What Can You Do With a Management Degree?

Project managers are responsible for delivering projects on time and within budget by organizing people, resources and tasks. Also known as project coordinators and project officers, you could work in almost any sector and organization, from healthcare to construction or advertising. Your role will involve finding out the client’s goals, checking the feasibility of the project by analyzing budgets, teams and resources, negotiating with contractors and suppliers, monitoring progress and implementing changes where needed, reporting back to senior managers and the client, and evaluating the success of the project against its expectations, in order to learn from any mistakes.

If you want to be a project manager, you could find a graduate job as an assistant project manager or train for the role through a graduate scheme or apprenticeship. (In the UK you’ll likely need to train for an industry qualification such as the PRINCE2 or Agile). Of course, you’ll also need strong organizational skills as well as interpersonal and communication skills, and the ability to make decisions under pressure.

One of the newer management careers, if you’re an expert social media user and understand how engaging multimedia content can be used to promote businesses, you might enjoy a career as a social media manager. In this role, you’ll be responsible for developing and implementing strategies for social media marketing, including blogging, maintaining social media platforms, and creating and/or outsourcing videos. You might also be involved with other areas of marketing and communication, particularly in smaller companies. Social media is fast-paced and always changing, making your role difficult but always interesting.

To get this management job, you’ll probably need a degree (ideally in business management, marketing, media or public relations) and will likely need to find work in a junior position before working your way up. You’ll need to show employers that you have a broad knowledge of a range of social media platforms, and have great creativity, communication skills and an attention to detail.

Risk managers advise organizations on the potential risks to its profitability, reputation, safety, security and even existence. After identifying and assessing threats, risk managers implement plans and processes to ensure their client is prepared when something goes wrong. You might specialize in a particular area, such as enterprise risk or corporate governance. This is a highly analytical role in which you’ll need to be aware of the company’s goals, legal requirements, costs and environmental factors. You’ll also need to build relationships with clients and present your risk reporting in a suitable way to different audiences.

Although a specialized postgraduate degree in risk management isn’t essential, it would be very beneficial in your path to becoming a risk manager. You could also join a professional body, such as the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) to increase your employment prospects.

Other management careers you could pursue following your degree include roles in retail management, in which you’ll be responsible for the smooth day-to-day running of a store, working on the shop floor to deliver excellent customer service and meet the store’s financial goals. Or if you have an interest in finance and excellent numeracy skills to match, you could pursue a career as a forensic accountant. The skills gained from your management degree would also be useful for a role as a human resource manager, in which you’ll help employees develop their careers and look after relations, benefits and welfare. You could also work as a sales executive/consultant, promoting products and services to customers and aiming to meet sales targets. And of course, your management degree could also enable you to have the skills and knowledge to become an entrepreneur and found your own business!