Today, many consider London to be the European home of the MBA. However, it wasn’t until 1965 that London Business School first offered the degree in the famous city.
However, now home to such well regarded MBA providing institutions as London Business School, Imperial College Business School, and Cass Business School, the city also boast good connections throughout the UK. In fact, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, Cranfield School of Management, Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, and many other UK-based business schools are within a short train ride of the European business capital.
Add to this the city’s enviable historical links throughout Europe, and to a certain extent the world, and it’s easy to understand why studying for an MBA in London can hold such a huge appeal to business school applicants.
London’s financial dominance for MBAs
Nobody can dispute that London is one of the major finance and cultural centers in the world, with a colossal amount of banks and finance houses rivaled only by New York.
‘The City’, London’s financial district also known as the ‘square mile’, is home to the Bank of England and the high-rise buildings such as the Norman Foster-designed ‘Gherkin’, which host countless financial institutions and consultancies.
Dominating the south-central area of London, in redeveloped and regenerated historical docklands, Canary Wharf towers over another imposing financial district, an area including the Millennium Dome and a great array of renovated flats, shops and restaurants.
Though dominated by London, there are other business hotspots throughout UK and Ireland for MBAs. Dublin, in neighboring Ireland, and the areas surrounding it have become a Celtic ‘silicon valley’ with Dell, Google and Microsoft all hosting European operations from there. Scotland has a good reputation on the energy field with two specialized MBAs in Oil and Gas Management in the north of the country, providing the best access to the oil platforms of the North Sea.
The midlands of England had a strong automotive history, though recent years have seen uncertainty in the UK’s car industry, while the industrial northwest is home to several long-established manufacturing giants. All of these regions are attracting increasing numbers of international MBA students and have business schools that cater for the widest possible range of general and specialized MBA courses.
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