Hello everyone,

I am looking for MBA or a specialist masters (post experience) program from a good university with excellent employment prospects within UK.

A bit about myself: I am from India and have 8 years of work experience in BPO and managed services industry (4 years in Project Management followed by 2 years in Account Management and then 2 years again in Project Management). I completed my undergraduate degree in business management in 2004 with 75%+ aggregate.

Career goal: After completing the MBA or specialist master program, I plan to work in Strategic or Sourcing Consulting area within UK for next 3-5 years.

Key considerations for the course:
1. Considering that there is no more PSW visa available, the course and university should have good job prospects for international students
2. The course fee should be under GBP 15K

I have been doing some research for last couple of weeks and key challenges which I have come across are:
1. MBA course fee for all FT/ Economist ranked universities (and most of the AMBA accredited programs) is 20K or more
2. Most of the specialist master?s programs at ranked universities are pre to 3 years? experience programs (1 exception which I have come across so far is Manchester Business School)

So maybe, my only option now is a 'MBA program at a non-ranked university with good job prospects' i.e. if such a thing does exist! Please share your suggestions.

Details about any specialist master?s programs (post experience) which I may have missed are welcome as well.

Thanks,
Anuj

The MSc programmes are aimed at people with less than three years work experience, but they will be open to others as well. You should look at Durham University; University of Manchester; University of Strathclyde Business School (SBS); Nottingham University Business School; University of Exeter Business School; University of Bath and the University of Reading, all of which have international frees around 15K.

1. Considering that there is no more PSW visa available, the course and university should have good job prospects for international students
2. The course fee should be under GBP 15K

Duncan and Ralph, thanks for your response.

@Duncan ? I looked at the courses offered by the universities which you had listed and discovered couple of interesting programs aimed at management consulting career ? MSc Corporate Strategy and Governance @ Nottingham University Business School and MRes Management @ University of Exeter. Both the programs seem to have good amount of focus on research and I would dig a bit deeper into modules to understand the course better. However, both the universities haven?t provided any cohort and employability stats for these programs on the website/ brochures. Do you have any views on the course or the career/ employability prospects?

@ Ralph ? Very interestingly, Portsmouth has started a new MBA program with 1 year work placement (total 2 years program). However the business school has not provided past employability data on the website even for their regular 1 year MBA program.

Similar to Portsmouth, Salford is also supporting students with a 1 year work placement however this is available only for their MSc programs and not for MBA program. General employability statistics mentioned on the website for MSc programs seem impressive (93% in 3 months).

Though both these universities are ranked quite low (reference, Guardian rankings), with PSW discontinued, 1 year work placement seems to be a good hedge.

@ Duncan, Ralph: What do you suggest would be a good option ? MSc at Nottingham/ Exeter, MSc at Salford or MBA at Portsmouth from career and employability perspective?


Thanks again.

Portsmouth has started a new MBA program with 1 year work placement (total 2 years program).

Salford is also supporting students with a 1 year work placement however this is available only for their MSc programs and not for MBA program.

Aren't these more along the lines of glorified internships? I mean, Salford's website reports that the average salary of these placements is around 17k GBP in London. That's about half the overall average for salaries in the city, and about the cost to rent a flat in city center.

Well If you are looking for a decent post degree career, I would recommend MBA over MSc as Ralph referred that MSc is more for inexperienced candidates, If you have 6+ years of experience, I would suggest that you make applications for top ranked universities into their MBA programs and also seek for some scholarships as considering your profile you might be able to get some scholarship and can try bringing your fees down to 17 K or so. But getting in to Portsmouth or Slford, I would not recommend as most of the students studying there may just have 2 years of work exp, therefore learning from peer group will be minimal. secondly these B-Schools do not have a very strong Alumni network. , You may also consider Kent MBA as its an accredited program and also the students are much more experienced.

@ Duncan, ralph, ezra, Mamit - Thanks for your valuable inputs.

You have good experience in BPO field. You should just need to do MBA from any reputed college. After doing MBA you can easily get a job in which field you want to enter.