It took Martijn Moerbeek only 18 months to complete his modular executive MBA at Henley Management College. “It’s supposed to take two years but I decided to try to do it in one because I wasn’t happy in my job and I didn’t want to start a new job and do my dissertation at the same time,” the 31-year-old civil engineer says. Instead, he decided to focus on the degree before taking advantage of the business school’s career service.

“The MBA opened my eyes. Going through [the course], in a number of instances I felt that I wasn’t quite sure when I could start applying it because I didn’t have a track record in management. I thought It might be a while before I could get a chance to do that in the company that I was in. Some things you can apply as a project manager, such as HR, but [with] other things, like corporate strategy and the financial side, it’s much more limited. That’s why I decided to move jobs.”

Moerbeek estimates that it would have taken him the best part of a decade to move up to his present level had he stayed with his old company. But as well as helping to inspire his move, having an MBA also helped to facilitate it by helping him to prove his worth to potential employers, he says. “I knew I could do these things quite easily . . . [but] having a piece of paper that says MBA gives companies more confidence. Having those three letters after your name on a CV really opens a lot of doors.”

He’s now working at NG Bailey, a building services provider, where he is part of the firm’s future business leaders scheme, which means that he moves position every nine months or so. One of his roles – strategic development manager at Bailey Rail – involved him writing a five-year business plan. “That’s not something I could have done before doing my MBA,” he says.

While Moerbeek partially funded the course himself, the financial investment has already paid off. “When I joined NG Bailey my salary more than doubled. From my point of view it was more than worth it.”