Course overview
This work-based programme is reflective of current thinking in strategic leadership and provides an excellent platform for aspiring or substantive senior leaders and managers to enhance and develop sought-after strategic leadership skills. Designed for those who wish to gain a postgraduate degree while balancing employment and a range of other commitments, this programme will develop your knowledge, skills and competence in the areas of personal and professional development, leadership, people management, innovation, finance and organisational strategy.
Update for September 2021 intake: As a result of Covid-19 and social distancing requirements, we are intending to teach this course using a mix of on-campus and online teaching. For students unable to travel due to travel restrictions in place in their country, students will be able to start online and join us when travel to London is possible. Please check our website for the most up to date information regarding intakes and delivery.
Campus locations
Job outcomes
- Strategic Leader
Study method
- Blended
- In-class
- Online
Locations
- England
- London

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Duration study load
- 2 years part-time (14 weekends)
Entry requirements
- A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
- At least 3 years’ work experience with supervisory responsibility
- You must be in employment
Assessment
The assessment for this programme is 100% coursework.
Delivery
You’ll be taught using a range of methods such as workshops, tutorials, directed study and discussion forums, and led by experienced lecturers and academics who use their industry and research experience to demonstrate how the theories, tools, technologies and methods you will learn on the programme translate into real-life situations.
For each module, you can expect 24 hours of overall contact time delivered through interactive workshops and face-to-face classroom sessions. This will be supported by a minimum of 12 hours of guided tutor learning which can be delivered virtually, including tutorials, tutor-led collaborative exercises with peers, discussion forums and video presentations.
Who's it for?
This programme is specifically designed for those in employment and who are seeking to develop their careers as a strategic leader. As such significant emphasis is placed upon developing the competencies required to accelerate leadership career potential. Through the teaching, learning and assessment strategy, you will be encouraged to develop your knowledge and skills as practising or aspiring leaders, and to think analytically about your personal and organisational practice.
Subjects
This module is the capstone of the programme and provides aspiring leaders with an opportunity to critically reflect upon the contribution of leadership in the context of organisations. It is designed to develop you as ‘reflective-practitioners’ and independent learners. Furthermore, the module encourages you to think about the responsibility of individual leaders and organisations in the context of contemporary ethical and sustainable challenges to business.
We will consider contemporary issues and challenges facing individuals and organisations regarding leading and managing in increasingly dynamic business environments. This approach will develop your ability to analyse behaviour critically, evaluate actions; plan and employ critical judgement through careful consideration of and reflection on current and future management and organisational challenges.
This module will enable you to critically evaluate the range of factors that impact strategic positioning and performance. It will help you develop new knowledge and skills in strategic analysis and planning techniques, which you will apply in your own context, to critically analyse opportunities for implementation and recommend future improvements to organisational practice.
The module will analyse contemporary theories and models informing strategic approaches to leading change and managing new ways of working across infrastructure, processes, people, culture and sustainability within organisations.
Central to understanding how organisations achieve success is the appreciation of how accounting, finance and operations can be used for strategic advantage. This module will develop your knowledge and critical appreciation of the key components of accounting, finance and operations and enable you to apply these within the context of a successful commercial organisation.
The module will include key concepts in relation to investment and financing decisions, operational controls, and financial health and growth. You will be able to build your knowledge starting with how to choose and appraise an investment decision, dealing with operational matters that keep the business running, using finance, accounting and operational techniques to manage the direction of the business strategically and to understand how expansion can successfully and sustainably take place.
As the future of work and organisations continue to change and take on new shapes, legal and regulatory forms, leaders will have a critical role to play both as strategic partners in organisations, supporting and developing frontline employees as well as managers, and enabling change. Effective management of people is vital for the achievement of an organisation’s strategic goals, yet it is hard to do well and easy to do badly.
The module investigates the strategic priorities and practicalities of strategic human resource management and development in addition to a focus on stakeholders’ development needs. You will develop an understanding of individual and organisational learning, including the opportunities and challenges of approaches to strategic workforce planning such as talent management, workforce design, performance management, diversity and inclusion.
This module will provide you with theoretical and applied perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of managing in the digital economy. Through the use of a range of topical and case-based examples, this module will illustrate the far-reaching impact that rapid technological change, digital strategies and disruptive innovation has on companies, governments, individuals and society.
You will explore how these impacts are interrelated and are dynamic and unpredictable in character. The assessment explores this dynamic interaction, providing an opportunity to explore the impact of transformation digital change. The use of academic and practitioner materials will enable you to clearly understand the socio-economic impact and contribute to developing new strategies to reap potential value from the global digital economy.
The growth of evidence-based management and the increasing range and amount of data that managers are expected to process on a regular basis requires managers to have analytical skills and a sound understanding of research. This module will equip you with the necessary practical skills needed to manage this complexity and to generate conclusions, which can be used to support management decisions.
In addition, you will be provided with a broad understanding of the basic issues and considerations you will face when completing your final management investigation. You will be introduced to philosophical issues as well as frequently used methodologies and techniques to inform whatever research strategy and methods you decide to adopt in your later investigation.
About Northumbria University London
QA Higher Education works in partnership with Northumbria University to deliver courses at the Northumbria University London Campus. The London Campus offers industry-focused Business, Computing, IT, Cyber Security and Project Management courses amid the buzz of London’s business and financial district.
Our academic experts and professional support staff are committed to giving students an educational experience that will set them up for life. We offer cutting-edge courses that are at the forefront of current knowledge and practice and are informed by global perspectives.
In light of Covid-19, start dates may vary and these courses may initially be delivered online until a point where normal campus teaching can be resumed. Please check our website for the most up to date information regarding intakes and delivery.