The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is aiming to tackle the skills crisis facing senior marketers, following a recent study showing top professionals are stagnating in their roles, with the help of the updated Government apprenticeship standard.
To address the UK marketing skills gap, Cranfield University has launched the first MSc in marketing and leadership, which maps across a range of CIM qualifications and supports the development of senior leaders across the UK.
The course has been designed to meet the requirements of the Level 7 Senior Leader apprenticeship standard which was recently redesigned by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IFATE).
Cranfield claims to be the largest academic provider of the senior management apprenticeship standard, with some 700 students already enrolled.
The move follows CIM research which revealed that some senior marketers have fallen behind on both core marketing and digital marketing skills.
CIM worked with Target Internet to benchmark the digital skills of 9,000 professional marketers and surveyed an additional 1,200 professionals regarding their core marketing skills and training requirements, as part of its Impact of Marketing 2 research.
The reports concluded that senior marketers need to upskill themselves to keep up with changes in the sectorl with core marketing skills required to engage the board waning.
It showed that almost half of all marketers (44%) find it difficult to keep up at a time of dramatic transformation in the sector, and a third have received no training for more than two years.
Digital skills among heads of department have also fallen across many digital disciplines, most dramatically in areas such as SEO. Key digital skills like social and usability are becoming more complex, creating a knowledge gap.
CIM director of qualifications and partnerships Maggie Jones said: “We welcome news that businesses can now access apprenticeship funding to support marketers wherever they are on their career journey; from the marketing basics all the way to senior decision-makers.
“At CIM we believe in the importance of professional marketing training to ensure consistency and quality in the standard of marketing at all levels. Our partnership with Cranfield University will help further professionalise the marketing industry driving excellence at the highest level of business.”
Vasilis Theoharakis, professor of strategic marketing and director of the MSc in marketing and leadership at Cranfield University, added: “The response from both individuals and organisations [to the launch of first master’s-level senior leader marketing apprenticeship in the UK] has been very positive.
“Senior marketers are keen to upskill themselves to be able to deliver strategic advice that cuts across the enterprise, while organisations are keen to use the course to build better, more efficient teams and leaders who have a broad understanding of not just marketing but how the board thinks and operates.”
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