PG Dip Senior Leader Apprenticeship—Business Administration Scale Up
- Entry year:
- 2025/26
- Start date:
- September, January
- Study mode:
- Part-time
- Course duration:
- 2 years
- Campus:
- Mount Pleasant
About this course
This Senior Leader Apprenticeship (SLA) programme provides you with knowledge, skills and capabilities needed to lead and support your organisation in continued sustainable growth, and also offers you a unique university postgraduate qualification. It aims to transform participants into confident business professional
- Delivered in blocks for extra flexibility and to fit studies around existing commitments
- Study on a course designed in response to government and local ambitions for responsible business growth
- Relevant for those with responsibility for leading strategy and change, managing a budget and developing staff to ensure continued and responsible growth.
- Study carefully crafted modules centring around scale-up approaches and issues across the key business functions
- Learn alongside others experiencing similar challenges and discuss leadership and strategy in the context of Scaling-Up.
- Use work-related course assessments to enhance your professional and organisational development through relevant research and learning
- Achieve Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration for Scale-Up which supports application for Chartered Manager Status with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
- Achieve Senior Leader Apprenticeship (SLA) Award
- Opportunity to self-fund a top-up MBA qualification upon completion of this programme.
A 'scale-up' is an enterprise that has experienced significant growth rates in employees and turnover over a number of years.
Nationally, scale-up businesses have been identified as a priority area, recognised by the appointment of a scale up champion in Government who aims to increase the number of businesses maximising opportunities to reach their growth potential. This will feed into the Government's industrial strategy. The course combines key management disciplines from the key QAA and CMI benchmark statements with recent national research on the drivers of business scale up.
Our programme team has a strong regional network with relevant ecosystem and SME growth knowledge. This provides further opportunity for external stakeholder insights throughout the duration of the programme’s lifecycle. The content has been informed by discussions with these networks, in particular with representatives from the Scale Up Institute, the Small Business Charter and the LCRCA.
This programme has been carefully crafted to cluster the knowledge, skills and behaviour standards into a set of facilitated modules over 4 semesters (years 1 and 2). The second part, if you choose to undertake and fund it, is a supervised strategic business project to top-up to an MBA.
Reflecting on and showing evidence of a strategic learning journey and skills development is a key part of the apprenticeship philosophy and good leadership and management development practice.
Throughout the learning phase (Semester 1-4), participants need to complete a portfolio evidencing how they have met the knowledge, skills and behaviours required of the Senior Leadership Apprenticeship standard.
Participants also prepare a strategic business case proposal with a presentation and professional discussion about their portfolio for the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) End Point Assessment (EPA).
Course modules
Discover the building blocks of your programme
Further guidance on modules
Modules are designated core or optional in accordance with professional body requirements, as applicable, and LJMU’s Academic Framework Regulations. Whilst you are required to study core modules, optional modules provide you with an element of choice. Their availability may vary and will be subject to meeting minimum student numbers.
Where changes to modules are necessary these will be communicated as appropriate.
Core modules
Professional accreditation
Your Learning Experience
An insight into teaching on your course
Study hours
Learners will attend a 1-day induction at the start of their programme and modules will normally be delivered in block release format i.e. three full days per month per 10 credit module.
Learners will be expected to undertake work on their own and, given the applied approach to assessment, this will demand a degree of self-management and resilience to manage a full time senior leader work role with part-time study.
What support is offered?
There is a strong apprenticeship team at LJMU to support the learner and employer. And there is a strong academic programme team to support the academic side of things. All learners have a personal academic tutor. All apprentices also have a university learning mentor.
Teaching methods
Our approach to how managers and leaders learn uses proven management and leadership development approaches.
Our flexible delivery approach involves face-to-face teaching and facilitation, blending online support activity, with the facility to introduce live online sessions and individual and group tutorials. Action learning provides a forum to bring ideas, thoughts, issues and actionable remedies to the fore. It is also a supportive and collaborative environment for working with peers, facilitators and colleagues. The university 's Virtual Learning Environment (Canvas) gives you access to teaching and materials wherever you study and it provides a means for you to maintain contact and submit assignments.
Applied learning
We work closely with participants to support their work on real-world projects and gathering evidence for the portfolio. This includes using assignments, work-based project examples and witness testimony to demonstrate the participant's strategic development journey.
A strong emphasis is placed on the workplace as a place to learn; participants integrate key concepts and theories, assessing the impact of these on their own working environment. The programme takes learning from the workplace seriously.
The ability to analyse organisational issues and apply recommendations supported by a theoretical framework is fundamental and is assessed in all elements of the programme.
Techniques include:
Recognising the workplace as an important place to learn: Learners will apply ideas in the workplace, improving their skills through a range of workplace activities and then reflecting and reviewing this practice with peers on the programme.
Self-development planning: Organisational processes can be applied to ensure that individuals plan to develop their own strengths in line with business competencies and values, and to recognise their own personal needs.
Using 'flipped learning': This reverses the conventional process of teaching by providing the content prior to the teaching and learning session using a virtual learning environment, so that the focus of the workshop becomes about active learning and application of theory to practice.
Coaching and peer-to-peer coaching: Coaching not only enables the individual learner to tailor the programme to meet their needs, but it also provides the opportunity for the organisation to propose business critical skills and values which can become a part of the development activities.
Action learning: This will be adopted as a supportive and collaborative approach to learning to manage. Action learning will be used to support personal development, where issues and challenges from the workplace can be discussed.
Masterclasses: Key note speakers will address current issues, emerging practice and thought leadership.
Liverpool Business School at Liverpool John Moores University is a member of AACSB International — The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
AACSB International is a global association of leaders in education and business dedicated to supporting and advancing quality business education worldwide. Through membership, accreditation, research, thought leadership, professional development, and advocacy, AACSB partners with over 1,500 organizations, from more than 90 countries globally. Membership or participation in the Global Education Alliance does not imply accreditation.
How learning is monitored on your programme
To cater for the wide-ranging content of our courses and the varied learning preferences of our students, we offer a range of assessment methods on each programme.
All assignments are focused on personal and professional development through reports, essays projects and portfolio development.
Where you will study
The School is based in the Redmonds Building, in the heart of the bustling Mount Pleasant Campus and Liverpool's growing Knowledge Quarter. The building is home to high quality lecture theatres and seminar rooms, social spaces, and a cafe. It is only a short walk from LJMUs Aldham Robarts Library, which contains all the resources you will require for your studies, and is open seven days a week.
Liverpool Business School also has a dedicated Executive Education Suite, based at 4-6 Rodney Street, a listed building in the historic Georgian Quarter of Liverpool and a short walk from the Redmonds Building. The building has recently undergone 1.2 million investment to provide a professional learning space.
Course tutors
Dr Julie Marshall
Programme Manager
Julie Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Executive Education and Programme Manager for the MBA Business Scale Up programme within Liverpool Business School. With over 20 years' experience lecturing business management higher-education she is responsible for the design and delivery of various MBA modules within the School's executive education offer. Her teaching specialisms lie in strategic marketing management, responsible growth and leadership skills development.Julie's post-doctoral research currently focuses on concepts of identity and developing skills for critical reflection, which involves exploring transition between personal and professional self using creative learning processes and techniques. Alongside this she is also collaborating in research into business scale-up growth and social impact within the Liverpool City Region.
Career paths
Further your career prospects
LJMU has an excellent employability record with 96% (HESA 2018) of our postgraduates in work or further study six months after graduation. Our applied learning techniques and strong industry connections ensure our students are fully prepared for the workplace on graduation and understand how to apply their knowledge in a real world context.
Our applied learning techniques ensure our students can apply knowledge learned to real world contexts.
On graduation from this programme you will see a marked improvement on employee day-to-day performance, confidence and learning in the workplace, as well as improvements in your ability to demonstrate new skills learned during the course.
Tuition fees and funding
Fees
The fees quoted above cover registration, tuition, supervision, assessment and examinations as well as library membership and student IT support with access to printed, multimedia and digital resources including programme-appropriate software and on campus wifi.
Financial Support
There are many ways to fund postgraduate study for home and international students. From loans to International Scholarships and subject-specific funding, you’ll find all of the information you need on our specialist postgraduate funding pages. The University offers a range of financial support for students. You'll find all the information you need on our specialist financial support pages including details of the Student Support Fund and other activities to support with the cost of living.
Additional Costs
In addition to fees, students should also keep in mind the cost of:
- Accommodation
- Travel costs and field trips unless paid for by LJMU
- Stationery, IT equipment, professional body membership and graduation gown hire
There are many ways to fund postgraduate study. For the Senior Leader Apprenticeship (SLA) this includes the apprenticeship levy
What is the apprenticeship levy?
The government has introduced a levy on larger employers to fund apprenticeships. If your company’s wage bill is over £3 million your company will pay the apprenticeship levy of 0.5%.
If your company is paying the apprenticeship levy (see details below), you can use these funds to cover Degree Apprenticeships.
Both levy and non-levy paying employers can benefit from additional payments to support their apprentices in the workplace.
More information about the levy and funding
For information on fees and finance please contact degreeapprenticeships@ljmu.ac.uk
Entry requirements
You will need:
Qualification requirements
How to apply
Securing your place at LJMU
To apply for this programme, you are required to complete an LJMU Degree Apprenticeship form. You will need to provide details of previous qualifications and a personal statement outlining why you wish to study this programme.
For mature students, admission will normally be by interview, after formal application.
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The University reserves the right to withdraw or make alterations to a course and facilities if necessary; this may be because such changes are deemed to be beneficial to students, are minor in nature and unlikely to impact negatively upon students or become necessary due to circumstances beyond the control of the University. Where this does happen, the University operates a policy of consultation, advice and support to all enrolled students affected by the proposed change to their course or module.