The Business School Job Market in 2025

• The Employment Module of AACSB’s Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) measures average employment rates and salaries among graduates of the association’s member schools.
• The survey found that across participating schools, the MBA employment rate is around 85 percent. Salaries fluctuate across regions.
• Employment rates for undergraduates and graduates of specialized programs reach the levels of MBA grads after six months.

 
At the start of this year, a lot of headlines were made when some of the best-known business schools in the United States started releasing their employment reports. They revealed that the MBA employment rate was as low as 77 percent at some schools.

Although any number of factors might have affected the headline figures, there’s little doubt that business school graduates are entering a more challenging job market than in previous years.

But what do the overall numbers reveal about the employment landscape for business school graduates? Every year, AACSB solicits data from its member schools about the employment rates and median salaries of business school graduates. Here’s what the figures for 2024–25, based on 317 participating schools globally, told us.

MBA Employment Rates Stay Strong

Although employment rates at some of those leading schools dipped below 80 percent last year, the data taken from AACSB member schools suggests a brighter picture.

In 2024–25, the full-time employment rate of MBA students three months after graduation was 85 percent. That may represent a small decline from the previous year’s figure of 87.5 percent, but it does suggest that employment rates are staying consistent amid a turbulent economy.

“It has been a volatile five years in the economy overall,” says Oren Margolis, founder of Pinetree & Palm Consulting. “Consulting and finance have frozen hiring, while tech especially has had a bit of a reckoning.”

Margolis goes on to explain that in tech companies, a lot of the old formal hiring structures are changing: many no longer hire directly from business schools or have specialized recruitment pathways for MBA grads. This has led to a slowdown in MBA hiring in these key industries, though he notes that consulting and finance are still “viable pathways” for graduates.

Margolis adds that Amazon remains a prolific employer of MBA graduates, while companies in the healthcare and AI spaces are increasingly starting to hire MBA graduates.

Average MBA Salaries Fluctuate

In the 2024–25 academic year, BSQ Employment Module data show that the average salary of MBA graduates was 68,014 USD. However, that number has fluctuated considerably in recent years:

• 2024–25: 68,014 USD
• 2023–24: 89,657 USD
• 2022–23: 76,232 USD

Calculating an average salary across so many different regions is difficult, and perhaps these figures should be considered with caution. As a point of comparison, one survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) also found that average MBA salaries fluctuated widely depending on the region:

• United States: 125,000 USD
• Canada: 55,000 USD
• Western Europe: 38,000 USD

Even within regions, salaries can differ. For example, the average salary of MBA graduates from Oxford Saïd Business School in the United Kingdom is 74,143 GBP (99,000 USD)—almost triple the figure reported for Western Europe by GMAC.

For prospective MBA students or those soon to be on the job market, the BSQ data can offer a reasonable idea of what salary to expect after graduation. But it may be better to check the average graduate salary of the target MBA for a more exact figure. Most schools release an MBA employment report that breaks the figure down by industry and function. Reading that data should provide a better idea of what salary a graduate can expect after completing the MBA.

Specialized Master’s and Undergraduate Degrees Remain Consistent

Though MBA employment rates and salaries have tended to fluctuate in recent years, it’s a different story for undergraduates and graduates of specialized business master’s programs (which are typically in subjects such as finance, marketing, accounting, and analytics).

According to our data, just over 70 percent of graduates from specialized master’s were employed (or had received a job offer) within three months of graduation. However, that figure increases to 85 percent after six months.

The story is similar for business undergrads. Just under 70 percent had received or accepted a job offer within three months of graduation. But within six months, 82 percent had received or accepted an offer.

The last few years have followed a similar trend for both sets of graduates: around 70 percent employment rate after three months, then around 85 percent after six months.

These trends suggest that although it may take a little longer to find the right role after graduating from a specialized or undergraduate program, in some cases the employment prospects may be just as strong as they are for MBA graduates.

Salaries also remain consistent. The average salary for graduates of specialized business master’s in 2024–25 was 66,435 USD. That has actually increased slightly from two years ago, when the average salary was 63,635 USD.

As for business undergrads, their average salary for 2024–25 was 63,905 USD. That has increased steadily over the past few years: a positive sign for any current students.

Advice for Business School Graduates

Despite the more positive picture revealed by the BSQ data, the current job market isn’t an easy one for business school graduates to enter. They still face unique challenges in today’s economy—which means they’ll need to find unique solutions.

“[Business school graduates in 2025] need to be scrappy, resourceful, and knock down every door,” says Margolis. “They need to be relying on making connections—which has always been the case—and sheer volume. Applying for one job a day is not enough in this economy.”

Barbara Coward, founder of MBA 360 Admissions, agrees that networking is everything in the current job market. “It’s all about your network….if you have that network to tap into, it’s like an insurance policy.”

It’s also important for graduates to combine the support of their school’s career center with their own initiative. Simply put, graduates have to take greater ownership of their job search. “You can’t just show up and think career services are going to find you a job or employers are always going to come and recruit on campus,” says Coward, adding that applicants should “take a good look at the career services” of their target school to get a sense of how connected they are.

Simply put, graduates have to take greater ownership of their job search.

Coward believes that increasingly, employers “aren’t discriminating” when it comes to hiring MBA talent. That means they may be looking at a wider spread of applicants from a wider spread of business schools—not just the leading few.

As for Margolis, he says that MBA graduates may need to be a little bit more patient than in previous years. A bump in salary or change of job title may not happen immediately after graduation, but it could occur two to three years down the line.

Ultimately, it seems the medium-to-long-term value of business education has not diminished. According to Margolis, the experiences of students who graduated during the last global financial crisis tells us as much.

“I talk to a lot of 2008–09 graduates who went into a really difficult hiring market and had to make a few sacrifices—but still don’t regret going to business school,” he says. “They definitely feel like it has paid off for them in the long term.”