MA Management in the Creative and Cultural Industries

Learn business, leadership and management skills for the creative and cultural sectors

Year of entry: 2025 (September)

Start date

September 2025
View semester dates

Length

1 year full-time

School/department

School for Business and Society, School of Arts and Creative Technologies

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Develop your expertise for a management career in the creative industries.

Gain the knowledge, practical expertise, and critical skills to become a leader in the cultural and creative sectors.

This course is run by York's School of Arts and Creative Technologies, and supported by the School for Business and Society. Whether you are from a management or cultural industries background, you’ll benefit from core modules covering management, entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing, finance and law.

You’ll be taught by experienced academic staff, many of whom have well-established professional experience working in the creative industries and in management roles more broadly.

The course will prepare you for a career in a wide range of areas such as festivals, fashion, theatres, museums, digital industries, television, film, publishing, the visual arts, television, film, dance and live music venues.

You will gain theoretical insights, critical thinking skills and get practical experience of working in the creative industries. Students will take part in cultural field trips to experience how managers work in their own business environments, and will have an opportunity to undertake a work placement to further develop their employability skills.

Our course offers all students access to masterclasses on management and leadership by industry professionals, and to professional work experience working as consultants for an industry partner.

Vibrant city and region

York is a UNESCO City of Media Arts, part of the creative cities network and recognised for digital innovation and media arts. The city and wider region are home to acclaimed museums, galleries and a lively arts scene.

Industry links

Students work with industry professionals in our Collaborative Project module.

Work placements

Students will have the opportunity to undertake a voluntary work placement with a non-profit business in the creative industries based in the York where they will help support its digital strategy.

Course content

Our course focuses on developing your professional capabilities, and you can tailor your learning to suit your interests and professional needs with option modules and project work.

You'll study core modules in business, and choose modules from a wide variety of options in different specialist areas. Applied collaborative and independent project work will equip you with leadership, management and project management skills and develop your creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Modules
Dissertation

Modules

Core modules

You will take core modules which may include:

Option modules

You will choose two option modules from examples including:

Some option module combinations may not be possible. The options available to you will be confirmed after you begin your course.

Our modules may change to reflect the latest academic thinking and expertise of our staff, and in line with Department/School academic planning.

Dissertation

Independent Creative and Cultural Project

In this module you will research and deliver a substantial project on a topic of your own devising in the creative and cultural sectors that will be negotiated and agreed between the student and the supervisor. The focus and format of the project may vary and include: a substantial piece of independent research on a subject of your own choice; a business strategy, plan or proposal; a marketing or communications strategy; a production project with financial planning. As part of your independent project you may include the design, planning and/or execution of a creative and cultural output, provided this also includes a business/management component. This module enables students to apply the knowledge, research and critical study skills developed during the first two terms of the MA in Creative and Cultural Industries.

Learning outcomes

Every course at York is built on a distinctive set of learning outcomes. These will give you a clear understanding of what you will be able to accomplish at the end of the course and help you explain what you can offer employers. Our academics identify the knowledge, skills, and experiences you'll need upon graduation and then design the course to get you there.

Learning outcomes for this course

Critically engage with, and apply breadth of understanding of leadership, management, project management, organisations and entrepreneurship to practical situations across creative and cultural sectors.
Initiate, lead and contribute to the development of industry-standard creative and cultural practice, by selectively applying technical, business, financial, legal and regulatory knowledge from a range of creative and cultural contexts.
Synthesise and apply an advanced contextual, conceptual and theoretical understanding of contemporary creative and cultural issues, applying rigorous critical thinking to their own and others’ business and creative practices.
Engage actively in dynamic, creative and cultural projects, applying a comprehensive understanding of workflow design, innovative problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate confidently and professionally as part of a team with peers, partners and stakeholders.
Successfully promote organisations and outputs in the creative and cultural industries, by applying advanced knowledge and skills in marketing, communications and outreach to engage with diverse audiences and clients.
Plan, design, conduct and critically evaluate innovative applied research, drawing on relevant disciplinary and multidisciplinary methodological approaches from both academic and professional contexts.
Confidently and concisely synthesise, review, reflect, critique and present information verbally and in written form to academic, business and other audiences, using print, and/or visual, aural and digital media.

Fees and funding

Annual tuition fees for 2025/26

Study mode	UK (home)	International and EU
Full-time (1 year)	£13,300	£31,900

Students on a Student Visa are not currently permitted to study part-time at York.

Fees information

UK (home) or international fees? The level of fee that you will be asked to pay depends on whether you're classed as a UK (home) or international student. Check your fee status.

Find out more information about tuition fees and how to pay them.

Postgraduate taught fees and expenses

Funding information

Discover your funding options to help with tuition fees and living costs.

We'll confirm more funding opportunities for students joining us in 2025/26 throughout the year.

If you've successfully completed an undergraduate degree at York you could be eligible for a 10% Masters fee discount.

Funding opportunities

Chevening Scholarships

We are pleased to work with Chevening Scholars to offer funding for our Masters programmes. Chevening Scholarships provide one year of fully-funded postgraduate study in the UK for international (including EU) students. The scholarships are open to early and mid-career professionals who have the potential to become future leaders.

School scholarship information

Scholarships, awards and bursaries for our students

Living costs

You can use our living costs guide to help plan your budget. It covers additional costs that are not included in your tuition fee such as expenses for accommodation and study materials.

Teaching and assessment

You’ll work with world‐leading academics who’ll challenge you to think independently and excel in all that you do. Our approach to teaching will provide you with the knowledge, opportunities, and support you need to grow and succeed in a global workplace.

Teaching format

The course involves a range of different teaching styles, including problem-based learning, collaborative work and practical activities. You'll be taught by research-active, creative professionals across performance arts, music, sound, creative writing, curatorship, immersive and interactive media; what you learn at York stems directly from current research and practice.

You'll also have the opportunity to attend events such as talks, productions and festivals outside of your modules. You'll be assigned a member of our teaching staff who will act as your personal supervisor for the duration of the course. They are there to give advice on academic matters as well as other areas of University life.

Teaching location

You will be based in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies and the School for Business and Society. Most of your contact hours will be on Campus East and Campus West.

About our campus

Our beautiful green campus offers a student-friendly setting in which to live and study, within easy reach of the action in the city centre. It's easy to get around campus - everything is within walking or pedalling distance, or you can always use the fast and frequent bus service.

Assessment and feedback

You'll be assessed throughout your course. Some modules have an early assessment that contributes a small amount to your final mark and gives an opportunity to check your progress.

Types of assessment vary depending on the module and include the following:

Business plans
Oral presentations and pitches
Essays and reflective reports
Group and individual projects

Responsible Business

The School for Business and Society is an institutional partner of Responsible Research in Business and Management to advance and promote responsible research in business and management for a better world.

Flexible option modules

Modules on law and finance, interactive media, music, theatre, film and television.

Careers and skills

We expect graduates from this programme to move onto roles in arts and cultural management, creative business development and production, marketing, arts finance and funding.

Career opportunities

Cultural Manager
Creative Producer and Designer
Marketing Officer
Public Engagement and Communications
Visitor Experience Manager
Events Co-ordinator
Posts in Finance and Strategy

Transferable skills

Management
Enterprise
Leadership
Marketing
Financial planning
Collaborative working
Volunteering
Problem solving
Critical analysis
Investigative research

Entry requirements

Qualification	Typical offer
Undergraduate degree	2:2 or equivalent.
Other international qualifications	Equivalent qualifications from your country

English language

If English isn't your first language you may need to provide evidence of your English language ability. We accept the following qualifications:

Qualification	Minimum requirement
IELTS (Academic and Indicator)	6.5, minimum 6.0 in each component
Cambridge CEFR	B2 First: 176, with 169 in each component
Oxford ELLT	7, minimum of 6 in each component
Oxford Test of English Advanced	136, minimum 126 in each component
Duolingo	120, minimum 105 in all other components
LanguageCert SELT	B2 with 33/50 in each component
LanguageCert Academic	70 with a minimum of 65 in each component
Kaplan Test of English Language	478-509, with 444-477 in all other components
Skills for English	B2: Merit overall, with Pass with Merit in each component
PTE Academic	61, minimum 55 in each component
TOEFL	87, minimum of 21 in each component
Trinity ISE III	Merit in all requirements

For more information see our postgraduate English language requirements.

If you haven't met our English language requirements

You may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language courses. These courses will provide you with the level of English needed to meet the conditions of your offer.

The length of course you need to take depends on your current English language test scores and how much you need to improve to reach our English language requirements.

After you've accepted your offer to study at York, we'll confirm which pre-sessional course you should apply to via You@York.

Applying

You can apply and send all your documentation online. You don’t need to complete your application all at once: you can start it, save it and finish it later.

How to apply