Harvard 2022 Jobs Data: MBA Median Salary & Total Compensation Explode

Harvard Business School graduates made a median base salary of $175K in 2022, up from $150,500 last year. File photo

HIGHEST MEDIAN 75TH-PERCENTILE SALARY: INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, $225K

Unlike many of its peer schools, Harvard does not list the lowest and highest salaries by its graduates, instead preferring to post the median salary at the 25th and 75th percentiles. In 2021, the highest 75th percentile bases were $180K in venture capital, $178,750 in private equity, and $175,000 in hedge funds/investment management — same as the previous year. The lowest 25th percentile base salaries of $110,000 were in government and nonprofits, up from $100K in 2020.

In 2022, the highest 75th percentile salaries dwarfed their predecessors: for financial services, $225,000 in investment management, $208,000 in VC, and $200,000 in PE; for consulting, $175,000; and for tech, $185,000. The lowest 25th percentile median was again government/nonprofit, again at $110,000.

The top field for median salary was venture capital, at $178,000, with four others tied for second place at $175K: investment management, investment banking, private equity, and “services” (which includes real estate, and by function, business development, management, strategic planning, and marketing). The top fields for median signing bonus were investment management and investment banking, both at $50,000, with consumer products second at $40,000; and for median performance bonus, private equity at $175K, with investment management second at $168K. More details can be found in the tables on page 3.

MOST 2022 HBS GRADS WENT TO WORK IN NORTHEAST US; WEST COASTERS HAD HIGHEST 75TH PERCENTILE SALARIES

By region, the top location for Harvard MBAs remains the Northeast, where 47% of Class of 2022 MBAs found work. That’s down from 49% last year. Most of those jobs are in New York (31%) and Boston (14%). Next is the Western U.S., where 24% of the class found jobs, including 15% in the San Francisco Bay Area, 4% in Los Angeles, and 4% in the Pacific Northwest.

Harvard Class of 2022 MBAs working in the Northeast, South, Southeast, and West all reported median salaries of $175,000. The highest 75th percentile salaries were in the West ($190K), followed by the Northeast ($185K) and South ($181K). The lowest 25th percentile salaries were in the Middle East/North Africa ($110K), where 1% of the class went.

The top location for median signing bonus was Europe, where 3% of the class found jobs, at $42K; the top location for median performance bonus was also Europe, at $90K. Asia — the destination of 2% of the class — was second for performance bonus, at $78K. See next page for details.

MEDIAN BASE SALARY FOR ENTREPRENEURS GROWS BY $10K

On the startup scene, Harvard last year saw 12% of graduating MBAs get entrepreneurial — that is, joining a company that is less than a decade old or still private — up from 10% in 2020 and 8% six years ago. Median base salary for the enterprising folks in the Class of 2021 was $150,000, up from $140K the previous year.

This year, 14% of Harvard’s MBA class went into startups, with a median base salary of $160,000. By far the top industry for startups was tech, with 53% of 2022 HBS entrepreneurs going into software, e-commerce or the like (up from 48% in 2021); healthcare was a distant second at 18% (up from 16%), and manufacturing was 15%. Forty-one percent of Harvard entrepreneurs stayed in the Northeast, down from about half the Class of 2021, and 35% went West, up from 26%.