International Human Resource Management - MA
Currently viewing course to start in 2025/26 Entry.
Do you want to study a Masters in human resource management? Our International Human Resource Management course is ideal for people who want to qualify professionally with our fully accredited CIPD Masters course....
- Level Postgraduate Taught
- Study mode Full Time/Part Time
- Award MA
- Start date September 2025
- Fees View course fees
- Subject
- Location City Centre
This course is:
Open to International Students
Overview
Do you want to study a Masters in human resource management? Our International Human Resource Management course is ideal for people who want to qualify professionally with our fully accredited CIPD Masters course.
This full and part-time Masters course is ideal for those pursuing a career in HR, as, upon successful completion of this course you will be eligible to upgrade to a Chartered Member of the CIPD.
Professional Placement option
For our MA International Human Resource Management degree, you will have the opportunity to take the Professional Placement version of the course, which is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.
This will allow you to complete a credit bearing, 20 week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability and transferable skills. The placement experience will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.
You will be responsible for finding and securing your own placement. The University, however, will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study, with support from our Careers+ team as well as advice and guidance from your School.
Please note that placements will only be confirmed following a competitive, employer-led selection process, therefore the University will not be able to guarantee placements for students who have registered for the ‘with Professional Placement’ course.
For full details, please click here.
What's covered in this course?
We have an experienced teaching team who combine real work experience of human resource management with academic qualifications, bringing a strategic and conceptual view to the topics covered. Sessions are interactive and we encourage you to work together on case studies, and incorporate role-playing activities to develop practical HR skills. We invite guest speakers to deliver on relevant modules. Where appropriate to the individual topics covered during the course, implications for sustainability will be identified that relate to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
On completion of this course you will be able to make a valuable contribution within the HR field of management in your current or future workplace, having acquired both the core knowledge and the necessary skills to deliver excellence professionally and with the ability to act in the role of strategic partner.
In keeping with these aims, you will possess the professional knowledge and behaviours required to achieve Chartered Membership status with the CIPD, which is the most widely-recognised professional body in the field of HR.
Upon successful completion of the course, you will have developed critical understanding of the international context of organisations and the implications for HRM. You will explore the contexts in which HR operates and the impact which internationalisation both strategically and at the level of specific HR practices. In particular, managing and leading expatriates.
Throughout the course you will be asked to reflect on your personal and professional development as an aid to demonstrating the core knowledge and behaviours required to gain organisational commitment and support from stakeholders.
Accredited By
"The course leaders showed me how useful the information given on the course was in the world of HR and how it was relevant to the CIPD to meet their requirements. With both coming from HR backgrounds, their personal experiences were consistently shared throughout the course, as were other students currently working in HR or having previous experience which proved very valuable."
Ruth Conner, MA International Human Resource Management graduate
Why Choose Us?
- Our International Human Resource Management course, like all of our Executive Education programmes, is designed to help you to accelerate your career, transform your working practice and deepen your expertise.
- Our course is fully approved by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and their Profession Map, specifically the core knowledge and behaviours required for chartered membership.
- Our teaching is interactive and led by our experienced team, who believe HR is as much about the doing as it is about the learning – giving you the skills you need to develop and enhance your employability.
- To achieve your Advanced Diploma or Master's you are required to conduct research into a live business issue from an HR perspective. This will increase your business acumen, skills and credibility with current or future employers.
- Our part-time offering has been designed with busy, working professionals in mind, allowing you to get qualified while in employment. Part-time study is a mixture of afternoon and evening classes one day per week.
- We pride ourselves on building a community of learners with regular feedback forums and personal tutor coaching.
- All modules give an international perspective and enable our students to demonstrate a deep understanding and critical awareness of the current global issues and challenges HR professionals and line managers face.
OPEN DAY
Join us for an on-campus Open Day where you'll be able to learn about this course in detail, chat to students, explore our campus and tour accommodation.
Next Event: 24 November 2024
Entry Requirements
Essential requirements
You are required to meet one of the following options:
Essential Requirements
Typical Offers (UK Students) | ||
---|---|---|
A 2:2 Honours degree from a UK University or International equivalent |
||
If appropriate qualifications are not held then related work experience in management or HR could be considered by means of the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) procedure. |
Other qualifications will be considered on a case by case basis.
Please note that even if your application fully meets the entry criteria, you may be required to further demonstrate your suitability via an interview or submission of a course proposal before being offered a place.
Interviews may be conducted in your country of residence, over the telephone or by Skype.
Additional information for EU/International students
Essential | ||
---|---|---|
Applications from international applicants with equivalent qualifications are welcome. Please see your country page for further details on the equivalent qualifications we accept. In additional to the academic entry requirements listed above, international and EU students will also require the qualifications detailed in this table. |
||
English language requirements 2020/21 | ||
IELTS |
6.0 overall with 5.5 minimum in all bands If you do not meet the required IELTS score, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English courses. Please note that you must have a Secure English Language Test (SELT) to study on the pre-sessional English course. More information. |
|
Other accepted qualifications | Visit our English language page |
If you have a qualification that is not listed, please contact us.
Fees & How to Apply
UK students
Annual and modular tuition fees shown are applicable to the first year of study. The University reserves the right to increase fees for subsequent years of study in line with increases in inflation (capped at 5%) or to reflect changes in Government funding policies or changes agreed by Parliament. View fees for continuing students.
Award: MA
Starting: Sep 2025
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Full Time
- 1 year
- £10,820 in 2025/26
- Full Time
- 18 Months (Professional Placement)
- £11,900 in 2025/26
- Part Time
- 2 Years
- Show fees
- £1203 per 20 credits
- Year 1 - 80 credits
- Year 2 - 100 credits
Fees for Part-time students
This course can be studied on a Part-time study basis. The cost per year of study is based on credit requirements for that year.
International students
Annual and modular tuition fees shown are applicable to the first year of study. The University reserves the right to increase fees for subsequent years of study in line with increases in inflation (capped at 5%) or to reflect changes in Government funding policies or changes agreed by Parliament. View fees for continuing students.
Award: MA
Starting: Sep 2025
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Full Time
- 1 year
- £18,600 in 2025/26
- Full Time
- 18 Months (Professional Placement)
- £20,460 in 2025/26
Personal statement
You’ll need to submit a personal statement as part of your application for this course. This will need to highlight your passion for postgraduate study – and your chosen course – as well as your personal skills and experience, academic success, and any other factors that will support your application for further study.
If you are applying for a stand alone module, please include the title of the module you want to study in your Personal Statement.
Not sure what to include? We’re here to help – take a look at our top tips for writing personal statements and download our free postgraduate personal statement guide for further advice and examples from real students.
Course in Depth
Modules
In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 180 credits):
This module aims to enable you to appreciate and evaluate the external factors that impact on an organisations and the HR function. You will develop skills to analyse the changes in the business context and respond to these through strategic HR planning with consideration for the commercial business environment and people management practice.
This module encourages you to critically explore contemporary research and practice regarding managing people in organisations, including employee engagement, performance and development and managing change. You will gain a critical understanding of how to manage people within the workplace in a fair and effective way for optimum performance.
The one constant in the workplace is change. The requirement of HR to meet the needs of the Organisation from a Human Capital perspective is ever evolving. The challenge of different work patterns, the emergence of new working practices in the wake of the pandemic and variation of support needs required by our teams as a result of this will demand more from the HR Professional. The need to adopt innovation and creativity in finding ways to meet the aspirations of a diverse team whilst delivering the key commercial metrics of the business has never been more daunting.
This module addresses the emerging complexity of managing and leading expatriates in various contexts by exploring past and present thinking on international imperatives and issues in Human Resources Management (HRM). In particular, this module aims to develop your understanding of the impact of globalisation on HRM and introduce various strategic issues and practices that need to be addressed in managing an international workforce.
In studying this module you will develop your understanding of how business strategy and strategic change translates to people practice. Using business simulations this module will allow you to experience how businesses respond and adapt to changes and what the people profession can do to support them.
This module is designed to provide you with a solid underpinning of the process of research and is keenly focussed on the connection between research and practice. The module takes you through the stages of research from the formulation of a research problem and a research question, through to understanding the essential research philosophy issues, producing a literature review, and developing appropriate methods to the field of The People Profession. The module further examines the key ways in which data is gathered and analysed. Throughout its duration, the module considers the difficulties encountered including ethical issues in conducting research and ways to address those. It also explores the centrality of the influence of the researchers own predisposition on the process and the final outcome.
Making sense of organisations, how they work and how they fail, is an important part of the tool kit of any developing professional practitioner in the field of management and business. This module provides you with a wide appreciation of the reality of organisational life internationally and explores the major influences on our experience of organisations. This is achieved with a solid underpinning appreciation of the development of organisational theory and practice over the last 100 years. In completing this module, you will be in a position to demonstrate a mature understanding of the reality of international organisations which will be of benefit at all stages of their career development.
Research is the lifeblood of any field of knowledge. What was foundational thinking at one point can very quickly become redundant and obsolete. Therefore as senior HR Practitioners you must have both the ability to stay informed with current theory but also, where possible, to contribute to it. The skills associated with producing a Research Dissertation at Masters level are highly transferrable to a practice context. The discipline and criticality that is developed in determining what is and is not relevant to a given topic are invaluable. The impact of producing a large piece of work that is well received will also build your confidence and self believe. The experience will also help you develop project management skills and personal management, skills that if developed at an early career stage can be invaluable as you progress.
Download course specification
Download nowThis course is approved by:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Approved by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. This allows successful students to upgrade their Student Membership to that of Associate Membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (Assoc CIPD).
Employability
Enhancing employability skills
The course is designed around the skills and competencies required to become a professional HRM practitioner. The core module Commercial Integrity for the People Profession covers the skills and competencies specified by the CIPD.
You will be able to participate in practical, work relevant activities such as conducting a negotiation with an employee representative, holding a grievance and disciplinary interview with a member of staff, selection interviews and many more skills-based sessions.
The course is closely tied into the CIPD profession map, which has been developed by consideration of what the leading experts working in HRM need to know and understand to contribute effectively to the performance of their organisations.
International
Welcome to Birmingham City University, home to students from over 70 countries all around the world!
Our Business programmes are practice based and many have an international focus, which means your course will be entirely relevant to today’s business world. Almost all of our courses, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level, are open to international students.
We also have links with universities across the world, including Europe, the USA, China, India and Malaysia.
International ServicesInternational Student Profile – Anh Nhat Phan
We wanted our students to let you know about their journeys through Birmingham City University and beyond. We talk to Anh Nhat Phan, an International Human Resource Management student from Vietnam, about her time in our Birmingham City Business School.
International Student Profile – Jaspreet Singh
We wanted our students to let you know about their journeys through Birmingham City University and beyond. We talk to Jaspreet Singh, an International Human Resource Management student from India, about his time in our Birmingham City Business School.
Facilities & Staff
Our Facilities
We are constantly investing in our estate and have spent £400 million on new learning facilities.
The Curzon Building
This course is based at our City Centre Campus – and specifically The Curzon Building, alongside other Social Sciences, Law and Business students.
The £63m building offers students a unique social learning space, including a dedicated student hub incorporating student support services, in the heart of Birmingham’s Eastside development.
The Business floors house an extensive number of IT facilities, breakout areas, and specialised rooms. The Marketing Link Agency is designed to replicate a modern marketing firm, allowing students to get real-life experience of working in the marketing sector. There is also the City Trading Room, which features state of the art stock market tracking equipment, keeping you up to date with all the financial comings and goings of the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street.
The Curzon building is also conveniently close to Birmingham’s business and financial centre, allowing for strong links between your studies and the real world.
The Curzon Building also features:
- An impressive library with access to over 65 million full text items and stunning views of Eastside City Park
- Your Students’ Union which is located in a beautifully restored 19th century pub, The Eagle and Ball
- A modern 300-seat food court with space to study and socialise
- Accessible IT facilities with full Office365 for all students for free
- Shared facilities with the wider campus including the Parkside Building and Millennium Point