100% online MSc Management

Complete a life-changing online MSc in management within 12 months

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  • Apply by: 15 April 2025
  • To start: 29 April 2025

180 credits

Complete within 12 months

£8,034 total fees

5 star QS teaching rating (2023)

Why Sunderland?

  • 100% online MSc – complete within 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
  • 5 star rating for teaching, inclusiveness, employability and facilities*
  • Member of AACSB, CABS, EFMD and PRIME
  • Top 40 UK University**
  • 70% of university research rated as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’***

*QS Stars World University Rankings 2023
**Guardian University Guide 2025
***Research Excellence Framework 2021
****The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025


A flexible online masters for working professionals worldwide

This master’s programme is delivered entirely online, with a flexible learning model that delivers academic content on demand. This means that you can study for your master’s degree from anywhere in the world, on mobile or desktop, and can fit your studies around your work and family life. Crucially, this enables you to continue to earn and advance towards your career goals whilst you study. In addition, studying the full-time route, you can complete this management master’s online in as little as 12 months.

Through our innovative online learning environment, you will connect with fellow postgraduate students to share your own experiences via online forums to enhance your professional development. With six start dates a year, you’re not restricted to the traditional academic year and can begin your postgraduate study within weeks.

The course benefits from the world-leading research excellence of the University of Sunderland and is underpinned by our outstanding student support capability, with a dedicated student success coordinator allocated to every single online student to support them from enrolment right up to graduation. We have been ranked internationally as a leading university, receiving five stars for teaching, inclusiveness, employability and facilities in the QS World University Rankings 2023, the highest rating that can be awarded to a university. A recognition of our focus on student success.

What will you study?

This master’s in management will help you to shape your leadership and management skills to become an effective manager and leader in the 21st century business environment. Core modules will enable you to gain a deep understanding of the core business subjects, enabling you to put theory and contemporary thinking into practice whilst examining relevant case studies. You will learn how managers are agents of change, innovators and social and business entrepreneurs, and how they are critical, challenging, independent and creative thinkers.

You will be introduced to topics such as effective decision making and operations management as well as entrepreneurship and the process of starting a new business. In addition, you will examine approaches to strategic management and gain a broad understanding of the marketing, finance and human resource disciplines and functions. You will also consider the more specialised areas of innovation, growth and management consulting.

Key knowledge and skills taught on this course:

  • Broad-based and thorough understanding of key business disciplines
  • Effective leadership, management, and decision making
  • Consultancy skills
  • Fundamentals of entrepreneurship
  • Driving innovation and growth within organisations
  • Strategic management

A global University with the expertise to deliver online learning excellence

There is a high percentage of international students at University of Sunderland, and we have students studying by distance learning around the world. Sunderland is also one of the UK’s leading widening participation Universities and was is 7th in the UK for social inclusion (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024).

Our experience, our leading-edge technology and our expertise in delivering outstanding online learning experiences to an audience of global students is key to what sets the University of Sunderland and our online management master’s apart.

Admission requirements

Applicants must be of age 19 and above and should have or be about to complete:

  • At least a UK 2.2 undergraduate degree or a UK master's degree (or international equivalent)
or
  • A third-class honours degree or an ordinary degree (without honours) or UK equivalent professional qualification with a minimum of two years’ appropriate work experience

    The work experience must be at a graduate level, in either a managerial or professional capacity which may include voluntary work, placements, internships, or project management
or
  • Applicants who do not hold a recognised degree will be asked to provide evidence which demonstrates a minimum of three years’ relevant organisational experience

Fees

  • Total course fees: £8,034
  • Per 15-credit module fee: £670

If you are based in the UK, you may be eligible for a government-backed postgraduate loan to cover the full costs of the course.

In addition, if you have successfully completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Sunderland, you are eligible for a 10% tuition fees reduction on our postgraduate programmes.

You pay tuition fees for each module taken, either module-by-module or in full at the start of your course.

If you pay module-by-module, you will pay in instalments of £670.

Modules

Developing the Skills for Business Leadership

Successful professionals have different approaches to their work, sharing a range of diverse personality traits, attributes and beliefs. These underpin skills proficiency but cannot in themselves be described as ‘skills’. However often they are central determinants of an individual manager’s effectiveness and are developed consciously over time. This module encourages you to develop a strong sense of self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses as a manager and a colleague. In addition, it seeks to help you to develop and improve a range of definable skills which are pivotal to successful management practice and to effective leadership in particular.

Managing and Leading People

This module focuses on the relationship between individual performance and organisational policies and practices. It looks at various aspects of recruitment and retention, organisational culture, motivation and reward. It examines leadership and performance management and considers the changing role of the line manager. Finally, the module covers flexibility and change in the context of the organisation’s internal and external environments.

Innovation and Growth

This module provides an in-depth analysis of the drivers of economic growth, focusing on the key role of innovation and business research and development. It explains the nature of the relationships between innovation, research and development activities and growth and details how innovation can be the engine of growth at all levels of an organisation. The module combines the strategic with the operational to demonstrate how innovative activities can lead to attaining competitive advantage and how business research and development activities can sustain growth regionally, nationally and internationally.

Management Consulting

Management Consulting is an innovative and skills-based module that focuses on the active student involvement in the development and practice of the consultancy skills necessary to be a successful manager and consultant. The module encourages you to become an involved participant in learning about the essential skills necessary to compete in today’s commercial environment.

Financial Management and Control

This module looks at the systems of internal measures put in place by those responsible for financial management. By managing risk, these measures seek to ensure that financial and other resources are used in regular, ethical, economical and effective ways that are to the benefit of the business and support its objectives. The module examines financial management and control, the system which directs and controls the financial effects of budget user’s operations in a way that ensures that they support business success.

Operations Management

Operations management is the administration of business practices designed to establish the highest level of efficiency within an organisation. It focuses on the conversion of materials and labour into goods and services as effectively and efficiently as possible in order to maximise profit. This module focuses on the theory and practice behind the balancing of costs with revenue in order to achieve the highest possible operating profit.

International Business Environment

This module examines strategic management within an international business context. It develops an understanding of corporate strategy and explains the dynamic of transnational corporations as players in an increasingly competitive global environment. The impact of foreign direct investment and the actions of global players as they seek to identify competitive advantage are considered.

International Trade

Walking into a supermarket and finding bananas and coffee from South America, wine from California and New Zealand and cocoa from Nigeria and Cameroon is a result of international trade. International trade allows countries to expand their markets for both goods and services that otherwise may not have been available domestically. As a result of international trade, the market contains greater competition, and therefore more competitive prices, which brings a cheaper product home to the consumer. This module studies the flow of goods and services across international boundaries from supply and demand factors to economic integration and policy variables.

Cross-Cultural Management

Cross-cultural management is the study of management in a cross-cultural context. Its focus is on the influence of societal culture on managers and leaders and on their practice. This module looks at how cultural differences influence behaviour and communication and focuses on developing managers who are effective in cross-cultural environments. At the end of the module, you will have a critical understanding of these influences and will be able to recognise the skills necessary to take advantage of a multicultural work environment.

Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

The future success of the national and global economy is largely dependent on a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators developing new ideas and making them a reality. This module focuses on teaching the skills and knowledge required to successfully set up a business and equally the skills to become an intrapreneur and to drive innovation and change from within an organisation. Entrepreneurial qualities have never been more important or more in demand within existing companies and this module is designed to help you to develop these skills and make yourself a more valuable asset in the employment market.

International HRM

International human resource management is the process of procuring, allocating, and effectively utilising human resources in a multinational corporation. If the corporation is simply exporting its products, with only a few small offices in foreign locations, then the task of the international HR manager is relatively simple. However, in global firms, human resource managers must integrate human resource policies and practices across a number of subsidiaries in different countries so that overall corporate objectives can be achieved. This module focuses on the issues, strategies, developments and practices adopted by different organisations and applied in a range of different institutional contexts.

Marketing Management

Marketing management focuses on the practical application of marketing techniques and methods inside business organisations and the deployment of marketing resources and activities. This module explores the marketing planning process as well as a range of marketing concepts and debates. You will explore consumer behaviour, and will reflect on your own buying behaviour and how it is impacted by people and events around you. In addition to the skills and knowledge required to develop and implement innovative marketing solutions, you will learn how to ensure customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.