MBA Salary Guide: Starting Salaries & Highest Paying MBA Concentrations (2024-2025)
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New data on the average starting salaries for graduates with MBA degrees recently appeared. The roundup below summarizes those salary surveys and then presents data correlating salaries with MBA concentrations and industries.
The average salary and bonus package that MBA graduates earned in 2023 was $128,997, according to the latest data from the U.S. News & World Report (2024). The publication based this average on reports from 124 full-time MBA programs in their U.S. News Best Business Schools chart.
Elite business schools disclosed more generous compensation, reporting a $210,676 average base salary and signing bonus. Notably, among the 10 MBA programs where the starting salary was the highest, the average amounted to $172,322, compared to an average of $59,748 at the bottom ten programs.
These programs fell within the publication’s 15 highest-ranked programs.
The Graduate Management Admission Council’s Business School Hiring Report
In 2024, employers now offer MBA graduates the highest inflation-adjusted salary ever recorded in the United States: a median of $120,000 annually. That’s according to the Graduate Management Management Admission Council (GMAC). This is exactly the same median salary that was reported in the 2023 report.
GMAC, best known for their Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) and Executive Assessment (EA) business school entrance examinations, pointed out in 2024 that this MBA salary is roughly 1.75 times the median of $69,320 reported for new hires with undergraduate business administration degrees.
Compared with previous trends, MBA hiring remains robust. According to the 2024 report:
Based on 2023 hiring results and employers’ 2024 projections, employers seem optimistic about employment opportunities for GME graduates. In 2023, hiring for more generalist talent was highest among MBAs, followed by experienced, direct-from-industry candidates and bachelor’s degree graduates. Slightly more employers plan to hire more of these types of prospective employees in 2024, with employers most likely to project expanded hiring of MBA and industry talent.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Average MBA Salary Survey
NACE is an association made up of corporate recruiters and university career advisors. The group reports that the average salary projections for business degree graduates at the master’s degree level are on somewhat of a roller coaster ride. The projection for the Class of 2024 business graduates at the master’s level is down 6.2 percent, dropping the average salary to $75,303. This follows a climb of 13.1 percent for the Class of 2023 and a drop of 5.9 percent for the Class of 2022.
Average MBA Salary by Concentration
Obtaining a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) is a significant decision. Along the path of completing an MBA—beginning with the application process and ending at graduation—students must make many small decisions that will determine the course of their lives. These decisions include selecting a business school and type of program and other choices, such as whether to study abroad, choose an internship, and pick where they want to work and live after graduation.
The highest priority before tackling that list of decisions involves choosing a field to focus on, known as a concentration or specialization. The concentration a student selects is the second most important commitment a student can make next to enrolling in graduate management education itself.
Granted, some schools like Harvard Business School do not offer formal concentrations, and in those cases, students create de facto fields of concentration from their electives. In either case, such specializations amount to critical choices in an MBA student’s career. They permit students to deliver highly marketable skills to an employer immediately upon graduation—a value for which most employers will gladly pay a handsome salary premium.
However, before covering the salary values of different concentrations, it is worthwhile to understand how the benefits of concentrations translate into those salaries.
The Benefits of MBA Concentrations
Many experts agree that MBA graduates with a concentration have substantial competitive advantages over those without one during recruitment. For example, Raghu Sundaram, who served as Dean of NYU Stern from January 1, 2018, through June 30, 2024, and as Vice Dean for MBA Programs and Online Learning from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017, told the U.S. News and World Report: “Having a specialization will not get you the job, but it certainly will make it a lot easier to get the interview. It opens the door, which is why students are so fond of specializations.”
Furthermore, some concentrations lead to higher-paying jobs. As a result, there is a dramatically wide range of earning potential corresponding to different concentrations. MBA aspirants would be wise to familiarize themselves with these earning potentials before selecting target schools.
According to Phil Miller, the assistant dean of MBA programs at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, better-paying MBA concentrations align with sectors with higher salaries: “Students who specialize in finance and go into banking earn a disproportionate amount of higher salaries.”
He also advised students to look at where previous students of a program land in the following three years after graduation. This will help them better understand what each specialization yields for graduates.
To wisely select a concentration, most MBA aspirants first want to know which concentrations offer the highest pay. The website PayScale, which provides compensation data focusing on salary and benefits, has reported the average salary associated with MBA program concentrations for the last several years.
PayScale produces these reports using the website’s database of about 1.5 million university graduates who disclose data about themselves when they search for salary information. PayScale is a labor market database similar to other platforms, including Glassdoor, RelishCareers, and TransparentCareer.
The PayScale data does present some limitations. For one, PayScale needs a controlled vocabulary that better differentiates among concentration names. For example, the term “finance” or “financial” repeats in four concentration names, and, “marketing” repeats in three. As a result, it is difficult to understand the distinct differences in how these overlapping names represent actual concentration fields at different schools.
Furthermore, these self-reported pay statistics only consider annual salaries. However, bonuses are significant income sources in management consulting, investment banking, and financial services compensation. Moreover, equity—i.e., stock options and redemptions—accounts for a considerable portion of income in the compensation packages of startups and tech firms. PayScale does not count either of these income sources in its statistics.
The Most Lucrative MBA Concentrations
In recent years, marketing has been the highest-paying concentration according to PayScale’s rankings—not just because it offers the highest pay immediately after graduation but also ten years later. In their report MBA Paths and Their Payoff, PayScale noted that alumni specializing in marketing made $55,700 a year upon graduation and averaged $116,000 at mid-career. This represents a staggering 108 percent salary increase in 10 years.
It is important to look at mid-career averages and post-graduation numbers because the former will better indicate growth potential. Besides marketing, several concentrations earn handsome annual salaries by mid-career. These include finance at $120,000, technology management at $101,000, and human resources at $73,300.
Trends in Top Paying Concentrations
Quantitative Careers Are Favored Earlier, Verbal Later
Along with marketing’s consistent lead, a couple of trends become apparent. First, quantitative concentrations dominate the top early-career rankings. Following marketing, the three top-paying concentrations are finance at $62,100, technology management at $60,000, and human resources at $45,700. The top four early-career winners are quantitative-focused.
However, this trend changes at the mid-career mark. Ten years after graduation, two of the top four paying concentrations are more verbal: marketing and human resources. However, it is interesting to note that qualitative concentrations such as finance and technology management take second and third place in terms of total wage growth in a career: finance at $3,210,000 and human resources at $2,060,000.
This trend amounts to what one might expect. Most early-career MBA jobs emphasize quantitative and technical skills, while jobs that emphasize verbal skills predominate among the more senior positions seasoned executives hold.
Concentrations Where Earnings Double
The second trend relates to how some concentrations start out with rather modest earnings, approximately double by mid-career. These concentrations also appear to place a premium on verbal concepts and reasoning rather than technical or quantitative skills. They include finance ($62,100 to $120,000), marketing ($55,700 to $116,000), technology management ($60,000 to $101,000), and human resources ($45,700 to $73,300).
The marketing concentration sees a 108 percent increase in average pay over ten years and takes the top growth rate among all concentrations. Other concentrations displaying 80 percent growth or more include finance (93 percent), technology management (68 percent), and human resources (60 percent).
Salary Examples for Key Industries and Roles
Below are some examples of salaries for specific roles at companies that heavily recruit MBAs.
Management Consulting
Consulting firms recruit about a third of each class at many of the top business schools. Firms recruit most of these hires from strategy concentrations and some from other specializations like general management.
These examples come from lists published by Management Consulted, a coaching firm and online resource for MBA students pursuing careers in consulting.
| Base | Performance Bonus | Signing Bonus | Relocation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McKinsey & Company | $192,000 | up to $40,000 | $30,000 | up to $10,100 |
| Boston Consulting Group | $190,000 | up to $50,000 | up to $30,000 | up to $6,000 |
| Bain & Company | $192,000 | up to $63,000 | $30,000 | $8,000 – $15,000 |
| Deloitte | $175,000 | up to $43,750 | $30,000 ($20,000 contingent on signing early) | up to $10,000 |
| EY | $175,000 | Real-time bonuses | $30,000 | up to $5,100 |
| Parthenon-EY | $175,000 | $26,250 – $52,500 | $30,000 (plus $10,000 early signing) | up to $5,100 |
| KPMG | $145,000 | up to $17,400 | up to $35,000 | up to $10,000 |
| PwC | $175,000 | up to $40,000 | $30,000 | NA |
| Strategy& | $190,000 | up to $60,000 | $30,000 | NA |
Technology
The following tables have been created from Levels.fyi, a platform that gathers data primarily from U.S. employees, so the figures represent U.S. salary trends.
Software
The following table includes total compensation, median salary, and average hours worked per week for the respective roles at Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, all sourced from Levels.fyi for MBA-related job data.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | Software Engineering Manager | $226,000 per year to $1,440,000 per year | $374,000 | 44 |
| Information Technologist | $96,400 per year to $279,000 per year | $169,000 | 44 | |
| Financial Analyst | $100,000 per year to $270,000 per year | $177,000 | 44 | |
| Amazon | Software Engineering Manager | $321,000 per year to $1,870,000 per year | $480,000 | 60 |
| Information Technologist | $109,000 per year to $437,000 per year | $143,000 | 60 | |
| Financial Analyst | $90,900 per year to $299,000 per year | $165,000 | 60 | |
| Software Engineering Manager | $393,000 per year to $1,970,000 per year | $578,000 | 46 | |
| Information Technologist | $149,000 per year to $469,000 per year | $154,000 | 46 | |
| Financial Analyst | $153,000 per year to $438,000 per year | $216,000 | 46 |
Hardware
The following table includes total compensation, median salary, and average hours worked per week for the respective roles at Intel, Apple, and Dell, all sourced from Levels.fyi for MBA-related job data.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel | Hardware Engineer | $115,000 per year to $663,000 per year | $186,000 | 45 |
| Product Manager | $123,000 per year to $576,000 per year | $238,000 | 46 | |
| Marketing Operations | $247,000 per year | $115,000 | 44 | |
| Apple | Hardware Engineer | $161,000 per year to $799,000 per year | $319,000 | 44 |
| Product Manager | $194,000 per year to $745,000 per year | $277,000 | 45 | |
| Marketing Operations | $177,000 per year to $201,000 per year | $182,000 | 43 | |
| Dell | Hardware Engineer | $102,000 per year to $237,000 per year | $161,000 | 42 |
| Product Manager | $125,000 per year to $414,000 per year | $172,000 | 43 | |
| Marketing Operations | $124,000 per year to $169,000 per year | $140,000 | 42 |
E-Commerce and Internet
The following table includes total compensation, median salary, and average hours worked per week for the respective roles at Amazon, Google, and Facebook, all sourced from Levels.fyi for MBA-related job data.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Data Scientist | $176,000 per year to $605,000 per year | $260,000 | 45 |
| Product Marketing Manager | $92,400 per year to $375,000 per year | $170,000 | 46 | |
| Program Manager | $93,700 per year to $266,000 per year | $168,000 | 47 | |
| Data Scientist | $152,000 per year to $881,000 per year | $292,000 | 43 | |
| Product Marketing Manager | $144,000 per year to $431,000 per year | $190,000 | 44 | |
| Program Manager | $169,000 per year to $657,000 per year | $285,000 | 45 | |
| Data Scientist | $156,000 per year to $704,000 per year | $433,000 | 44 | |
| Product Marketing Manager | $186,000 per year to $483,000 per year | $314,000 | 43 | |
| Program Manager | $117,000 per year to $418,000 per year | $194,000 | 44 |
Investment Banking
The following table reflects compensation data for common investment banking-related roles that MBA graduates in the USA can pursue. These figures are specific to the U.S. job market, based on U.S.-based roles at companies like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. All sourced from Level.fyi for MBA-related job data.
Find out more in our Guide to MBA Careers – Business Administration Career Paths.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs | Investment Banker | $113,000 per year to $384,000 per year | $129,000 | 60 |
| Financial Analyst | $104,000 per year to $239,000 per year | $110,000 | 55 | |
| Accountant | $103,000 per year to $141,000 per year | $104,000 | 50 | |
| JPMorgan Chase | Investment Banker | $127,000 per year to $593,000 per year | $175,000 | 62 |
| Financial Analyst | $88,700 per year to $274,000 per year | $100,000 | 56 | |
| Accountant | $75,000 per year to $82,500 per year | $83,500 | 50 | |
| Morgan Stanley | Investment Banker | $145,000 per year to $338,000 per year | $180,000 | 63 |
| Financial Analyst | $115,000 per year to $251,000 per year | $160,000 | 54 | |
| Accountant | $122,000 per year | $115,000 | 51 |
Consumer Product Marketing
The following table reflects compensation data for common consumer product marketing-related roles that MBA graduates in the USA can pursue. These figures are specific to the U.S. job market, based on U.S.-based roles at companies like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. All sourced from Level.fyi for MBA-related job data.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Marketing Manager | $94,000 per year to $337,000 per year | $170,000 | 50 |
| Sales Manager | $110K per year to $431K per year | $280,000 | 48 | |
| Business Operations Manager | $111K per year to $149K per year | $150,000 | 52 | |
| Target | Marketing Manager | $75,300 per year | $117,000 | 46 |
| Sales Manager | $40,800 per year to $85,200 per year | $33,300 | 47 | |
| Business Operations Manager | $77,900 per year to $113,000 per year | NA | 49 | |
| Walmart | Marketing Manager | $173,000 per year to $224,000 per year | $211,000 | 48 |
| Sales Manager | $31,200 per year to $161,000 per year | $60,000 | 46 | |
| Business Operations Manager | $159,000 per year | $170,000 | 53 |
Brand Management and Strategy
Finally, the following table reflects compensation data for common brand management and strategy-related roles that MBA graduates in the USA can pursue. These figures are specific to the U.S. job market, based on U.S.-based roles at companies like Oracle, Amazon, and Apple. All sourced from Level.fyi for MBA-related job data.
| Company name | Role | Total Compensation | Median Compensation | Average Hours/Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product Design Manager | $329,000 per year to $732,000 per year | $452,000 | 46 | |
| Product Marketing Manager | $144,000 per year to $431,000 per year | $190,000 | 47 | |
| Marketing Operations | $117,000 per year to $436,000 per year | $182,000 | 48 | |
| Amazon | Product Design Manager | $231,000 per year to $427,000 per year | $353,000 | 50 |
| Product Marketing Manager | $92,400 per year to $375,000 per year | $170,000 | 49 | |
| Marketing Operations | $71,000 per year to $255,000 per year | $108,000 | 47 | |
| Apple | Product Design Manager | $431,000 per year to $504,000 per year | $511,000 | 44 |
| Product Marketing Manager | $233,000 per year | $280,000 | 46 | |
| Marketing Operations | $177,000 per year to $201,000 per year | $182,000 | 45 |
