BSc Marketing Management

This course has been temporarily suspended until the point of entry 2025/26.

Our BSc Management and Marketing (including foundation year) is open to Home and EU students. It will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills.

This four-year course includes a foundation year (year zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your year zero, you study four academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory English language and academic skills module.

You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.

After successful completion of year zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with Essex Business School.

To succeed in management and marketing, you must be imaginative, innovative and use your initiative to solve business challenges. You must combine originality with the ability to analyse market data and remain focused on results, even in difficult environments.

At Essex Business School, where this BSc Management and Marketing course is taught, we encourage you to become an independent thinker and act creatively and strategically to help organisations succeed, whatever their challenge.

This course enables you to combine the study of management with the opportunity to develop marketing expertise. You learn what's involved in managing modern organisations and understand the role of customers, consumers, the service relationship and brand management. We also develop your practical skills in communication, data analysis and critical thinking.

You explore subjects such as:

• digital marketing and social media
• marketing management
• consumer behaviour
• brand management
• business strategy
• organisational behaviour
• international business environment

In year one, you benefit from a general business education, introducing you to accounting and finance as well as management and marketing, giving you the flexibility to follow a range of careers after you graduate.

In your final year, you have the opportunity to put your knowledge into practice by completing an in-depth, independent research project or dissertation which can focus on either management or marketing or combine elements from both as you prefer. This will give you the chance to further develop vital employment skills in areas of research, time management and critical thinking as well as offering you the opportunity to explore what interests you.

Essex Business School attracts students and academics from all over the world. We are committed to ethical and sustainable business and are a signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). By studying with us, you gain more than the foundations for a successful career in marketing management; you are part of a movement that seeks to make organisations better places to do business.

BSc Management and Marketing can also be taken with an optional study abroad or placement year where you can add even more value to your CV through work or international experience.

Taster Session

Find out more about our teaching style at Essex Business School, watch Dr James Fowler's Management taster session:

Our expert staff

You are taught by a highly qualified, enthusiastic team of academics and relevant business practitioners with wide-ranging research interests. They use their research examples in your lectures and seminars so you learn about the latest innovations and contemporary themes affecting business today.

Our staff specialise in areas including:

• Business ethics
• Cultural production
• Corporate marketing and corporate communication
• Social media influencers
• Sustainable marketing and consumer behaviour
• Technology and innovation
• Gender and LGBT inequality in the workplace
• Digital innovation
• Technology in customer engagement and experience

Drawing on his industry experience Dr Erik Jacobi, Lecturer in Management and Marketing applies his research in areas such as market research and consumer insights in strategy development, brand activism and consumer resistance, and neuromarketing, to directly inform your studies in marketing and business management. In collaboration with our Innovation Centre, he advises start-ups and SMEs develop their brand identities and marketing strategies.

Specialist facilities

Our BSc Management and Marketing is based at our Colchester Campus.

In our landmark Essex Business School building - the first zero carbon business school in the UK - you'll see our sustainable approach to business first-hand. Set around a lush winter garden, which gives the building its own micro-climate, are a wealth of teaching and study zones.

Our new building provides you with superb facilities.

• a state-of-the-art trading floor with Bloomberg Financial Market Labs, where you'll gain hands-on experience of using live business data
• modern lecture theatres with ‘listen again' recording to aid your study
• study pods and innovation booths for group working
• networking opportunities with visiting businesses
• a café and adjacent foyer to enjoy on-site fresh food and drink
• study skills workshops and advice

Our business school is located on the University's Knowledge Gateway, featuring Parkside Office Village. Here, student entrepreneurs can access start-up space amongst a group of innovative SMEs, who can also provide valuable opportunities for business networking, placements and internships.

The Students' Union Creative Studios, based in the Silberrad Student Centre, is home to a collection of sate of the art computers installed with the latest editing software, including: Adobe InDesign and Photoshop; Premiere Pro, After Effects and loads more. You can also access Final Cut Pro, iMovie and Garageband. The suite has a similar feel to the offices of modern marketing agencies and provides you with free-to-use technology that can greatly enhance your assignments.

Your future

The dual disciplines of management and marketing are highly sought after by many graduate employers, therefore, we embed a series of core and specific skills into our undergraduate curriculum for BSc Management and Marketing to ensure that our graduates are suited to careers in marketing, management and leadership roles.

All of our taught modules embed elements of our skills map which emulate the skills which are required by employers of business and marketing graduates, these generally include:

• Academic and cognitive skills
• Research skills
• Technology skills
• Communication skills
• Data analysis skills
• Soft skills

We embed a structured approach to student development and skills support throughout the curriculum and through additional support from the Essex Business School Learning Team.

Our students have gone on to become business analysts, marketing managers, account managers and management trainees, with recent graduate destinations including:

• Brand Manager at Ringnes AS, part of the Carlsberg Group – the largest Norwegian brewer
• Relationship Manager at Footprint Digital – a fast-growing digital marketing agency
• Buyer at the John Lewis Partnership – the high-end department chain store
• Affiliate Marketing Analyst at KidStart – a save as you shop app for parents and children
• Head of Analytics, Insight and Reporting at Commercial Risk Solutions, RSA - global insurance and risk management experts

Our marketing and management graduates enjoy successful careers in their fields.

Additional to the skills development offered by Essex Business School, BSc Management and Marketing students can also take advantage of the University of Essex Careers Service which focuses in particular on supporting the development of undergraduate employability, including careers fairs, career mentoring, skills development, careers advice and guidance, placement year support, job opportunities, start-up support and more.

One of the reasons I chose to study BSc Management and Marketing because it was a combined degree course. This has allowed me to gain knowledge in both the management and marketing fields of business. I was also impressed by the range of modules there was to choose from in third year that were very interesting as there was a mix of both management and marketing topics, meaning you could choose to go down either route or study a combination of both.

Leila Flack, BSc Management and Marketing, 2023

Clearing entry requirements

We currently have places available in Clearing across a range of courses, with most offers at BBC–CCD (112–88 UCAS tariff points) or equivalent. Grade requirements may be lower in some cases, and some courses may also have subject specific requirements. We consider each application individually so get in touch if your grades are below those outlined here. .

English language requirements

English language requirements for applicants whose first language is not English: IELTS 5.5 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each component, or specified score in another equivalent test that we accept.

Details of English language requirements, including component scores, and the tests we accept for applicants who require a Student visa (excluding Nationals of Majority English Speaking Countries) can be found here

If we accept the English component of an international qualification it will be included in the academic levels listed above for the relevant countries.

English language shelf-life

If you require a Student visa to study in the UK please see our immigration webpages for the latest Home Office guidance on English language qualifications.

Pre-sessional English courses

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.

Pending English language qualifications

You don’t need to achieve the required level before making your application, but it will be one of the conditions of your offer.

If you cannot find the qualification that you have achieved or are pending, then please email ugquery@essex.ac.uk.

Additional Notes

If you’re an international student, but do not meet the English language or academic requirements for direct admission to this degree, you could prepare and gain entry through a pathway course. Find out more about opportunities available to you at the University of Essex International College

Course structure

This course allows you to specialise in the areas of both business management and marketing, as well as providing a broad overview of other important topics.

Successful completion of year zero guarantees you entry to the first year of your undergraduate degree course as well as providing you with the necessary academic skills for degree-level study.

In the first year our current students cover the fundamentals that every business manager needs to know and you will be introduced to the specialisation of marketing. However, we are planning some changes to our first year and we'll be tailoring it more closely to your chosen course. In second and final year your compulsory modules will provide a deep understanding of management and marketing, while your optional modules will allow you to follow these themes further or to explore other areas.

We offer a flexible course structure with a mixture of core/compulsory modules, and optional modules chosen from lists. Please be aware that we are planning changes to our first year to make it more relevant to your chosen course.

Our research-led teaching is continually evolving to address the latest challenges and breakthroughs in the field. The following modules are based on the current course structure and may change in response to new curriculum developments and innovation.

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

• Undergraduate students at the Department of Essex Business School typically have 12 hours of teaching time per week.
• Teaching includes a combination of lectures, seminars and computer-based lab sessions
• Modules delivered by experts in the field as well as guest speakers
• Contribute and interact in lectures through the use of smart technology
• Lecture presentations and notes are uploaded online beforehand to help you prepare in advance
• Complete your final-year project in consultation with a personal supervisor

Assessment

• Assessed through traditional methods of end-of-year exams and multiple choice questions, in-class tests and essays
• Plus more innovative and creative assessments include laboratory work, poster presentations, real-business case problems and group presentations