The generalist's second year: strategy, people, marketing, law, management accounting and a start-up project, in six equal units.
Level, credits, hours, units and Ofqual number are taken from the OTHM specification and the Ofqual register. Duration, study modes, fees and intake dates are set by London School of Planning and Management (LSPM), the approved centre.
This is the programme most people picture when they say "Level 5 business". It takes a learner who already has 120 credits at Level 4 and adds the second year of a management degree: 120 credits across six units of 20 credits each, 1,200 hours of total qualification time, half of it guided. Nothing is optional, which keeps cohorts together and means every graduate has met the same six sets of outcomes.
The unit list reads like a management syllabus in miniature. Strategy opens the programme because every later unit refers back to it; human resources and marketing sit in the middle as the two functions a general manager most often inherits; business law and management accounting give the technical grounding; and the final unit, Business Start-up: Conception to Market, asks you to put all of it into a plan for a venture of your own choosing.
It is a good fit for someone who wants breadth before choosing a specialism, and a poor fit for someone who already knows they want finance or HR alone. For those people the Accounting and Business diploma or a sector-specific programme is a better use of the same 120 credits.
Same awarding body, same sector, same Level 5 outcome. The Extended Diploma includes the Level 4 stage; the Diploma assumes you already hold it.
Choose this if you already hold a Level 4 qualification in a related subject and only need the Level 5 stage.
Choose this if your highest qualification is at Level 3 and you want one enrolment that ends at year-two equivalence.
5 of the Level 5 unit titles appear in both programmes. Whichever route you take, you finish in the same credit position: 240 credits across Levels 4 and 5. The Extended Diploma reaches it under one registration and one certificate; the Diploma assumes a separate Level 4 award came first.
6 × 20 credits.
| # | Unit title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Principles and Concepts of Strategy | 20 |
| 02 | The Management of Human Resources | 20 |
| 03 | Marketing for Managers | 20 |
| 04 | Business Law for Managers | 20 |
| 05 | Management Accounting and Decision Making | 20 |
| 06 | Business Start-up; Conception to Market | 20 |
| Total credits | 120 | |
Unit titles and credit values from the OTHM specification.
How LSPM sequences them. LSPM teaches the six units in the order the specification lists them, two at a time, so that Strategy and Human Resources run together, then Marketing with Business Law, then Management Accounting alongside the start-up project. The pairing is deliberate: the start-up plan needs the costing skills from the accounting unit at the same moment it is being written.
OTHM's published criteria, quoted as data. London School of Planning and Management (LSPM) checks each applicant against them before registration.
Source: OTHM specification. Most applicants arrive with a Level 4 diploma in business from OTHM or another awarding body, and LSPM maps their unit transcript against the OTHM requirement before offering a place. Applicants using the mature-learner route (21 or over with management experience) are asked by LSPM for a CV and a short reflective statement, and LSPM interviews to check that the experience is genuinely managerial rather than supervisory.
Each unit is assessed by one written assignment of 3,000 to 4,000 words, or an equivalent report format, set against the unit's learning outcomes. The start-up unit is different: it produces a business plan with financial appendices rather than an essay, and LSPM allows it to run across two tutorial cycles. See how LSPM teaches and assesses for the marking and verification process.
LSPM's tutors mark and give written feedback. OTHM samples marked work before results are ratified. A referred submission can be reworked after feedback.
OTHM Level 6 Diploma in Business Management, completing the 360-credit structure before a top-up.
Final-year entry to a BA (Hons) in Business or Management at universities that accept 240 credits at Levels 4 and 5 with a mapped unit list.
Team-leader or junior-manager roles where the employer wants evidence of formal management study rather than a specific degree.
Same credit value and level, different architecture. OTHM's six units are fixed at 20 credits each and include a business start-up plan and a law unit. Qualifi's six units are more heavily weighted to decision-making, business models and risk, and the specification does not publish unit credit values on its website. LSPM delivers both; the choice usually comes down to whether you want law and a start-up plan (OTHM) or risk and customer management (Qualifi).
Intake dates are set by the admissions team and shown on this page when confirmed. Because the six units are taught in pairs, a mid-year start joins the pair that is running at that point and completes the missed pair at the end.
No. The unit's outcomes are about taking an idea from conception to market, and most learners write the plan for a venture inside their current employer, a social enterprise, or a hypothetical business they research thoroughly. The skills (market sizing, costing, pitching) are the point, not the launch.
From the top-up applications our advisers have seen, the strategy and management accounting units, because they correspond to modules that final-year business degrees assume. Keep both assignments; some universities ask to see marked work.
Tell us what you hold now and we will say whether you are likely to meet OTHM's criteria; LSPM confirms eligibility and the next intake.