Hello,
Using the government levy funding to do a level 7 senior leader degree apprentice & then progress to a MBA/ MSc seems to be a cost effective way to participate part time, develop & gain a business qualification.

Are there any downsides to this approach?

I'm based in Manchester.
Loughborough, Birmingham, Durham, Lancaster & Aston are all practical (close) & offer top up to MBA with additional study + fee between £4k & £16k.

Manchester (Alliance) & London City (Bayes) offers a top up to MSc Management Practice & Executive Master’s in Leadership respectively.

Are there some institutions that I should be considering that I've missed?

Are there recommendations from this list?


Thank you for your guidance!

Other things being equal, the advantages are lower investment, a more diverse cohort and faster application of learning.  

I guess Cranfield and Henley are the market leaders. My brother is in the Manchester programme now and, while it's okay, he's not exactly raving about it. The different elements feel disconnected and I have the impression that many of the teachers are not in the core faculty at MBS. 

In your position, I would look at Lancaster or Birmingham since that allows entry into on-campus EMBA programmes. 

Thanks for the feedback!

Expanding my (geographic) search brings a few additional contenders.

The course at Cranfield progresses to Operations Excellence MSc.

So the contenders are;
Loughborough, Birmingham, Durham, Lancaster, Aston, Reading, Newcastle. with progression to MBA.

Manchester (Alliance), London (Bayes), Cranfield with progression to MSc


@Duncan, it's interesting that you didn't recommend Durham.

I suppose my question is;
from an outsider's view, is an MSc from Manchester/Cranfield/Bayes viewed better or worse than an MBA from one of the other institutions.

There is an MBA pathway at Cranfield: https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/postgraduate-apprenticeships/senior-leader-apprenticeship-portfolio/senior-leader-apprenticeship-executive-mba 

Yes, I don't recommend Durham *to you*. The big difference is that you can't get into their EMBA but only into the online MBA, and the additional cost is pretty high at £16,000 top-up. Furthermore, for an executive degree I think you're better off with a more established executive education player like AMBS, LUMS, Cranfield. Birmingham etc.

PS The exact choice perhaps comes down to microanalysis of the alumni networks and a study of your career goals. I know from my brother, for example, that the AMBS cohort is very local. 

[Edited by Duncan on Aug 03, 2022]