Ready to take your career to the next level and make an impact?

The Essex MBA is for ambitious professionals, entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders who are eager to deliver sustainable business solutions and build a future they believe in.

At Essex Business School, we cultivate your talent and empower you to think faster and smarter. Whether you want to sharpen your strategic thinking, enhance your leadership, or develop an entrepreneurial mindset, this MBA equips you with the skills and insights to thrive in today’s fast-paced business world.

We recognize the value in being able to complete your MBA in a timeframe that suits you. This modular pathway is our most flexible option, allowing you to complete your Essex MBA alongside existing employment, running your own business, and other life commitments. It can be completed over 5 years, and you're able to take your modules in any order. The only exception is the MBA Project or Consultancy Project which must be studied in the final year.

Push Your Potential

The Essex MBA goes beyond a degree. You’ll gain hands-on experience in key business areas like strategic marketing, sustainable operations, and finance. With a focus on globalisation, sustainability, and innovation, you’ll develop the edge to lead and drive change.

Real-World Learning: Director’s Workshops

Our Director’s Workshops are immersive, one or two-day sessions that bring theory to life through expert presentations, group activities, and collaborations with business incubators. Explore topics like personal branding, risk management, and business creation, all tailored to real-world challenges.

Business Planning and Consultancy Weeks

During Business Planning and Consultancy Weeks, you’ll work with professionals to bid for, run, and deliver a project over five days—applying what you've learned in a real business context, refining your skills, and standing out from your peers.

Start Strong, Graduate Stronger

Your MBA journey starts with a week focused on networking, teamwork, and adaptive thinking. It ends with the Capstone, where you’ll complete a dissertation, business plan, or consultancy project tailored to your goals.

Become a Leader for a Sustainable Future

Gain the knowledge, skills, and behaviours to lead responsibly, navigate challenges, and shape the future of business.Are you ready to make your mark?

Flexible study options

If you're looking for alternative study options, explore our full-time, one year programme, our part-time two-year programme, and our part-time three-year programme.

Scholarships and discounts

At Essex Business School, we are proud to support the best MBA candidates through our Essex MBA Dean's Award offering fee discounts of 10% and above.

Professional accreditation

Accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

The Essex MBA is accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) making Essex Business School among the top 2% of business schools in the world. AMBA describes its accreditation as the “gold standard” for management training around the world and is highly respected by managers and leaders globally. The AMBA affiliation can add huge value to your MBA qualification.

Read about our most recent success with our 5-year re-accreditation by AMBA.

Essex Business School is also accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Our expert staff

Our world-class MBA tutors have both academic and extensive private sector experience and are at the cutting-edge of research in: business ethics and corporate social responsibility; organisation studies; leadership and strategy; finance and banking; risk management; and international management.

The programme is led by our MBA Director Dr James Fowler. James joined Essex in 2019 as a Lecturer in Management. James leads on all aspects of the MBA programme and enjoys teaching MBA candidates as well a leading the MBA faculty and team of industry specialists. Once a serving Officer in the Armed Forces where he held a series of appointments in the Educational and Training Services branch. His mainstream teaching work covered modules on management and leadership, military analysis of strategy, international relations, and cognitive bias. He applies his military experience and academic research into leadership, and delivering workshops on Strategic Leadership to our MBA candidates.

As well as support from academic staff, our MBA recruitment team will be in regular contact and can answer any non-academic questions you have. Throughout your course, you benefit from a personalised and supportive learning environment where help is always at hand.

Specialist facilities

The Essex MBA is taught at our Colchester Campus in the unique and inspiring Essex Business School building, the first zero-carbon business school in the UK.

You benefit from exceptional facilities, including:

• an MBA Syndicate Room exclusively for MBA students, offering space for group work, meetings and presentation preparation
• a virtual trading floor with Bloomberg Financial Market Labs giving you access to industry-standard financial data and analytics
• a beautiful winter garden, which gives the building its own micro-climate

Our building is located at the heart of the Knowledge Gateway, the research and technology park on our Colchester Campus. The Knowledge Gateway also incorporates Parkside Office Village, an SME hotspot, and the Innovation Centre, which is home to the University's Start-Up Hub. These provide significant opportunities for you to network, undertake consultancy projects and develop your own entrepreneurial ambitions with businesses at the cutting-edge of their fields.

Your future

Studying with us on the Essex MBA is an excellent investment in your career and your future. We connect you with the latest developments in business by bringing in practitioners from leading companies to talk about contemporary business issues. Throughout your course, you benefit from our professional links, such as:

• we visit inspiring local firms to learn from their success
• we connect with business incubators to see first-hand the issues of getting your own business off the ground
• we run regular networking events with resident businesses on the University's Knowledge Gateway
• our modules feature business simulations overseen by local entrepreneurs who can share their experiences for the benefit of our students
• the part-time MBA is designed to give you fresh inspiration to tackle the daily challenges you face in the workplace
• we encourage students to use The Capstone to produce a business plan to launch their own new venture, with the expert support of the Essex Startups team at the University's Innovation Centre

Read our alumni profiles to find out how our MBA students have benefited from their qualification.

"I am a qualified solicitor and still have a full-time job to alongside studying part-time. I also do voluntary work and have a young family. It’s a balancing act! I am super organised and set time aside to ensure that I can get everything done. Having a legal background is useful but I am learning so much about business from the tutors and my fellow student cohort. I am really enjoying coming back to study as a mature student. Being older with professional and life experience is invaluable and means I get more from the content being delivered. In terms of the programme, I particularly enjoyed the module ‘leading with impact’, as this is very relevant to my professional life as a solicitor specialising in employment law, with a passion for helping businesses get the best from their employees and creating great places to work."

Charlotte Turnbull, Part-time MBA student

UK entry requirements

A 2:1 degree in any subject.

You are also expected to have an absolute minimum three years' of good quality, relevant, professional work experience, post-graduation, at the course start date. You must also evidence that you have experience managing people, projects or budgets, that you have been able to progress in your career so far and/or that you have been involved in additional entrepreneurial or community focused activities.

Once you have applied, your experience will be assessed individually against these criteria before a decision is made on whether your application will be progressed to the interview stage.

If you are a non-standard applicant (which is typically an applicant who has an undergraduate degree below a 2:1, or an applicant who does not have an undergraduate degree at all) we require at least five years' of relevant managerial experience. You will also be required to write an essay (max. 2000 words) outlining a range of business situations that you have experienced and identifying what you have learnt from them, linking this to how your MBA studies will support you in similar situations in the future.

All MBA applicants must submit an up-to-date CV. For each professional role, your CV should include: company name, job title, dates of employment, details of your role and responsibilities and an outline of the skills required or learnt in the role. You must also submit a personal statement which is specific to the Essex MBA programme, tells us why you think it the right programme for you and how your work and other experiences will help you to succeed on the MBA.

You don’t need to have completed GMAT to apply for the Essex MBA but we particularly welcome applicants with a GMAT score of 600 and above. If you have completed GMAT, please submit your score as it may strengthen your application and your chances of securing a scholarship.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, we require IELTS 6.5 overall with a minimum score of 6.0 in all components.

If you do not meet our IELTS requirements then you may be able to complete a pre-sessional English pathway that enables you to start your course without retaking IELTS.

Additional Notes

The University uses academic selection criteria to determine an applicant’s ability to successfully complete a course at the University of Essex. Where appropriate, we may ask for specific information relating to previous modules studied or work experience.

Course structure

The Essex MBA is structured around eight core modules, the MBA Essentials, and three further modules, the MBA toolkit, that leverage Essex Business School's distinct areas of expertise.

You will also have the opportunity to select an elective module, from a selection called the MBA options, that is aligned to your interests and aspirations.

These are followed by the Capstone, which is the culmination of the practical Director's Workshops and business simulations that run throughout the year, and is your opportunity to complete a consultancy project, business plan or dissertation.

All of the modules listed below provide an example of what is on offer from the current academic year.

We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision for you. We'll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services and facilities as described on our website and in line with your contract with us. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to significant disruption, we'll let our applicants and students know as soon as possible.

Teaching

Each module is delivered in a one-week period, including three or four days of module workshops, where you work alongside your classmates to explore case studies, share relevant professional experiences and apply your learning to real business and management situations.

For some modules you may be required or recommended to complete some prior learning before the module begins, making use of Moodle, the University's virtual learning environment.

For other modules you may engage with this content after the module workshops have taken place.

On Moodle, you will find a set of learning resources for each module which may include quizzes, exercises and articles, specially selected by the module leader. You can work through the materials at your own pace, spending more time on areas that you find challenging.

Shortly after the module workshops, you'll have one more group meeting with the MBA teaching team to ensure you have everything you need to begin work on the assignment or assessment for the module.

Assessment

Assessment for each taught module usually consists of coursework as there are no exams for this programme. Coursework takes the form of individual written essays, group projects and presentations. The Business Planning module is provided to support you with your final MBA Project.

Dissertation

You are required to complete one of the following:

• dissertation - using robust research methods and tools to explore specific business issues of your choice
• comprehensive business plan - a structured business planning document for a new or growing business
• consultancy project - you will be linked with a local business and produce a case study of an issue specific to the business