FT Executive Education Ranking 2024: methodology and key

This is the 25th edition of the Financial Times rankings of the world’s leading providers of customised and open-enrolment executive education programmes.

The custom programme ranking features the top 90 business schools. Custom courses are tailored to the training needs of the organisations that commission them.

The second ranking includes the top 80 schools offering open-enrolment courses — those on specific topics, such as leadership, directed towards professionals regardless of their employer. 

Participating schools must be accredited by either AACSB or Equis, or have an affiliation with an AACSB/Equis accredited organisation. They must also have earned revenues of at least $1mn in 2023 from either custom or open-enrolment non-degree programmes in order to participate in the relevant ranking. This year, a total of 114 schools took part in either or both of the tables.

Custom programme ranking

The ranking of customised course providers is compiled using data from the business schools and their corporate clients in 2023. Each school must have a minimum of 10 clients who have commissioned programmes from them. At least five clients per school must complete the FT survey for a course provider to be eligible for the final ranking.

Executive Education Rankings 2024

Read the rankings of custom and open-enrolment programmes

We received 949 completed client surveys this year — a response rate of about 60 per cent. A minority of clients completed the survey more than once in cases where they had commissioned more than one programme from different schools.

Each client rated their programme on a 10-point scale according to a range of indicators. Their answers are used to calculate the first nine ranking criteria — from “preparation’ to “future use”. In total, client responses account for 80 per cent of the table weight.

Responses are weighted according to the seniority of the individual responsible for specifying the course, the size of the client organisation and the number of schools with which that client has commissioned customised courses in the past three years.

The last five criteria are calculated from information provided by schools on international clients, overseas programmes, growth, partner schools and faculty diversity.

Open-enrolment programme ranking

The open-enrolment ranking is compiled using data from course providers and individuals who completed their nominated management programmes in 2023. Schools submit one or two general courses of at least three days in length and one or two advanced courses lasting a minimum of five days. At least 20 per cent of these programmes’ participants must complete the FT survey, with a minimum of 20 completed surveys, for a school to be considered in the ranking.

This year’s open programme survey was completed by 4,997 participants, — a response rate of about 35 per cent — rating elements of their course on a 10-point scale. A minority of those responded to the survey more than once in cases where they completed two programmes or more. Responses by advanced and general-level participants are combined to calculate the first eight ranking criteria.

These criteria, which include the quality of the participants, teaching and relevance of the skills they gained, inform 80 per cent of the ranking. School data is used to calculate the remaining criteria on female and international participants, growth, international location, partner schools and faculty diversity.

Weighting

For each table, information collected in the preceding two years is used, if available, to calculate criteria informed by client and participant responses (depending on the ranking). If a school has participated for the past three years, the weighting is 40:33:27, with 40 per cent for 2024, 33 per cent for 2023 and 27 per cent for 2022. If only two years of data are available, the weighting is split 55:45 for 2024 and 2023 respectively, or 60:40 for 2024 and 2022 respectively.

The weightings accorded to the first eight criteria in the customised and open rankings are determined by the level of importance clients and participants attach to each in their surveys for the 2024 ranking. Weightings for these criteria therefore vary slightly from year to year, although “future use”, the ninth criterion in the custom ranking, is always set at eight per cent.

Judith Pizer of Pizer-MacMillan and Avner Cohen of AC Data Science acted as the FT’s database consultants.

Ranking keys

Custom programme key

(Weights for ranking criteria in brackets as a percentage of overall ranking)

The first nine criteria, including “future use”, are based on data from companies and organisations that commissioned executive courses. The next five are based on data from business schools. Schools are ranked for each of these criteria. The last categories, “total responses” and “overall satisfaction”, are for information only and are not used in the ranking calculation. Figures in brackets below show the weight each criterion contributes to the overall ranking. Client responses account for 80 per cent of the table weight. The weighting accorded to the first eight criteria, from “preparation” to “value for money”, accounts for 72 per cent of the table’s weight, determined by the level of importance that clients attach to each category. Future use is set at eight per cent.

Preparation (9.2): level of interaction between client and school, the extent to which clients’ ideas were integrated into the programme and the effectiveness of the school in incorporating its latest research into teaching.

Programme design (9.3): flexibility of the course and willingness of schools to complement their faculty with external experts.

Teaching methods and materials (9.0): extent to which teaching methods and materials were contemporary and appropriate, and included a suitable mix of academic rigour and practical relevance.

Faculty (9.2): quality of teaching and the extent to which teaching staff worked together to present a coherent programme.

New skills and learning (9.3): relevance of skills gained to the workplace, the ease with which they were implemented and the extent to which the course encouraged new ways of thinking.

Follow-up (7.8): extent and effectiveness of follow-up offered after course participants returned to their workplace.

Aims achieved (9.4): extent to which academic and business expectations were met and the quality of feedback from individual participants to course commissioners.

Value for money (8.9): clients’ rating of the value for money of the programme’s design, teaching and materials.

Future use (8.0): likelihood that clients would reuse the same school for other customised programmes in the future and whether they would recommission the same programme.

International clients (5.0): based on the percentage of clients with headquarters outside the business school’s base country and region.

Overseas programmes (2.0): international reach of the school’s customised programme teaching.

Growth (5.0): based on the overall growth in revenues from customised programmes as well as growth in revenues from repeat business.

Partner schools (3.0): quantity and quality of programmes developed or taught in conjunction with other Equis- or AACSB-accredited business schools.

Faculty diversity (5.0): diversity of school faculty according to citizenship and gender.

Total responses: number of individual surveys completed by the school’s clients. Figures in brackets indicate the number of years of survey data counted towards the ranking. The first figure refers to the number of individual surveys completed by clients of the business school. The figure in brackets indicates the total number of years of survey data included in this ranking. Data are retained for those schools that participated in the last two rankings but were not ranked in either or both.

Overall satisfaction: average evaluation by clients of the course, surveyed this year, scored out of 10. After clients answered various questions about their course experience, they were asked to rate their overall satisfaction, on a 10-point scale. This figure is not used in the ranking.

Open-enrolment programme key

(Weights for ranking criteria in brackets as a percentage of overall ranking)

The first eight criteria are based on data from programme participants; the next six are based on data submitted by the business schools. Figures in brackets show the weight each criterion contributes to the overall ranking. The weighting accorded to the first eight criteria, from preparation to aims achieved, accounts for 80 per cent of the total ranking’s weight. It is determined by the level of importance that participants attach to each category.

Preparation (9.5): provision of advance information on programme content and the participant selection process.

Course design (10.3): flexibility of the course and appropriateness of class size, structure and design.

Teaching methods and materials (10.1): extent to which teaching methods and materials were contemporary and appropriate, and included a suitable mix of academic rigour and practical relevance.

Faculty (10.5): quality of teaching and the extent to which teaching staff worked together to present a coherent programme.

Quality of participants (9.7): the extent to which other programme participants were of the appropriate managerial and academic standard, the international diversity of participants and the quality of interaction among peers.

New skills and learning (10.6): relevance of skills gained to the workplace, the ease with which they were implemented, and the extent to which the course encouraged new ways of thinking.

Follow-up (9.0): level of follow-up offered after participants returned to their workplace, and networking opportunities with fellow participants.

Aims achieved (10.3): extent to which personal and professional expectations were met, and the likelihood that participants would recommend the programme.

Female participants (2.0): percentage of female course participants. Schools with a 50:50 (male/female) composition receive the highest score.

International participants (3.0): based on the percentage of participants from outside the business school’s base country and region.

International location (2.0): extent to which programmes are run outside the school’s base country and region.

Growth (5.0): based on the overall growth in revenues from open programmes, as well as the growth in revenues from repeat business.

Partner schools (3.0): quantity and quality of programmes taught in conjunction with other Equis- or AACSB-accredited business schools.

Faculty diversity (5.0): diversity of school faculty according to citizenship and gender.

Overall satisfaction: average evaluation by participants of the course, surveyed this year, scored out of 10. After participants answered questions about aspects of their course experience, they were asked to rate their overall satisfaction, on a 10-point scale. This figure is not used in the ranking.

Footnotes

In the Open table, all categories show rank numbers except “Female participants (%)”, which shows the percentage.