FT 2025 Executive MBA Ranking shows rise in graduate earnings

Salaries for the graduates of leading Executive MBA programmes grew steadily over the past year even as earnings from other business degrees dipped or flatlined, according to data from the FT’s latest ranking, which placed the Washington University-Fudan EMBA top for the first time.

The average base salary in 2025 for graduates who completed their degrees at the FT’s 100 top-ranked business schools three years ago rose 4.4 per cent to nearly $230,000, while earnings for those with online MBAs stayed level at $180,000 and MBAs declined 3.2 per cent to $150,000.

The first-placed US-Chinese Washington University-Fudan EMBA rose from third in 2024, overtaking last year’s top-rated China Europe International Business School (Ceibs) programme in Shanghai. They are followed by multi-campus European school ESCP, the Kellogg/HKUST Business School joint degree, based in Hong Kong, and France’s Skema.

The famously demanding EMBA, which is typically studied part-time and in more than one country by experienced professionals while working, remains popular despite a continuing long-term decline in the share of students whose fees are paid by their employers. Just 19 per cent now have their course entirely externally funded, and the share with no support has risen from 39 per cent to 54 per cent over the past decade.

FT Executive MBA Ranking 2025

See the EMBA ranking and report.

Michael Desiderio, head of the Executive MBA Council, says demand for the qualification is stable, with a survey of his business school members reporting average class sizes of just over 58 in 2025 compared with 57 over the past five years, while average completed applications for those classes were 118 against 119 over the same period.

The FT evaluated 129 EMBAs, with 100 included in the final ranking, which is based on metrics including earnings, career progress and the amount of high-quality research. Participation is voluntary, and business schools must be approved by the AACSB or Equis, the leading global accreditation agencies.

Chinese schools performed particularly strongly on earnings adjusted for international purchasing power parity, reported by alumni three years after completing their courses. The six programmes ranked highest for salaries are based at least partly in China or Hong Kong.

The WashU-Fudan EMBA came top overall for alumni salary, at an average of $718,662. The programme is taught mainly in Shanghai with the degree awarded by Washington University’s Olin Business School in St Louis, Missouri. It also reported the highest salary increase compared with before the EMBA, at 134 per cent.

Graduates from ESCP Business School — which has campuses in France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain and Poland — ranked highest overall for career progress, measured through changes in seniority and the size of organisations for which alumni worked after completing their courses.

Alumni from Michigan Ross in the US reported the highest scores for aims achieved during their studies, at 77 per cent, just ahead of Yale in the US, ESCP and Insead, which has campuses in France, UAE and Singapore.

Overall, EMBA participants rated networking as one of the most important reasons for taking the degree, just behind management development and ahead of increasing their earnings or improving their promotion prospects.

Those who studied the Kellogg-HKUST EMBA rated their alumni network highest, ahead of Sabanci in Turkey and Edhec in France.

The programmes with the strongest faculty research — measured by the number of articles in the past three years in the FT50 list of leading academic journals — were from US schools University of Pennsylvania: Wharton and the University of Chicago: Booth, followed by France’s Insead and London Business School in the UK.

Nine EMBAs had more female than male students, with a maximum of 64 per cent women on the HKU Business School course. The smallest share was at TBS Education in France, with 10 per cent women.

Four programmes reported gender parity among faculty: Skema, Neoma and Audencia in France and the University of Porto-FEP|PBS in Portugal. Three of the 100 institutions had more female than male faculty, while Korea University Business School employed only 10 per cent women.

ESCP, followed by Iscte in Portugal and Iese in Spain, ranked highest for the teaching of environmental, social and governance factors embedded in their core courses. SDA Bocconi School of Management in Italy and Incae were first and second respectively for establishing net zero emissions targets for their campus operations.

Skema Business School scored highest for overall satisfaction by its alumni, followed by Ceibs and Edhec, in France.