Best Business Schools Hiring:
Consulting Industry
Consulting remains a top destination for business school graduates—3,140 of those surveyed for our ranking reported taking jobs in the field. While the big three—McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group—continue to recruit heavily from B-schools, consulting has become more selective and competitive. The industry slump that started in 2023 has not shown any improvement and will continue to present challenges to graduating MBAs, even to those further along in their careers. The slowdown has been driven by a sharp reduction in enterprise IT spending, forcing leading consulting firms to scale back. Another factor impacting the industry is the use of artificial intelligence, lessening the demand for many roles, especially entry-level positions.
Consulting is the best paid among 26 industries reported in survey data used for our Business School ROI calculator, with median compensation (salary plus bonus) of $205,310—21% more than the median for all fields.
| School | Number of Hires | Percentage of Hires | Median salary (US dollars) | Median salary (local currency) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago (Booth) | 148 | 33.8% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Columbia | 149 | 26.6% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Virginia (Darden) | 125 | 42.5% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Duke (Fuqua) | 108 | 38.6% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| UC at Berkeley (Haas) | 44 | 25.4% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Harvard | 96 | 17.7% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Northwestern (Kellogg) | 126 | 34.1% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| MIT (Sloan) | 71 | 31.8% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Stanford | 28 | 14.1% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Dartmouth (Tuck) | 96 | 44.2% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 141 | 25.2% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Yale | 73 | 31.9% | $190,000 | Not applicable | |
| Michigan (Ross) | 98 | 36.0% | $185,000 | Not applicable | |
| Minnesota (Carlson) | 6 | 13.0% | $182,500 | Not applicable | |
| UCLA (Anderson) | 50 | 23.9% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Southern Methodist (Cox) | 12 | 32.4% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Ohio State (Fisher) | 7 | 20.0% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Washington (Foster) | 27 | 33.3% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Emory (Goizueta) | 29 | 41.4% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Tennessee (Haslam) | 3 | 10.7% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Cornell (Johnson) | 64 | 31.1% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Rice (Jones) | 20 | 20.2% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Indiana (Kelley) | 21 | 23.6% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | 36 | 20.8% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| USC (Marshall) | 33 | 28.0% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Texas A&M (Mays) | 3 | 13.6% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Texas at Austin (McCombs) | 47 | 30.1% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Georgetown (McDonough) | 57 | 34.3% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Notre Dame (Mendoza) | 17 | 28.8% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Vanderbilt (Owen) | 36 | 32.4% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Georgia Tech (Scheller) | 26 | 42.6% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| NYU (Stern) | 85 | 36.8% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) | 35 | 25.7% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Wisconsin | 3 | 6.4% | $175,000 | Not applicable | |
| Michigan State (Broad) | 4 | 11.1% | $157,500 | Not applicable | |
| IMD | 8 | 18.2% | $143,627 | CHF 124,553 | |
| IESE Business School | 93 | 44.9% | $141,749 | Not applicable | |
| SDA Bocconi | 13 | 22.0% | $136,726 | €125,802 | |
| St. Gallen | 3 | 14.3% | $131,135 | CHF 113,720 | |
| Rochester (Simon) | 12 | 14.1% | $130,000 | Not applicable | |
| London Business School | 110 | 33.2% | $128,508 | £99,362 | |
| INSEAD | 202 | 50.4% | $127,486 | €117,300 | |
| Arizona State (Carey) | 4 | 9.5% | $122,500 | Not applicable | |
| IE | 29 | 20.4% | $118,606 | €109,129 | |
| Mannheim | 4 | 12.1% | $116,074 | €106,800 | |
| Boston University (Questrom) | 12 | 12.1% | $115,000 | Not applicable | |
| William and Mary (Mason) | 7 | 13.0% | $112,500 | Not applicable | |
| Pittsburgh (Katz) | 6 | 22.2% | $112,000 | Not applicable | |
| Georgia (Terry) | 12 | 33.3% | $104,000 | Not applicable | |
| Hult | 18 | 12.3% | $100,600 | Not applicable | |
| George Washington | 6 | 26.1% | $100,000 | Not applicable | |
| Colorado at Boulder (Leeds) | 5 | 18.5% | $100,000 | Not applicable | |
| McGill (Desautels) | 6 | 27.3% | $99,262 | CA$138,500 | |
| Abu Dhabi University College of Business | 3 | 23.1% | $92,567 | AED 340,000 | |
| Washington in St. Louis (Olin) | 3 | 5.8% | $90,000 | Not applicable | |
| EAE | 10 | 11.1% | $86,947 | €80,000 | |
| POLIMI Graduate School of Management | 7 | 18.4% | $86,186 | €79,300 | |
| EDHEC | 5 | 11.4% | $80,300 | €73,884 | |
| Western (Ivey) | 17 | 22.1% | $78,836 | CA$110,000 | |
| ESIC | 5 | 11.9% | $78,252 | €72,000 | |
| Cranfield | 5 | 18.5% | $77,600 | £60,000 | |
| HKUST | 8 | 18.2% | $77,026 | HK$600,000 | |
| ESADE | 23 | 24.5% | $71,731 | €66,000 | |
| Cambridge (Judge) | 15 | 13.6% | $69,106 | £53,433 | |
| Kentucky (Gatton) | 3 | 8.3% | $68,000 | Not applicable | |
| Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 6 | 6.4% | $45,774 | CN¥330,400 | |
| Indian Institute of Management Bangalore | 25 | 34.2% | $42,314 | ₹3,600,000 | |
| Indian School of Business | 292 | 37.2% | $38,927 | ₹3,311,832 | |
| SP Jain | 12 | 46.2% | $37,887 | ₹3,223,312 | |
| Shanghai University MBA Centre | 5 | 20.8% | $24,660 | CN¥178,000 | |
| T A Pai Management Institute | 100 | 20.0% | $14,798 | ₹1,259,000 | |
| IMT Ghaziabad | 19 | 10.4% | $14,575 | ₹1,240,000 | |
| Woxsen University | 26 | 11.3% | $12,929 | ₹1,100,000 | |
| Copenhagen Business School | 4 | 21.1% | Not available | Not available | |
| Miami | 3 | 10.7% | Not available | Not applicable | |
| Oxford (Saïd) | 43 | 27.0% | Not available | Not available | |
| Maryland (Smith) | 3 | 16.7% | Not available | Not applicable | |
Schools with fewer than 3 hires are excluded from the list.