Construction Commercial Management MSc

Industry links

Our course was designed with input from a range of industry professionals and, to retain currency and relevance, we receive ongoing feedback from the School’s Employability Advisory Board. Current members include practitioner representatives from the multinational construction, property and infrastructure company Lendlease, commercial property experts Chase and Partners, and CABE.

We are proud of our excellent industry links with a host of construction companies and key professional bodies, including RICS, CIOB and CABE. They enable us to host a highly successful Annual Property and Construction Careers Fair, which in 2019 attracted 40 employers including:

• CBRE
• Mace
• JLL
• Barratt Developments
• Bouygues UK
• Savills
• Carter Jonas
• Grainger

Immensely popular with our students, the fair provides a unique opportunity to meet with leading employers in the property and construction sector, learn first-hand about their organisations, secure work experience or receive guidance from a panel of speakers on the graduate scheme application process for some of the larger employers.

Job roles

This course will prepare you for roles such as: 

• Quantity surveyors
• Commercial manager
• Construction manager
• Project manager

Graduate employers

Graduates from this course have found employment at organisations including:

• Bouygues UK
• Costain Group Plc
• Gleeds
• MACE
• TFL
• Turner Townsend
• Wilmott Dixon

How you’ll be taught

This course is delivered via ‘blended learning’, which combines the discipline and structure of traditional regular attendance at the University with the flexibility of online study.

Web-based technologies are used to ensure that you have access to course materials and, where appropriate, online lectures. You will be able to interact with tutors and other students, often in real time, via online tutorials. We provide reading lists, lecture and seminar materials in advance via Blackboard, our virtual learning environment. You also have access to a range of electronic resources including e-books, e-journals and online databases.

The part-time course recognises the significant challenges of combining postgraduate-level study with full-time professional employment. However, please note that if you are studying part-time, you are still required to attend University on average one evening per week during the teaching semesters. These face-to-face contact sessions are used for activities which engage the students in the learning process.

Extensive use is made of ‘enquiry-based learning’, whereby you’ll work collaboratively to tackle complex scenarios you may encounter in the workplace, which helps you gain a much deeper understanding of the material. Furthermore, you develop high-level intellectual skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation, the skills needed to tackle complex problems in real life.

You’ll be given opportunities to take part in site visits to major UK construction sites and infrastructure projects, and gain valuable insight from current practitioners, which in the past has included guest lectures from Great Portland Estates, The Portman Estate, The Crown Estate, Lendlease, Mace, GoReport and RICS.

In the following graph you'll find examples of how study time has been distributed in the past (data from the academic year 2019/20). 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 three broad categories:

• Scheduled hours: examples include lectures, seminars, practical classes, workshops, supervised time in a studio
• Placement: placement hours normally include placement opportunities, but may also include live projects or virtual activity involving employers
• Independent study: non-scheduled time in which students are expected to study independently. This may include preparation for scheduled sessions, follow-up work, wider reading or practice, completion of assessment tasks, or revision

How you’ll be assessed

Using a wide range of techniques, you can expect to be assessed on the learning outcomes of your course in core modules through coursework in the form of essays, reports, presentations, case studies as well as time-constrained in-class tests and exams.

We try to make assessments as practical and relevant as possible, incorporating the type of work required by future employers, for example writing strategic reports.

In the Building Pathology module, for example, students inspect a real building, identify defects, explain the cause and recommend remedial work, as if reporting to a client.

In the following graph you'll find an indication of what you can expect (data from the academic year 2019/20). Changes to assessment weights may be made in response to feedback and in accordance with our terms and conditions. Assessments typically fall into three broad categories:

• Practical: examples include presentations, podcasts, blogs
• Written exams: end of semester exams
• Coursework: examples include essays, in-class tests, portfolios, dissertation

Our students have an opportunity to take part in the week-long international Building Challenge, a joint activity between the University of Westminster and Saxion University of Applied Science in Enschede, Netherlands.

Bringing together students from both institutions, as well as universities in Belgium, Russia and Germany, you’ll spend around 40 hours working in mixed international teams on a real assignment, using the different approaches of architecture and construction in different cultures to come up with new creative ideas for renovation of the built environment.

Past assignments have included transforming office spaces to residential purposes and restoring a historical timber-framed building.