Study Online MBA in the UK
Whether you’re already in the UK or planning to study your MBA from somewhere abroad, the UK has business schools that run some of the best online MBAs in the world, so you’ve picked a good place.
Home to two business schools with online MBAs ranked by the Financial Times in the world top ten, the UK has a whole host of reputable business schools – many of which offer the option to study the MBA entirely, or partly, online.
The UK’s #1 MBA school
Warwick Business School is ranked number one in the UK and number two in the world by the FT, beating a handful of big American universities and business institutes hands-down.
About the course
The course, like all good MBAs, is rigorous, and demands that all students have four years’ management experience before enrolment.
The MBA course takes three years and seven core modules to complete which includes a dissertation, demanding around 15 hours a week’s study. Students come to visit the department in Warwick twice in the first year, and for a few days each in the second and third years.
Fees are around £7,500 GBP a year and the Warwick MBA is said to boost a graduate’s salary by a whopping 32%.
Something else that makes the course so successful is that it’s specially designed for distance study, rather than being adapted for it. See below for stats on some other top online MBA providers in the UK, ranked by the FT.
UK #2 Durham University Business School (6th in the world)
UK #3 Bradford University School of Management (11th in the world)
UK #4 Open University (13th in the world)
Interacting and networking
As recently as a couple of years ago, distance learning might have been a more difficult discipline to stick at, and naysayers would have argued that an online MBA graduate would lack the face-to-face business skills of an on-campus competitor.
But today, managing teams and relationships remotely has never been more important in business, and the online MBA really plays to this skill. The Warwick MBA tasks students with managing a virtual team for group assessment work, challenging course mates to deal professionally and effectively with virtual collaboration and project management.
The online MBA at London School of Business and Finance, to take another example, enables students to become part of a huge online global community of fellow students and corporate partners, easing the wheels of large-scale networking on a scale that would be impossible in real-time.
Why study online in your home country?
So why choose a flexible online course – a globally recognized and internationally focused course that can be studied anywhere – but pick a provider in your home territory? Fees, for one, will be more favourable for home students – and even more favourable for online study versus full-time campus learning.
Travel to your business school for initial and subsequent meet and greets – obligatory on most courses – will be cheaper and easier to arrange than flights to the States, Spain or the Netherlands for a few days here and there over the course of two or three years.
Finally, for all the benefits of online networking (and the benefits are manifold), studying in the same country as your course provider opens up clear options for meet ups and social events with full-time and online MBA students at your business school, as well as online networking in the same time zone as your contemporaries.
Fees Comparison (UK/EU)
| Course and Institution | Costs | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Online MBA – Warwick University | £7,500 GBP per year (3 years) | £22,500 GBP |
| MBA - Open University | £4,145 GBP per year (4 years) | £16,580 GBP |
| Global MBA Online - Durham University | £14,500 GBP per year (2 years | £29,000 GBP |
| MBA Online - University of Liverpool | £8,400 GBP per year (2 years) | £16,800 GBP |
| MBA Distance Learning - Kingston University | £5,333 GBP per year (3 years) | £16,000 GBP |
| The Leicester MBA - University of Leicester | £11,900 GBP per year (1 year) | £11,900 GBP |
| Online MBA - London School of Business and Finance | £4,800 GBP per year (3 years) | £14,500 GBP |
Job Roles and Average Salaries
See below for a list of typical jobs taken by MBA graduates in the UK. Given that an online MBA graduate earns, on average, around 5% less than a full-time graduate in the same qualification, these figures should be deflated accordingly.
What’s important is that even at the lower end of the scale, salaries are considerably higher than the national average of £26,500 GBP.
£53,466 GBP – £97,563 GBP Managing Director
£52,980 GBP – £90,545 GBP Director of Operations
£48,796 GBP – £65,047 GBP Operations Manager
£46,452 GBP – £77,419 GBP Management Consultant
£41,824 GBP – £60,767 GBP Operations Manager
£37,000 GBP – £60,984 GBP Project Manager
£31,107 GBP – £51,395 GBP Business Development Manager
What are you waiting for? Fill out the form at the top of this page to get started on your road to an MBA today.