Median Pay For Chicago Booth MBAs Is Now Over $200K

Chicago Booth has released its 2023 MBA employment report showing gains in median starting salary, median signing bonus, and median overall compensation

The Wall Street Journal sounded the alarm this week over the MBA job market, particularly in the big three industries of tech, finance, and consulting. Jobs are scarcer across the board, the newspaper reports, with major employers reducing and even suspending their hiring.

Cause for concern? Certainly. But at one of the premier business schools in the United States, 2023 has largely been business as usual.

In its newly released 2023 MBA employment report, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is reporting increases in the number of grads finding work in both the tech and consulting industries — contrary to the WSJ’s report about downturns in both — as well as overall increases in median starting salary, median signing bonus, and median overall compensation. MBA pay for Boothies grew 3.5% over the last year, and is up 14% since the Class of 2021.

MEDIAN TOTAL PAY FOR 2023 BOOTH MBAs: OVER $200K

The median starting salary for Boothies — which in 2022 was tied for the highest of any U.S. B-school — grew to $180,000 from $175,000, higher than the median $175K at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, the other M7 school to so far report 2023 data. Booth MBAs' median signing bonus this year increased to $33,000 from $30,000, also likely putting Boothies in the vanguard of top MBA bonus-getters.

With the increases in salary and bonus, median overall pay for Booth grads — calculated by factoring the percentage of those reporting a bonus, in this class's case, 71% — grew 3.5% to $203,430. Last year that would have topped all U.S. B-schools; this year, with so many schools yet to report their employment data, we will have to wait and see.

It is not in salaries or bonuses that the first hint of trouble arises in the 2023 Booth MBA employment report. Instead, it's in job offers and acceptances that the numbers fail to reach last year's levels. Total job offers at graduation (91.1%, from 93.1%) and three months later (95.6%, from 96.8%) were down year-over-year, while acceptances dropped to 88% at graduation from 90.4%, and to 94.3% after 90 days from 95.6%. These declines can be explained as normal fluctuations, or they can be signals of something troubling; what happened in 2023 at smaller schools will offer a clearer picture.

CONSULTING MEDIAN SALARY IS OVER $190K

Of the big three MBA industries, only finance — once Booth's bread and butter — saw declines in the percentage of graduates finding work there, dropping to 32.6% of the class from 35.1%. Tech — beleaguered as it has been over the last two years — increased to 15.5% of the class from 14.9% last year, and consulting continued its now-five-year reign as the top industry for Boothies at an all-time high of 38.6%.

Median salaries and bonuses for the three top industries:

Consulting: $192K up from $175K; bonus $30K unchanged
Tech: $157,050 up from $146,500; bonus $30K down from $35K
Finance: $175K same as last year; bonus $47K down from $50K

Someone in financial services — private equity, to be precise — reported this year's top maximum salary of $247,500. Last year's top max salary was also someone in PE, though it was a bigger number: $300K. This year's highest bonus was shared by a finance person and a techie: Someone in investment banking and another grad in e-commerce/internet reported a $50K bonus.

Once again this year, the top three employers of Booth MBAs are the MBB consulting firms, with McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain accounting for more than 150 of the class's 527 job-seeking students. Other top employers included Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup — see the table at the bottom of the page.

WHERE BOOTH MBAs HAVE GONE TO WORK IN THE LAST 10 YEARS

Industry	2023 Percentage of Booth Hires	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014
FINANCIAL SERVICES	32.6%	35.1%	27.0%	30.9%	31.3%	31.6%	29.9%	36.0%	35.2%	36.4%
I-Banking/Brokerage	11.1%	10.8%	7.2%	10.3%	11.3%	10.5%	13.6%	13.6%	16.7%	15.6%
Diversified	6.2%	7.2%	6.1%	5.3%	6.5%	6.4%	3.9%	7.7%	5.2%	5.1%
I-Mgt./Research	3.2%	3.5%	4.1%	5.3%	5.7%	5.6%	5.5%	6.7%	6.0%	7.3%
Private Equity	9.1%	7.1%	6.8%	6.4%	5.9%	5.6%	4.7%	5.1%	4.8%	5.9%
Venture Capital	2.2%	5.2%	2.2%	2.6%	2.0%	2.8%	1.8%	1.2%	0.8%	2.0%
Insurance	0.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.4%	NA	0.6%	0.4%	1.2%	1.0%	NA
Commercial Banking	0.2%	NA	NA	NA	NA	0.2%	NA	0.4%	NA	NA
CONSULTING	38.6%	35.5%	34.4%	38.2%	34.8%	31.0%	32.6%	27.5%	32.1%	27.9%
TECHNOLOGY	15.5%	14.9%	22.9%	16.3%	20.7%	20.3%	18.7%	16.7%	15.2%	13.5%
eCommerce & Internet	7.2%	9.1%	13.5%	8.8%	11.7%	10.7%	9.4%	9.4%	6.3%	5.7%
Software	5.0%	3.0%	6.5%	4.8%	4.6%	5.6%	4.3%	3.1%	3.3%	4.0%
Hardware	1.0%	0.4%	0.7%	1.8%	1.7%	1.9%	3.9%	3.7%	4.2%	3.2%
FinTech	1.0%	1.5%	0.9%	0.7%	NA	1.5%	0.6%	NA	NA	NA
Telecom	NA	NA	0.4%	0.2%	NA	0.6%	0.4%	0.6%	1.5%	0.6%
Services	0.8%	0.9%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Semiconductors	0.4%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
CONSUMER PRODUCTS	2.2%	2.2%	4.4%	4.8%	4.6%	4.3%	5.3%	6.9%	5.0%	6.1%
HEALTHCARE	2.8%	4.1%	3.3%	3.5%	1.1%	2.1%	2.9%	3.3%	2.9%	2.2%
TRANSPORTATION	NA	0.8%	1.1%	0.9%	1.1%	1.9%	1.2%	NA	NA	NA
MEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT	0.4%	0.4%	0.9%	NA	0.9%	1.7%	1.0%	1.2%	0.8%	1.6%
REAL ESTATE	1.0%	1.7%	1.5%	2.0%	2.8%	1.7%	NA	1.0%	NA	1.2%
ENERGY	1.4%	0.6%	1.1%	0.9%	0.9%	1.5%	0.8%	1.1%	2.1%	2.8%
RETAIL	1.4%	0.7%	0.7%	NA	1.5%	0.9%	1.8%	1.2%	1.0%	1.5%
AGRIBUSINESS	0.2%	0.4%	NA	NA	NA	0.9%	1.2%	NA	NA	NA
MANUFACTURING	0.6%	0.4%	0.9%	NA	0.9%	0.9%	2.0%	1.6%	1.7%	2.2%
EDUCATION/GOVT/NONPROFIT	0.6%	0.6%	1.1%	0.7%	NA	0.6%	1.4%	1.6%	1.7%	2.2%

MORE BOOTHIES RELOCATED TO THE SF BAY AREA

The percentage of Boothies who relocated to the West Coast dropped precipitously in 2022, to just over 20% from 26.8% the previous year. That included 11.9% in the San Francisco Bay Area, 5.2% in Seattle, and 2.4% in Los Angeles — all down significantly. This year saw a partial recovery, with 22.3% of the MBA Class of 2023 going to the West Coast, including 14.1% to the Bay Area, 3.6% to Seattle, 3.4% to Los Angeles.

But whether it's a pandemic that keeps them close or the lure of one of the biggest and best cities in the U.S., most Boothies stay in Chicago — this year as much as any year past. In 2023, the number actually went up, to 28.6% of the class from 27% in 2022. What also went up: median salary for those Chicago-bound grads, which grew to $190K from $175K.

If they're not staying in Chicago or heading west, Boothies are probably headed to New York. In 2023, 23.9% of MBAs went to the Big Apple, down from 25.1%. This year's New York Booth class made the same as last year, a median salary of $175K. Other top destinations include the Southwest (6%), the Mid-Atlantic (4%), and international (6.8%); the latter group included 2.8% going to Asia, 2% to Latin America/Caribbean, and 1.2% to Europe.

MAJOR EMPLOYERS OF CHICAGO BOOTH MBAs

Companies That Hired 4 or More Graduates (24 Companies)	Number of Hires	Percent of Hires	*Number of Intern Hires*
McKinsey & Company, Inc.	71	14.3%	26
Boston Consulting Group	52	10.5%	57
Bain & Company, Inc.	30	6.0%	24
Amazon.com, Inc.	17	3.4%	21
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.	15	3.0%	9
Citigroup, Inc.	12	2.4%	12
Morgan Stanley	9	1.8%	8
PwC Strategy&	8	1.6%	5
Kearney	6	1.2%	8
Alpine Investors, LP	5	1.0%	0
C3.ai	5	1.0%	0
Capital One Financial Corp	5	1.0%	1
Credit Suisse	5	1.0%	4
Google	5	1.0%	9
L.E.K. Consulting	5	1.0%	7
Lazard Freres & Co. LLC	5	1.0%	4
ServiceNow, Inc.	5	1.0%	5
Bank of America Corporation	4	0.8%	10
Brookfield Asset Management Inc.	4	0.8%	2
Evercore Partners Inc.	4	0.8%	7
EY-Parthenon	4	0.8%	7
JPMorgan Chase & Co.	4	0.8%	10
NIKE, Inc.	4	0.8%	7
Pepsico, Inc.	4	0.8%	4