Creative Industries Business Management BA (Hons)* (with Foundation Year)
UCAS Code: CBM2|Duration: 4|Full Time|Hope Park
UCAS Campus Code: L46
Work placement opportunities|International students can apply|Study Abroad opportunities
About the course
The lecture series for this course will follow two interdependent, integrated streams. One will develop students’ historical, theoretical and critical awareness of the relationship between arts, cultural entrepreneurship and business management from a variety of viewpoints – film, music, dance, theatre, festival, gallery etc. The other series will be more professionally focused exploring the changing environment with respect to business methods (finance, planning and the law), and marketing and branding strategies within the creative industries.
The practical seminars and workshops for the course will focus around important case studies to highlight different business models within the creative industries from SMEs to national organisations as well as allowing an opportunity to explore important, innovative approaches to marketing and communications strategies within the sector.
The programme will increasingly introduce professionalised; work placement elements from the second part of Level I. So that by the programme’s end, students will have gathered experience of working with external professional creative industries organisations.
Course structure
The course will be structured around lectures, practical seminars and workshops and tutorials. There is the expectation of independent study for appropriate research.
Assessment and feedback
Throughout your three years of study, you will have a number of assessments. Exams are normally held at the end of each academic year and you are required to complete a series of assessment tasks during each year. These typically include business reports, essays, and a portfolio. In your final year, you are also required to complete a research project/dissertation.
In addition to this, you are given opportunities for formative feedback on assessments, with opportunities to improve before your final submission.
You will be given feedback on your assessments, and you will have the opportunity to discuss this with your tutor in more detail.
Foundation Year
The Foundation Year is a great opportunity if you have the ability and enthusiasm to study for a degree, but do not yet have the qualifications required to enter directly onto our degree programmes. A significant part of the Foundation Year focuses upon core skills such as academic writing at HE level, becoming an independent learner, structuring academic work, critical thinking, time management and note taking.
Successful completion of the Foundation Year will enable you to progress into the first year (Level C) of your chosen honours degree. Further details can be found here.
Year One
Your first year will give you a detailed overview of how the creative industries are structured from organisational, financial and policy aspects, together with some introductory insights into the creative objectives and practices of our key industrial focuses: music, film and TV, the stage, and the worlds of games and interactive media.
Year Two
You'll work on advanced business skills relating to the creative industries: the projection of creative leadership, the management of creativity, the financing of innovative creative work, the policy and industrial contexts in which creativity develops and finds its opportunities, the workflows and technologies that allow creative work to achieve its ambitions.
You'll have the opportunity to allow you to explore your own commercial, cultural and creative enthusiasms.
Year Three
You’ll explore brands, marketing and contemporary convergent promotion and development strategies. You'll develop your collaboration skills, essential for the creative industries and you'll be provided with opportunities to apply your entrepreneurial and creative expertise to your work.
You’ll specialise in the development of an individual project. You can tailor this project to your own interests, such as writing a business portfolio, developing a screen, stage, music, or interactive project or completing a dissertation. There will be essential sessions on how to design and develop your research.
Entry requirements
There may be some flexibility for mature students offering non-tariff qualifications and students meeting particular widening participation criteria.
Careers
We will equip you to develop a career in a range of creative production areas: music, stage, fine art, graphic design, festivals, public events, and more. You will learn a number of key skills, such as techniques for managing large-scale projects, budgeting and fundraising, distribution and marketing strategies, negotiation methods and you'll acquire knowledge of legal and regulatory issues relating to the creative industries.
You'll learn this while exploring your own potential as an entrepreneur, to not only run but initiate new creative work, and find the next business opportunity in still untapped areas of digital media.
We expect graduates of this degree to become the creative entrepreneurs of the future, contributing to Britain’s world-leading reputation for delivering high quality arts and entertainment.
Enhancement opportunities
Work Placement Opportunities
All students will be encouraged to uptake work-placements with a regional creative industries company.
SALA
The Service and Leadership Award (SALA) is offered as an extra-curricular programme involving service-based experiences, development of leadership potential and equipping you for a career in a rapidly changing world. It enhances your degree, it is something which is complimentary but different and which has a distinct ‘value-added’ component. Find out more on our Service and Leadership Award page.
Study Abroad
As part of your degree, you can choose to spend either a semester or a full year of study at one of our partner universities as part of our Study Abroad programme. Find out more on our Study Abroad page.
Tuition fees
The tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year are £9,535* for full-time undergraduate courses.
If you are a student from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, your tuition fees will also be £9,535*.
The University reserves the right to increase Home and EU Undergraduate and PGCE tuition fees in line with any inflationary or other increase authorised by the Secretary of State for future years of study.
*subject to Council approval.
Scholarships
We have a range of scholarships to help with the cost of your studies. Visit our scholarships page to find out more.
International tuition fees
The International Tuition fees for 2025/26 are £14,500.
Visit our International fees page for more information.
Course combinations
This course is also available with Foundation Year as a Combined Honours degree with the following subjects: