Paul Cunningham is 51 and on a roll. He’s just been hired as the managing director of a global business with an enviable salary package. Even better, the new job with logistics business Holistica Solutions offers him the scope to climb higher still.

Cunningham attributes his success in part to a life-changing decision a decade ago. At 39, he enrolled on a one-year masters degree at Cranfield School of Management in Bedfordshire. He wanted to switch from a succession of short-term contracts as a supply-chain director (his previous job involved co-ordinating the construction of a gas plant in Scotland) into the lucrative world of consultancy.

Soon after his degree, Cunningham landed a job at LCP Consulting, a firm he is only now leaving. “For me the risk paid off, the degree plus the time as a consultant plus my earlier supply-chain experience have enabled me to land a role as an MD,” he says. “There is huge potential to grow this new business.”

So is taking a management degree mid-career a recipe for success? The answer is: it depends. And — while anti-age discrimination legislation was brought in this month — the biggest variable is how old you are.

One of the most sought-after management degrees is the MBA and 2006 has been a good year for young MBA graduates who are wannabe consultants. The jobs market is heating up, with average starting salaries in consulting firms ranging from £40,000-£60,000 and demand from consultancies forecast to rise further. For those in their twenties or early thirties, the outlook is rosy.

But if you’re older, it can be a different picture. Maybe you’re a fortysomething senior manager, in industry or IT, and want to move into consulting. Or a fairly senior consultant who wants to take the next step up the ladder to partner level. An MBA, according to Graham Hastie, director of careers at the London Business School (LBS), is not the way forward. “It will give you a tool kit but it won’t get you scooped up into one of the top firms that far into your career,” he says.

Many leading consultancies recruit on an “apprenticeship model”, hunting out bright MBA students fresh from business school before they hit 30. They start at the bottom and within six years could be in the frame for a role as partner and an annual salary package of about £250,000. “When these firms recruit at a higher level, they look for people coming in who have specialist experience. Such employees are recruited at a senior level with a salary package to match,” says Hastie. “The only value of doing an MBA in your forties is that it would put you in the shop window.”

One solution is to opt not for an MBA but a shorter, specialist degree such as LBS’s Sloan fellowship MSc programme or a specialist masters degree such as the one Cunningham chose. “I would not have done an MBA, it’s too general,” he says. “I was operating at board level already so I did not need general management lessons. What I was looking for was a specialist masters degree in a particular subject area.”

If this is the path you decide to take, do your research carefully. Choose a degree that will give you the knowledge you lack to move into your new field. You should consider studying part-time or asking your employer to sponsor you and pay a proportion of your fees. The biggest growth field is in part-time sponsored management degrees — although your employer may lock you into a golden handcuffs deal for up to two years after you finish studying.

Finally, and crucially, consider the reputation of the business school you apply to. “If you are going to give up two years to do an MBA or one to do a Sloan, you need to do it in the best place that you can,” says Hastie. That means LBS in the UK and, elsewhere in Europe, Insead in France and IMD in Switzerland. In America, top names include Harvard, Stanford, the Wharton School of the University of Philadelphia and the Tuck School of Business in New Hampshire.

Ask Mark Goodridge, chief executive of ER Consultants, if he would sponsor one of his staff to do an MBA and he says: “Yes, in an early career phase, but not in their forties. My son joined McKinsey at 27. His first request was, ‘I think I should do an MBA’. Their response was, ‘No. The training we give you will be better than an MBA’.”

Hastie agrees: “You probably already have MBA skills if you’ve had 15-20 years’ management experience. You could be teaching on MBA courses rather than learning from them.”

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