Master’s-level marketing apprenticeship is first of its kind in the UK for senior leaders

Cranfield School of Management is launching the first master’s-level senior leader marketing apprenticeship in the UK.

The programme will enable marketers to develop their marketing and leadership skills throughout the two-year Senior Leader Apprenticeship and achieve a Marketing and Leadership MSc from one of the UK’s leading business schools.

Businesses who access the Apprenticeship Levy will be able to use their funds to pay for employees to participate and help shape the employer-based portion of the programme, enabling them to create the next senior leaders within their organisation.

The Marketing and Leadership MSc is a new offering from Cranfield that enables senior marketers to develop their leadership talent and enhance their strategic marketing skills.

Cranfield is the largest academic provider of the senior management apprenticeship standard with some 700 students already enrolled. It was the first business school in the UK to offer a master’s-level apprenticeship when it launched its Executive MBA with Grant Thornton in 2017. Since then it has developed a suite of masters-level apprenticeship programmes, known as Masterships, with the Marketing and Leadership programme being its latest educational offering.

Participants will develop general management knowledge, skills and behaviours inclusive of strategy, finance, programme management, sustainability, leading teams and leading change. They will become leaders of strategic marketing in their organisations, developing expertise in marketing planning, customer management, big data analytics, digital marketing, advertising and consumer behaviour.

Professor Stan Maklan, Director of the Centre for Marketing and Strategic Sales, Cranfield School of Management, said:

“Using the Apprenticeship Levy enables businesses to work with us and match the needs of their employees’ education with the needs of their organisation. This new programme draws on proven and successful marketing and general management courses to develop leadership in the field.

“Since launching our Masterships, we have been overwhelmed by the number of employers who have contacted us wanting to invest in world-class management education in order to develop their workforce. Cranfield School of Management has led the way in developing master’s-level apprenticeships and I’m proud that we are now able to add a marketing Mastership to our successful portfolio.”

Cranfield’s Marketing and Leadership MSc draws on both the Strategic Marketing MSc, which is ranked 16th in the world by QS World University Rankings: Masters in Marketing 2020 and the Management MSc, which is ranked 3rd in the UK in the 2019 The Economist/Which MBA? Masters in Management (MiM) rankings.