The FT Global MBA Rankings 2017: top 50 colleges

The London Business School (LBS) as the highest-ranked UK institution in the Financial Times’ Global MBA Rankings.

Cambridge’s Judge Business School (CJBS) rose five places to fifth in the rankings, while LBS dropped three places to sixth. It is the first time that LBS has not been the UK’s top-ranked institution and it is Cambridge’s first appearance in the top five.

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For the second year in succession, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management – a historical heavyweight in the rankings – dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in a decade.

While the US continued to have strong representation in the top 10 – with half the ranked schools – its supremacy has decreased marginally in the upper tier. In the preceding two years, 70 per cent of the institutions in the top 10 were from the US.

Urs Peyer, dean of degree programmes at Insead, said that the institution was “humbled” to be ranked first again.

“Bringing together talented people from all over the world creates a unique learning and networking environment,” he said. “It is inspiring to see that the success of our alumni and impact of our research led to this outstanding result.”

CJBS’s rise in the rankings represents significant progress. As little as five years ago, the school was comfortably outside the top 20, in 26th place. While alumni may have only the 12th-highest average salary three years after graduation, at $164,000 (£131,180), graduates can expect to see an average salary increase of 107 per cent, which compares favourably with the schools ranked above it.

Christoph Loch, dean of the school, said that the ranking “reconfirms the determined focus on quality in our MBA programme – the quality of our students, their education, and the services and experience provided”.

“Yet while surveys are useful, they do not define our mission and strategy – which is to create a truly transformational experience for students, enabling and encouraging them to pursue careers that they can proudly look back on in 30 years and feel they have made a positive difference to their communities and the world,” he said. “Every year, I tell new students to ‘go out and do something extraordinary’.”

In response to ceding the top spot for UK schools, Gareth Howells, executive director of the MBA and master’s in finance at LBS, said that the institution was “extremely proud” of its programme.

He added that the FT’s rankings, which are based on 20 different criteria, have a “primary focus” on salary after graduation, while just over a fifth of 2016 LBS graduates went into technology start-ups.

“A number of our students choose the entrepreneurial route,” he added. “Our primary focus is on ensuring that our world-class, highly recommended MBA, allows our students to achieve their aims to work in a full range of sectors.”

The Financial Times’ Global MBA Rankings 2017 results: top 50