Best MBA for… · figures from each school’s own report
Best MBA for working in the Middle East
INSEAD reports 18% of its class hired in the Middle East (a line that includes Africa), the highest share among the 7 schools we can rank.
Best fit for working in the middle east, on your salary
INSEAD
18% of the class
Regions: few schools publish a salary by region, so the score is the share of the class placed there, as a percentile among the schools shown. Schools under 5% of the class are not ranked. Method.
| # | School | Placed there | About | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | INSEADFontainebleau · 10 months | 18% | n/a | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 100 |
| 2 | IESEBarcelona · 21 months | 11% | 41 | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 75 |
| 3 | LBSLondon · 21 months | 11% | 54 | $140,556average | 5.7 years | $55,940 | 75 |
| 4 | Alliance MBSManchester · 18 months | 8% | 8 | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 42 |
| 5 | HEC ParisJouy-en-Josas (Paris area) · 16 months | 8% | 19 | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 42 |
| 6 | IMDLausanne · 12 months | 7% | 6 | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 17 |
| 7 | Cambridge JudgeCambridge · 12 months | 5% | 11 | n/a | over 30 y | n/a | 0 |
Share: % of the graduating class (or of those who accepted a job) the school reports for this goal. About: that share applied to the class size. * no salary published for this goal: school-wide figure. Salaries in US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update; “average” marks a mean where the school publishes no median.
Placing graduates here but not ranked: Chicago Booth 0.4% (under 5%) · Columbia 2% (under 5%) · Duke Fuqua 0.4% (under 5%) · Harvard 1% (under 5%) · Kellogg 0.6% (under 5%) · Oxford Saïd 4% (under 5%) · Queen's Smith 2% (under 5%) · UCLA Anderson 0.6% (under 5%) · Warwick 2% (under 5%) · Wharton 1% (under 5%) · Yale SOM 0.5% (under 5%).
Built by Radif Partners · figures checked · Method · Editorial policy
Only 7 schools in our data place at least 5% of their class in the Middle East, and the share alone decides the order, since almost none publishes a salary for the region. INSEAD leads today with 18%, followed by IESE (11%) and LBS (11%). Read those shares with care: 5 of the 7 ranked schools, INSEAD, LBS, HEC Paris, IMD and Cambridge Judge, report the Middle East and Africa as a single line, so part of their figure is African jobs. The highest share for the Middle East on its own belongs to IESE, at 11%. Salary and payback appear only where a school publishes them, for a reference person earning $90,000 before the MBA; change the salary in the finder above to recompute them.
A short list, read line by line
The Middle East is a small line in nearly every employment report. 7 schools reach 5% of the class, and the ranking orders them on that share alone: almost no school gives a regional salary, and the few that do report it in pounds or euros for a handful of people. The table is therefore a list of the schools that send a measurable part of their class to the region, with the size of that part.
| # | School | Share placed there | Graduates, about | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Fit score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | INSEAD | 18% | n/a | not published | n/a | n/a | 100 |
| 2 | IESE | 11% | 41 | not published | n/a | n/a | 75 |
| 3 | LBS | 11% | 54 | $140,556 | 5.7 years | $55,940 | 75 |
| 4 | Alliance MBS | 8% | 8 | not published | n/a | n/a | 42 |
| 5 | HEC Paris | 8% | 19 | not published | n/a | n/a | 42 |
| 6 | IMD | 7% | 6 | not published | n/a | n/a | 17 |
| 7 | Cambridge Judge | 5% | 11 | not published | n/a | n/a | 0 |
The share is only as precise as the line behind it. Schools cut the world in their own way, and the label each school uses is what decides whether Africa is in the figure:
| School | Share | Line as the school labels it | Africa included |
|---|---|---|---|
| INSEAD | 18% | Africa/Middle East | yes |
| IESE | 11% | Middle East | no |
| LBS | 11% | Africa/Middle East | yes |
| Alliance MBS | 8% | Middle East | no |
| HEC Paris | 8% | Africa & Middle East | yes |
| IMD | 7% | Middle East & Africa | yes |
| Cambridge Judge | 5% | Middle East & N Africa | yes |
5 of the 7 ranked schools report a line that includes Africa or North Africa. IESE and Alliance MBS give the Middle East alone, which makes their share the cleaner figure. A merged share and a clean share of the same size do not mean the same thing for someone who wants to live in Dubai.
INSEAD: where the class went
Share of the class
50%
| Salary reported | $118,705 |
| Graduates, about | n/a |
| Payback with that salary | 6.4 years |
Reference person earning $90,000 before the MBA.
Why European schools fill the list
Every ranked school is in Europe or the United Kingdom. Two things explain it. The first is the class: international students make up on average 93% of the class at the ranked schools, against 36.6% at the American schools listed under the threshold, and a class drawn from many countries, the Gulf, the Levant and North Africa among them, sends some of its graduates back. The second is distance: Gulf capitals are a few hours' flight from London, Paris, Barcelona or Geneva, and recruiters from the region can visit European campuses in a day. Added together, the ranked schools placed about 139 graduates in the region on the lines they report, 54 of them from LBS, a small community in which alumni know each other.
For someone who wants to work in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh or Doha, that community matters more than the share. A school that sends twenty graduates a year to the region builds, over a decade, a network present in the sovereign funds, consulting offices and family groups that hire there.
Where the regional figures exist
LBS (£106,108) is the only ranked school that publishes a salary for the region, in the school's currency, again for a line that includes Africa. Gulf employers often pay salaries free of personal income tax, along with housing or schooling allowances, and the reports compare none of it: a base salary in Dubai and the same base in London are not the same income. For that reason the payback column means little for this region, and we leave salary out of the score.
Schools that send a few graduates
Oxford Saïd (4%), Columbia (2%), Queen's Smith (2%), Warwick (2%), Harvard (1%) and Wharton (1%), among others, report a Middle East line under 5% and are listed but not ranked. Oxford Saïd, Columbia, Harvard and Chicago Booth merge Africa into that line as well. Most of them are American schools, where a share of one or two percent means a few individual graduates, often people returning to their home country or to a family business.
What these reports cannot tell you
In the Gulf states, a work permit is usually tied to an employer that sponsors it, so the decisive question is whether the firms you target recruit at your school, not whether you may stay after graduation. Reports do not say how many graduates in the region were nationals returning home or sponsored employees going back to their company. Hiring there also follows public investment programs and energy prices, which move the share from one class to the next. Read the employer list on each school page, and compare the two or three schools that remain with the comparison tool.