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MSc Management with Finance

Complete a life-changing online master’s in management and finance 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’***
  • £8,034 total fees, option to pay £670 per module

*QS Stars World University Rankings 2023
**Guardian University Guide 2025
***Research Excellence Framework 2021


An online management with finance MSc designed for student success

Our online MSc Management with Finance course has been specifically built to provide busy working professionals with the opportunity to learn how to successfully manage, lead, strategise and innovate within the finance discipline – without having to give up the day job.

The course is delivered entirely online with a flexible learning model. This enables you to study from anywhere in the world without ever needing to visit campus. It also means that you can study whenever suits you, on desktop or mobile – on your commute, your lunch break or at the weekend – studying around work and family commitments. If you choose the full-time route, you can complete this master’s online in as little as 12 months.

With six start dates a year, you’re not restricted to the traditional academic year and can begin postgraduate study within weeks.

Our research, which was rated ‘world-leading’ in the latest Research Excellence Framework, directly informs the course’s high quality academic content, which is shaped by online learning design specialists to provide an interactive and highly engaging online learning experience.

Each student is designated a dedicated Student Success Coordinator to provide you with high quality support from enrolment right up to when you graduate.

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 special recognition of our practical focus on developing the skills that enable career progression for our students all over the world.

What will you study?

This MSc Management with Finance course helps you to develop your leadership and management skills, examining how aspiring leaders in finance can become effective managers and leaders in the modern world of work.

With a focus on management and leadership within the finance sector and finance functions, you will develop a comprehensive understanding of management accounting, financial management and control. You will also gain a holistic understanding of key business disciplines, enabling you to put theory and contemporary thinking into practice. You will learn the techniques that effective managers use, how they 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.

Key knowledge and skills taught on this course:

  • Broad-based and thorough understanding of key business disciplines
  • Specialist knowledge of financial and management accounting
  • Understanding of financial management and control
  • Leadership, management, and decision making skills
  • Fundamentals of entrepreneurship
  • Strategic management

A University that delivers online teaching excellence worldwide

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 7th in the UK for social inclusion (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024).

It is the University of Sunderland’s wealth of experience, leading-edge technology and expertise in delivering outstanding online learning experiences to an audience of global students that is key to what sets the online MSc Management with Finance 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

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.

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.

Management Accounting and Control

This module explores the nature, evolution and development of management accounting control systems as part of organisational performance management and control. It considers theories relevant to the design and implementation of effective control systems and assesses possible implications of and issues with creating and using management accounting control systems relevant to an organisation’s underlying structure, strategy and environment. Management accounting techniques introduced are critically assessed against prior learning of the organisational context (structure, strategy, behaviour and compliance) using a variety of perspectives and examples. The role of the management accountant in contributing to effective performance management and control is reviewed according to a range of perspectives.

Accounting and Financial Management

This module introduces key accounting and financial management concepts and principles. It enables you to understand the nature of financial information, identify relevant economic events, determine the most appropriate financial measures for those events, and analyse the effects on a firm’s performance and financial position. The module helps you to understand the appropriateness and the advantages or shortcomings of various accounting and financial management techniques and tools. It also helps you to understand how to use these techniques and tools accordingly to make value – creating decisions for your organisation.

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 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.

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.

International HRM

International human resource management is the process of procuring, allocating, and effectively utilising human resources in a multinational corporation. If the multinational 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 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.