Faith Based Leadership

Entry requirements

You should ordinarily have a 2:1 Honours degree, plus three years’ experience in a leadership role (this doesn’t have to be a senior role).

However, we are able to take your professional experience into account and it is not absolutely essential for you to have a first degree. Please contact us to discuss your personal circumstances. You’ll also need to be employed or currently volunteering extensively in some sort of leadership capacity.

Please be aware you’ll need to dedicate approximately 8 hours a week on average to your studies throughout the two-year course.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Become an informed faith leader ready to take your leadership to the next level and make a positive impact on society. Enhance your management and organisational skills so you can lead more effectively in faith settings.

This course is ideal for anyone in a senior position in a faith setting, or someone looking to progress to a senior position. You might be working for a faith-based organisation or work for an organisation that deals with faith-based issues. Our course brings together professionals from a variety of faiths.

The course runs over 30 months part-time. Unlike other postgraduate taught degrees, you'll take one module at a time. You'll usually take three modules across each calendar year.

Course highlights

At Birmingham, we recognise faith leaders already have expert theological and pastoral skills, but often need to manage sophisticated organisations, projects and initiatives.

On this course you'll develop leadership and management skills, ready to maximise the social impact of your faith community or organisation.

• Hybrid teaching combining online learning with in-person residentials and weekly live interactive online seminars.
• Interdisciplinary course combining organisational leadership, professional development and theological reflection.
• Focus on continuing professional development: apply your learning in your leadership context from day one.
• Learn from other leaders from a variety of different faiths and find solutions to common problems together.

Course delivery

At Birmingham, research and teaching go hand-in-hand. Lecturers and professors continue to research in their field, offering valuable expertise in Faith Based Leadership.

The MPA programme doesn’t follow the traditional University teaching year cycle. This course begins in early September and continues for a total of 45 weeks of the year. Each of the six taught modules runs over 15 weeks, followed by your dissertation in months 24-30 of the programme.

• Taught modules - each module represents a total of 200 hours of study time, including preparatory reading, homework and assignment preparation.
• Weekly online live discussion activities and individual and group tutorial meetings.
• 48 hour residential stays at Birmingham to network with your peers and visit local case study sites.
• Dissertation – you’ll undertake a dissertation.

Information for international students

If you are an international student, you will need to demonstrate you have a suitable level of English proficiency, usually through the form of an IELTS or equivalent qualification.

For this course we require IELTS 6.5 with no less than 6.0 in any band, which is equivalent to:

• TOEFL: 88 overall with no less than 21 in Reading, 20 Listening, 22 Speaking and 21 in Writing
• Pearson Test of English (PTE): Academic 67 with no less than 64 in all four skills
• Cambridge English: C1 Advanced - minimum overall score of 176, with no less than 169 in any component
• LanguageCert ESOL SELT (UKVI): B2 'Communicator' with no less than 33 in each skill

Fees and funding

The College of Arts and Law is a vibrant community of students and academics, dedicated to ensuring that excellence is rewarded, and that fears about finance do not constrain current or prospective students. For this reason, in addition to University funding schemes, we offer our own College-specific funding initiatives.