instalments. This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.

      Find out more about paying your fees.

      Alumni discount

      This course is eligible for an alumni discount. Find out if you are eligible and how to apply by visiting our Alumni discounts page.

      Funding

      There is a range of funding available that may help you fund your studies, including Student Finance England (SFE).

      Find out more about postgraduate student funding options.

      Scholarships

      The University is dedicated to supporting ambitious and outstanding students and we offer a variety of scholarships to eligible postgraduate students.

      Find out if you qualify for one of our scholarships.

      Additional costs information

      To check what your tuition fees cover and what you may need to pay for separately, see our What tuition fees cover page.

      International tuition fee: £19,000 (Price per academic year)

      When you have enrolled with us, your annual tuition fees will remain the same throughout your studies with us. We do not increase your tuition fees each year.

      Find out how we set our tuition fees.

      Paying your fees

      If you don't wish to pay the whole amount of your fees at once, you may be able to pay by instalments. This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.

      Find out more about paying your fees.

      Alumni discount

      This course is eligible for an alumni discount. Find out if you are eligible and how to apply by visiting our Alumni discounts page.

      Funding

      There are a number of funding schemes available to help you fund your studies with us.

      Find out more about funding for international students.

      Scholarships

      The University is dedicated to supporting ambitious and outstanding students and we offer a variety of scholarships to eligible postgraduate students.

      Find out if you qualify for one of our scholarships.

      Additional costs information

      To check what your tuition fees cover and what you may need to pay for separately, see our What tuition fees cover page.

      Westminster Business School blog

      Read our blog and get an insight into life and studies at Westminster Business School.

      Visit the WBS blog

      Facilities

      Supporting you

      Our Student Hub is where you’ll find out about the services and support we offer, helping you get the best out of your time with us.

      • Study support — workshops, 1-2-1 support and online resources to help improve your academic and research skills
      • Personal tutors — support you in fulfilling your academic and personal potential
      • Student advice team — provide specialist advice on a range of issues including funding, benefits and visas
      • Extra-curricular activities — volunteering opportunities, sports and fitness activities, student events and more

      Visit our student hub

      Course Location

      Right in the heart of central London, our Marylebone Campus is home to the Westminster Business School and our Architecture, Planning and Tourism courses. Specialist workshops, dedicated digital and architecture studios, and our extensive Marylebone Library offer students everything they need for academic success.

      Marylebone Campus is opposite Baker Street tube station and within easy walking distance of Regents Park and Marylebone High Street.

      For more details, visit our Marylebone Campus page.

      Westminster Business School

      Based in the heart of London's political, media and financial services, Westminster Business School has excellent industry links and a strong commitment to social enterprise.

      Our courses are accredited by professional bodies including the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

      Our practical teaching relates learning to the real world, and we develop graduates who are ready to respond to contemporary business challenges.

      Find out moreGo to Westminster Business School page

      Westminster Business School Marylebone Campus

      Contact us

      Call our dedicated team on:

      +44 (0)20 7911 5000 ext 65511

      Opening hours (GMT): 10am–4pm Monday to Friday

      [email protected]

      Start live chat

      Opening hours (GMT): 10am–4pm Monday to Friday

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