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Business and Management at UCA

Make an impact on global business organisations with the practical skills, industry experience, and entrepreneurial spirit you’ll gain on our BA (Hons) Business & Management degree course at UCA Epsom’s Business School for the Creative Industries.

This course is designed to prepare you to be a world-leading creative business professional, ready for a range of career opportunities in the creative business sector, and you’ll have the opportunity to specialise in one or more areas of the creative and cultural industries.

With a focus on creativity and design outputs, which are supported by financial literacy, data investigations and the application of analytical models, you’ll be able to solve problems and make informed decisions in the business of the global creative and cultural industries.

By the end of your degree, you’ll be ready to enter any area of creative business with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to succeed – whether that’s within a major organisation or by embarking on your own entrepreneurial journey.

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
N200
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025, January 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points

International equivalent qualifications

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
N20A
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

32 UCAS points

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
N20C
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

12 years of schooling (with good grades)

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
N201
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025, January 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points

International equivalent qualifications

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
N20B
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025
Duration
5 years full-time
Entry requirements

32 UCAS points

Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
UCA Epsom
Start date(s)
September 2024, September 2025
Duration
5 years full-time
Entry requirements

12 years of schooling (with good grades)

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has an Integrated International Foundation Year to bring students from around the world to one hub of creativity. 

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Core units

You will study the following core units:

Introduction to Business

Business and Management is the process of planning, organising, directing, and controlling the activities of a business or organisation to achieve its goals and objectives. In this introductory unit, you’ll gain a broad overview of business and management in a globalised world, with a specific focus on the cultural and creative industries.

Introduction to the Creative & Cultural Industries

The global creative economy is one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors, creating employment and income, promoting innovation, and contributing to societies’ well-being. You’ll explore the dynamic and multifaceted landscape of the Creative and Cultural Industries, including design, media, arts, and heritage.

Fundamentals of Marketing and Social Media

You’ll be introduced to foundational concepts, theories and models used in marketing and social media, specifically in terms of how they operate as a business function. This unit is designed to help you gain a sound understanding of marketing and marketing principles and will enable you to apply best practices in marketing and social media in future coursework.

Organisational Behaviour

This unit is designed to develop your understanding of business and management with a focus on human aspects, which influence and affect organisations at the individual (micro), work group (meso), and organisational level (macro). It will introduce you to the key concepts, thinkers and analytical frameworks in the field, and to critical theories and practical knowledge of how people, management and organisations co-exist.

Industry Brief: Creative Thinking for Business and Entrepreneurship

Creative thinking is vital for stimulating innovative and divergent thinking in business and entrepreneurship. Gamestorming, for example, offers a creative set of tools and practices to inspire creativity, one of several strategies that enables free thinking and playfulness in the business context. This unit provides you with knowledge and experience of different tools and techniques you can use in your studies and professional practice to encourage more expansive and insightful thinking.

Elective units

You will study one of the following elective units:

Experience Economy

In this unit you will explore experiences as a distinct fourth economic offering (beyond commodities, goods and services). Using case studies from a range of businesses, this unit will focus on creative insights sought by businesses that aim to generate memorable experiences for their users, audiences and/or consumers.

Brand Logo and Design

A brand is built of many things, and crucial amongst those are the visual and lived experience of the brand. We can understand brand as the external image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with by identifying the name and logo. Branding is essential to identify and leverage competitor advantage in a crowded marketplace. It helps differentiate products and services from competitors and captures a target market, maximising customer loyalty and ensuring brand success. Understanding the principles of design and brand building is an essential skill to have in Creative Industry.

Managing Creative People

You’ll consider and reflect upon the key skills and attributes effectively manage creatives. This unit will develop your understanding of the knowledge, skills, and personal qualities required to responsibly manage diverse teams in the cultural and creative industries. 

Core units

You will study the following core units:

Strategic Management: Funding, Finance, and Business Modelling

You’ll integrate strategic management principles with funding, finance, and business modelling, as you are introduced to essential financial practices and management and the role of accounting and other information systems for planning, decision-making, and managing financial risk. This unit will also introduce you to the role of business modelling within the global creative industries.

Consumer Behaviour in the Creative Industries

You’ll examine key theoretical approaches and academic debates relating to consumption and consumer behaviour, and how these relate to the global creative industries.

Professional Practice: Your Professional Self

This unit aims to prepare you for the development of your creative professional practice and equip you with the critical awareness of current and emerging trends in the global creative industries. You’ll have opportunities to create and develop your professional network and think critically and creatively about how you can make a positive contribution to industry and how you present yourself professionally.

Creative Business Brief: Digital Futures

You’ll critically reflect on the imminent challenges and opportunities created by new technology and innovation in different contexts within the global creative industries, and design your own mini-research project, which focuses on one key topic within this burgeoning area. You’ll present it in a digital content format (for example, as a podcast, microsite, or short film) for a commercial and/or creative audience.

Project Management in the Creative Industries

You’ll be given a sound understanding of project management principles and practices specifically tailored to the dynamic fields of creative industries and events management in this unit, exploring the unique challenges and opportunities that arise when managing projects in the creative sector.

Elective units

You will study one of the following elective units:

Cross-Cultural Management

This unit will introduce you to the importance of cross-cultural awareness and intercultural competence for business success in the global cultural and creative industries. It will explore the risks, uncertainties, and topics of debate within intercultural creative business and management, inviting you to consider what kinds of sophisticated, proactive leadership skills are needed to ensure positive cross-cultural collaboration and cooperation. Alongside international case studies, it includes an exploration and critical analysis of influential theories from management studies and global indicators of cultural context, including economic, political, social, and business issues across the world, allowing for comparison and discussion of key topics.

Creative Content: Analogue and Digital

The focus of this unit is to continue building your knowledge of and experience with design approaches and methodologies, specifically related to both analogue and digital design. The creative approach is specific to industry, encouraging outcomes through the approach of concept, vision and idea making. Students are required to develop a range of physical proficiencies that utilise both analogue and digital skills that investigate, generate, articulate and communicate ideas and solutions applicable to standards, approaches, and methods practiced across the Creative Industries.

The combined approach to Analogue and Digital Design throughout disciplines and across multiple mediums is more relevant and necessary than ever, the art and skill of hand rendered design and quick digital ideation enables effective communication and concept share to be developed, discussed and agreed prior to any undertaking of finalised, potentially costly and labor-intensive end solutions.

Managing International Tours & Events

In this unit, you will critically examine concepts and working practices related to the touring of arts and music events on an international level. You will identify potential international markets for distinct cultural products and assess the feasibility of touring to those markets, considering financial and logistical aspects. Through case studies from music, performing and fine arts, you will develop knowledge and critical understanding required to plan sustainable international tours across a range of disciplines and contexts.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Core units

You will study the following core units:

Business Strategy and Decision Making in the Creative Industries

In the contemporary landscape, decision-making has become an intricate task, with leaders, managers, and executives grappling with uncertainties influenced by external factors beyond their control or prediction. In this unit you’ll explore a transformative approach, which turns decision-making into an intelligent and insightful process and provides a robust framework of effective and replicable solutions.

Data Analytics in the Creative Industries

This unit will equip you with the data analytics knowledge and skills required for working in the data-driven global creative industries. Working with existing or self-generated data sets, you will explore and develop a critical understanding of the fundamentals of data analytics and its use in the global creative industries, including the differences between descriptive and predictive analytics; the ethical, social, legal, and economic considerations of data collection and analysis; and the statistical and data visualisation tools required to produce meaningful insights into the global creative industries.

Operations and Supply Chain Management in the Creative Industries

This unit explores the basic concepts concerned with the production and creation of products (goods and/or services) by organisations from the global creative industries. The overall aim is for you to critically examine a range of operations and supply chain management strategies, systems and technologies, and to plan, design and develop suitable and effective operations and supply chain configurations for given scenarios in the global creative industries.

Degree Project, Creative and Cultural Industries

In this final unit, you will apply knowledge, skills and experience gained throughout your course, to create a distinctive piece of work for your degree project. The purpose of your degree project is to successfully identify an opportunity within the global creative industries, which aligns with your career aspirations.

Through academic and industry research, you will create a project concept relating to the global creative industries. You will choose between a practical project (e.g. the creation of a business start-up) or an academic project (e.g. a dissertation) and deliver your project from initial idea to completed work.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Industry placement
offer

Preparing graduates for successful careers underpins everything we do, and all students on this course may be offered support to identify and prepare for an industry placement according to their individual needs. We’ll draw on our wide range of contacts within the creative industries to help provide you with opportunities that align with your interests and future career aspirations.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Explore our gradshow

Each year, we’re privileged to be able to share our graduates’ incredible work with the world. And now’s your chance to take a look.

Visit the online showcase
Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,250
  • BA course: £9,250

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £9,250 (see fee discount information)
  • BA course: £9,250 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BA course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

The UCA Business School for the Creative Industries, based at our Epsom campus, is the first of its kind in the UK. There’s dedicated studios and study areas, digital media suites equipped with Macs and PCs which are programmed with specialist software including Adobe Creative Suite, Dreamweaver and After Effects. There’s a modern library with a wealth of books and thanks to its location, many collaborative opportunities with students from other courses.

View 360 virtual tour

Business School Studios, UCA Epsom

Business School Studios, UCA Epsom

Library, UCA Epsom

Digital media suite, UCA Epsom

Career opportunities

Our BA/BSc Business Management will enable you to pursue a range of careers including:

  • Graduate Schemes
  • Entrepreneur
  • Product Buyer
  • Junior Manager
  • Production Team Lead
  • Postgraduate Study

Your training on this course will prepare you for a wide range of postgraduate courses

We offer postgraduate opportunities in our Business School and we will help you find the correct course for you and support you in your application should further study be for you.

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

That’s a big question. Get some answers from people who are studying right here, right now.

Chat to a student

Faris Hattab

"This is a course with lots of promise and it provides the perfect balance between the creative and theoretical aspects of Business Management."

Faris Hattab

Entry requirements

This course doesn't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

Select your country to find the equivalent requirements

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