School Profile

Cranfield School of Management is one of the oldest business schools in Europe. As part of Cranfield University, the UK’s only wholly postgraduate university, we are uniquely placed to connect technology and leadership. Our contribution to global innovation is world-leading, changing the way society thinks, works and learns.

We are proud of our links with industry. They are an integral part of our history and vital for our future. Management has been part of Cranfield University since the fifties. The University was founded on an old RAF site as the first postgraduate college of aeronautics. The School of Management grew out of industrial need for management training and was formally established in 1967 (although the Cranfield MBA dates back to 1964). The airfield the University grew up around is still in use.

We are globally recognised for our excellence in leadership development and for our powerful industry links and real-world focus.

Key activities


Leading-edge, collaborative research and consultancy
Postgraduate degree programmes (MBA, MSc, DBA, PhD)
Executive development for middle and senior managers
Customised company programmes.
We design our programmes in flexible and innovative ways, supported by state-of-the art learning technologies, to meet your personal or organisation’s needs. You can study full-time or on a flexible modular or part-time basis.

Key to this is our faculty, who are actively engaged in consultancy and business-relevant research, putting them in close touch with the needs of business and government. They are committed to practicality, which means they are consistently current and topical in their teaching. They bring not only experience, but rigour to their programmes.

Organisations as diverse as Jaguar Land Rover, BAE Systems, Royal Dutch Shell, L’Oréal, UNICEF and the African Development Bank have benefited from our work, which ranges from management research projects, through staff talent management development on our MBA courses, to customised executive programmes.

Our customised executive education programmes are ranked 10th in the world, according to the latest Financial Times survey. Over 15,000 people come to Cranfield each year to benefit from our executive and professional development programmes.

Our Mission

To transform the practice of management around the world by creating and disseminating applied knowledge

Our Vision

To be a world leading management school for responsible management thinking and practice
To conduct research that has a real impact on the practice of management around the world
To be an employer of choice for faculty who are passionate about transforming the practice of management.

We are one of an elite group of schools worldwide to hold the triple accreditation of: AACSB International (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), AMBA (the Association of MBAs) and EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System).