Luxury Business Management at UCA

The business of Luxury is lucrative and fast-growing, and our MA Luxury Business Management degree at UCA Epsom will help you become a part of it.

Whether you want to move into a high-level position in luxury brand consultancy, brand management, communications or product management, or start your own entrepreneurial venture, this course will equip you with the skills required to establish yourself within this sector of the industry.

This one-year master’s degree will focus your creative talents and build your business management skills, with a strong emphasis on independent research within your chosen area of expertise.

Every course within the Business School for the Creative Industries' portfolio is taught with a global perspective, giving graduates the skill set required to pursue a creative business career anywhere in the world. Our teaching programmes are all project-based, combining knowledge from both business and the creative industries in order to ensure that you graduate as a well-rounded, highly employable professional with a highly-regarded qualification. 

Please note, this course has previously been offered with a MSc award, this route has been withdrawn from September 2024 entry.

Course entry options

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

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.

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Pre-Masters year. 

On this course you’ll prepare for postgraduate study with a mix of online and face-to-face learning that will give you the study skills required to complete a Master’s, and you’ll also improve your English for academic study.

Postgraduate Bootcamp 1: Creativity & Orientation
Bootcamp 1: Creativity is designed to introduce you to the Business School for the Creative Industries’ learning community and professional global network orientation. Through a series of exciting and engaging fast paced workshops, tasks and peer sessions you will access resources, build relationships and develop a vision of the function of business for the creative industries.

Understanding the Luxury Consumer
What is luxury really and how is it recognised as such? Who are the sector’s highly sought-after consumers that brands fall over themselves for and hope to please? How are they different from other categories of consumers? This unit helps you answer these questions. Working to your brief, you could be employed as part of a larger organisation or a consultant, or you could be researching a competitor to your own business. You will be expected to demonstrate the ability to integrate and apply academic and practical knowledge at a high level.

Creative People & Organisations
The creative industries are highly important to the UK and the global economy. As people are a principal resource for any organisation, the strategic management of creative people is an essential skill to ensure that the creative enterprise flourishes at times of rapid technological and organisational change and global competition. This module is designed to provide an insight into the complex theories and contemporary management practice within the creative industries both in the UK and globally.

Buying Strategy in the Luxury Industries
Luxury businesses have the most demanding customers regarding quality, and the sector prides itself on being able to meet increasingly exacting expectations of its clients. This unit will identify the challenges that face luxury brands - procuring and buying the finest articles, materials and products; the increasing pressure for transparency in supply chains regards ethical and sustainable practices; threats from counterfeiting; mass production of simulations/synthetics; meeting living wage costs of specialist artisans; and securing consistent supply chains of often rare materials and services against competition.

Marketing, Design and Communications
If we can understand branding as strategic, we can understand marketing as the tactical force employed to achieve specific business objectives sent from the brand. This unit is about how to understand branding in this way, so you can improve your own marketing, design and communication skills and investigate solutions to current issues within this industry sector.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

Postgraduate Bootcamp 2: Forecasting & Predictive Analysis
Through examples from empirical research, you will have an overview of main concepts, statistical models, methods, tools and underlying principles used to improve business decision-making. You will learn fundamentals of exploratory data analysis and how to aggregate and visualize datasets.

Human-centred Innovation & Design
Human-centred design (HCD) is a creative way to solve problems. It is a process of designing for people that begins with the people for whom you are developing ideas and ends with individual solutions to meet their needs. You will learn how to design and develop systems by applying HCD and innovation principles and techniques through various relevant activities in planning and management to satisfy user needs and requirements in business, social and global contexts.

Global Luxury Industry and Business
This unit will give you comprehensive knowledge of current theories and practices for managing Luxury business and process in a global context. There is a strong focus on contemporary business and marketing concepts enabling you to position yourself and your practice within this constantly changing and demanding landscape.

Masters Project
The Masters Project is the culmination of your studies and is divided into two parts – a research proposal, and your final project. Both parts represent an in-depth investigation and requires you to approach a real problem or opportunity in your specialist area, analyse it, and then develop a tangible strategy and implementation plan, while applying contemporary concepts and frameworks from your studied programme.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

You choose one unit from:

Creative Business Start-Up
With the world ever-changing, the traditional rules of business no longer apply. The drive for innovation, creativity and agility are taking precedence. This unit explores the concept of developing creative businesses and the new paths for start-ups. You will analyse the evolution of business structures and explore the new market opportunities and challenges arising from geo-politics, trade relations and the global pandemic. And you will use research to scope out new concepts designed to fulfil rising market trends such as inclusivity, diversity, and cultural differences to create and capture value.

Investment in the Creative Industries
This unit covers the various means of investment in the creative industries. You will explore availability and access of funds through loans, grants, scholarships from government and council schemes to industry organisations and trade bodies, as well as from private equity investors. You will also explore and challenge business/financial models and future landscapes.

Retail Experience Design
Retail experience is a rapidly evolving and innovative landscape – you will take a look at the histories and evolution of the sector and explore future trends with the aim to be visionaries and leaders in the space. You will explore environmental, communications, products, people and services using insights into human behaviour and eco-systems (supply chain & critical path).

Postgraduate Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence & Research
Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence Research is designed to familiarise you with the gathering and analysis of competitors, customers, distributors, technologies, and other relevant stakeholders and features in the environment for proactive decision making in the face of threats and opportunities.

Masters Project
The Masters Project is the culmination of your studies and is divided into two parts – a research proposal, and your final project. Both parts represent an in-depth investigation and requires you to approach a real problem or opportunity in your specialist area, analyse it, and then develop a tangible strategy and implementation plan, while applying contemporary concepts and frameworks from your studied programme.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

You choose one unit from the following:

Behavioural Studies and Consumption
In this unit, you will overview main behaviour theories from marketing, sociology and psychology, and their recent trends, to analyse and get acquainted with the decision-making processes of consumers, and their main factors, with a particular application to cultural and creative goods.

Trends & Forecasting
Staying ahead of your customer is vital to commercial success. In this unit, you will learn both perceptive and analytical approaches to trends research, as well as key theories. Then, from the context of your subject discipline, you will interrogate this methodology within your area of specialism and adapt it to gather and validate insights pertinent to your industry.

Luxury Brands & Development
Luxury is an overused word but what is luxury? This unit will explore what defines what luxury is against any other business model and the unique set of challenges it must constantly grapple with. It is designed to help you get a feel for what truly is luxury across a range of businesses and how brands can at once seem so different, but all share common characteristics. You will develop your professional skills while engaging in the key debates surrounding the sector.

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.

Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees

  • 2024/25 entry: £12,500

Tuition fees

Tuition fees

  • 2024/25 entry (MA): £18,500
  • 2024/25 entry (Integrated International Pre-Masters course - 30 weeks): £17,500
  • 2024/25 entry (Integrated International Pre-Masters course - 15 weeks): £8,750

Please note: the fees listed here are correct for the stated academic year only. For more detailed information about our course fees please see our fees and finance pages

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.

Current UCA students and alumni may be eligible for a tuition fee discount.

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 business courses at UCA Epsom have a baseroom with networked computer facilities and you also have access to our extensive range of campus facilities, including: print studios with extensive screen printing facilities, photography studios, 3D workshops, media store for borrowing film and photography equipment. There is also a modern library with a wealth of books, journals, special collections and online resources.

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Business School studios, UCA Epsom

Business School studios, UCA Epsom

Business School, UCA Epsom

Business School, UCA Epsom

Career opportunities

Career
opportunities

Graduates of this impressive course might find themselves working within roles such as:

  • Luxury brand manager
  • Luxury goods product manager
  • Luxury retail buyer
  • PR specialist
  • Luxury goods market researcher

You may want to undertake further study or a research degree to specialise even more.

Entry & portfolio requirements

Entry & portfolio
requirements

MA course

  • A good honours degree or equivalent qualification in a related discipline

and/or

  • Relevant work experience, demonstrating your ability to study at postgraduate level.

Consideration will also be given to applicants who can make a strong case for admission in relation to a particular project and can demonstrate their potential to satisfactorily complete the course.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.

MA course

The entry requirements will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.


MA course with Integrated International Pre-Masters course

  • A recognised bachelor degree or 3 year diploma with a strong portfolio in a relevant subject.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.


English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please check the level of English language required:

Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?

You may be able to enter the course through the following entry pathways:

Apply now

Please use the following fields to help select the right application link for you: