Technology has consistently ranked among the top three post-MBA destinations. But the pandemic-era hiring boom led to a sharp correction, with widespread layoffs and hiring slowdown. Now, AI is transforming the technology workforce once again, reducing demand for some roles while also creating new opportunities.
So, is tech hiring back for MBAs in 2026?
Our analysis of three years of MBA employment data across the top US MBA programs shows that technology hiring rebounded across many leading business schools, with AI simultaneously changing the types of technology jobs available to MBA graduates.
MBA Tech Jobs in 2026: Hiring Trends Across Top Business Schools
We compared technology-industry placement data from the employment reports of leading U.S. business schools for the graduating MBA class of 2023, 2024 and 2025. The data shows that there was a decline in technology recruiting between 2023 and 2024 across several schools; but 2025 marked a strong recovery and saw several leading business schools bouncing back. But the pattern was not uniform across schools.
Bay Area programs like Stanford GSB and Berkeley Haas saw the steepest rebound, with technology hiring rising by around 13 percentage-points, over the previous year. This resurgence was on account of venture funding of $90 billion invested in companies across the San Francisco Bay Area, driven by the AI boom, according to Crunchbase. Local students who had the geographical and networking advantage were able to tap into the available opportunities.
Other schools including MIT Sloan, Duke Fuqua, NYU Stern, UCLA Anderson recorded a 4-6% increase in technology placements, while at UVA Darden, the numbers almost doubled.
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Schools that saw a slight decline of 2 percentage-points or less in technology placements included Yale, Chicago Booth, Michigan Ross and Northwestern Kellogg.
Programs renowned for tech placements – CMU Tepper and Washington Foster maintained robust technology hiring through 2023 and 2024, (even increasing their tech share in 2024). Washigton Foster needs a special mention as it saw its technology placements go up from 39% in 2023 to 46.9% in 2024, during a period when most of the other schools were seeing a decline in their tech placements.
However, both CMU Tepper and Washington Foster saw a drop in tech placements in 2025 compared with the previous year. Kellogg followed a similar pattern. The school saw its technology placement share increase by 3 percentage-points in 2024, before dropping slightly by 1 percentage-point in 2025.
MBA Tech Jobs in 2026: What Three Years of Employment Data Shows
The technology industry has always been one of the top career choices for MBA graduates. But technology hiring changed considerably during the pandemic. During 2020 as well as 2021, there was a surge in technology hiring as demand for digital products and services went up. But as the demand normalized, companies began reducing their workforce. This sector went through a steep correction, marked by mass layoffs and significant hiring cuts.
More recently, layoffs have increasingly been driven by AI-led restructuring, a slower market growth, as well as cost-cutting by companies. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. employers have cited AI as a reason for 184,538 announced job cuts since 2023, including 112,713 in the first seven months of 2026.
“Hiring has also increased over last year by 25%, so while AI is shifting the labor market, it is not dismantling it,” says Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
MBA employment reports provide a useful way to understand whether technology recruiting is actually recovering.
MBA Technology Hiring by Business School
| Business School | Class of 2023 | Class of 2024 | Class of 2025 | Median tech base salary |
| Stanford GSB | 24% | 22% | 35% | $185,000 |
| Berkeley Haas | 29.8% | 25% | 38.6% | $159,000 |
| Harvard Business School | 16% | 16% | 22% | $178,000 |
| Wharton | 17.2% | 14.1% | 15.3% | $164,250 |
| MIT Sloan | 24.1% | 19% | 23.3% | $165,000 |
| Duke Fuqua | 17% | 12% | 15.6% | $144,000 |
| NYU Stern | 14.2% | 9.1% | 14.2% | $152,500 |
| UCLA Anderson | 25.8% | 23.4% | 28.3% | $147,000 |
| UVA Darden | 10.5% | 8.8% | 16.1% | $142,800 |
| Northwestern Kellogg | 17% | 20% | 19% | $151,500 |
| Chicago Booth | 15.5% | 14.8% | 14.1% | $151,000 |
| Cornell Johnson | 11% | 11% | 11% | $133,700 |
| Yale | 10% | 9.6% | 8.3% | $124,950 |
| Dartmouth Tuck | 14% | 10% | 13% | $145,000 |
| Michigan Ross | 15.5% | 15.1% | 13.1% | $143,000 |
| Columbia Business School | 10.8% | 10% | 10.2% | – |
| CMU Tepper | 28.6% | 28.7% | 25.1% | – |
| Washington Foster | 39% | 46.9% | 40.5% | $142,800 |
Note: Data compiled from official school employment reports
Schools like Stanford GSB and Berkeley Haas were among the top schools to recover. Stanford GSB’s Class of 2025 reported the highest median base salary in tech, at $185,000 followed closely by Harvard Business School at $178,000. At 40.5 %, Washington Foster sent the highest share of graduates into technology, followed by Berkeley Haas at 38.6% and Stanford GSB at 35%.
Key Trends Shaping Post-MBA Tech Hiring
1. Bay Area Business Schools Lead the Rebound
Stanford GSB
Technology emerged as Stanford GSB’s top industry, at 35%, surpassing finance at 33%. The Class of 2025 recorded one of Stanford GSB’s highest technology placement rates in more than a decade. Again, 16% of the class pursued entrepreneurship, with 42% of them launching technology-related ventures.
Berkeley Haas
Another notable top school was Berkeley Haas School of Business where the tech sector saw a rebound driven by the expansion of AI, with 38.6% being hired from the 2025 class, a 13.6% percentage-points jump from the previous year which saw 25% being hired into tech. Top employers included Amazon + AWS, Adobe, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Nvidia, Google, and Wells Fargo.
2. AI Is Reshaping MBA Technology Jobs
Nearly one-third of all global venture capital went to AI-related companies, making AI the leading sector for investment. Funding to AI companies surpassed $100 billion, an increase of more than 80% year over year from $55.6 billion raised in 2023, according to Crunchbase data.
At Stanford, enterprise technology alone accounted for 19% of Stanford hires (up from 9% in 2024), driven primarily by hiring in AI-related organizations with roles in product management, go-to-market, customer success, and sales. Similarly, at Berkeley Haas, AI was the key factor responsible for the tech sector hiring surge.
3. Technology Hiring Gains Momentum Across Top MBA Programs, Extending from Big Tech to Startups
At UVA Darden, the number of students entering tech nearly doubled, from 26 students in the Class of 2024 to 47 students in the Class of 2025 with top hiring companies including Amazon, Dell, Google, Mastercard, Microsoft, Walmart, Emerson and GoFundMe.
Harvard saw a 6 percentage-points rise in tech hiring at 22%, compared to the previous 2 years at 16%. Of the 17% of MBA graduates joining a start-up, 70% were in the technology industry.
In spite of a decline in tech placement share this year (compared to last year), Washington Foster has consistently had one of the highest placement rates in technology, due to its location in Seattle, a major tech hub. The school saw top recruiters including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce as well as Blue Origin.
Duke Fuqua School of Business also saw a rise in tech placements compared with the year before; in addition to leading employers like Amazon, Apple, Intuit, Meta, Microsoft, Dell, graduates were interested in smaller technology companies and innovative start-ups as well. Students landed roles in product management, strategy, and operations.
At NYU Stern, top tech employers included Apple, Facebook, Verizon, Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn, Salesforce and Visa. At MIT Sloan, the top recruiter was Amazon, others included Verizon, Apple, Microsoft and IBM. So also at UCLA Anderson, Amazon was the biggest recruiter; other hiring companies included Adobe Systems, Apple, Google and Microsoft.
4. Strong Tech Hiring Seen Across Top Schools in Europe and Asia
Technology hiring remained robust across leading business schools in Europe and Asia.
MBA Technology Jobs in Europe
Cambridge Judge Business School reported that 1/3rd (33%) of graduates who took jobs in industry were working in technology. Cambridge Judge is another school that benefits from its location in the heart of one of Europe biggest tech clusters and an innovation hub – the ‘Silicon Fen’.
Among other European schools, HEC Paris and London Business School (LBS) had around a quarter of their 2025 graduates entering technology, at 27% and 24%, respectively, whereas INSEAD had 18% of its graduates entering Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT). In fact, HEC Paris saw a notable rise (11 percentage point) in the share of class entering the technology industry which was at 16% in 2024, whereas LBS also saw a slight rise from 21% to 24%.
At LBS, top employers in technology were Amazon, Google, Mastercard, Meta and Revolut. At HEC Paris, top tech recruiters included Amazon, Impossible Cloud, HCL Tech, Microsoft, Google and Uber.
MBA Technology Jobs in Asia
CEIBS, a top-ranked business school based in China, saw 31.9% hiring in the technology industry, a significant rise from 18.5% in 2024.
Among Indian schools, the top schools stood out – India’s leading business school, Indian School of Business (ISB) saw 28% of its class entering the technology industry. The technology segment saw offers from companies such as Amazon, Browserstack, Genpact, Google, IBM, InMobi, Razorpay and Uber.
At IIM Ahmedabad MBA-PGPX, of the 134 accepted offers, 48 offers were in IT consulting and IT services which makes it more than 1/3rd (35.8%) of the class taking jobs in this sector. In the enterprise tech and artificial intelligence cohorts, companies that made offers included Adobe, Cisco, Deskera, Newgen Software Technologies Limited, BrowserStack, HiLabs, Lyric, Microsoft and Teradata among others.
At IIM Bangalore EPGP, 31% of the MBA graduates got into IT Technology/Products with tech recruiting companies including Cognizant, IBS Software, Accenture Tech Consulting, Persistent, Nagarro, Grid Dynamics, Genpact, Amadeus, CGI among others.
Since detailed historical employment data is not consistently available across several European and Asian business schools, we could not conduct a three-year analysis of technology hiring across leading MBA programs in these regions.
Key Takeaways: MBA Technology Hiring Is Recovering
- Tech hiring is recovering across several top US MBA programs. After a slowdown in 2024, technology hiring rebounded in 2025, with Stanford GSB and Berkeley Haas recording the strongest gains
- AI hubs are leading the rebound. Stanford and Berkeley, due to their Bay Area location, saw their technology placement surge, highlighting locational advantage
- The recovery in technology sector is not uniform. Some MBA programs saw a slight decline in tech recruiting
- Technology MBA salaries remain attractive, with median base salaries reaching $185,000 at Stanford and $159,000 at Berkeley Haas
- AI has changed both the volume and nature of technology hiring for MBAs. While AI-led restructuring had contributed to layoffs and reduced demand for some traditional technology roles, the expansion of AI is creating new opportunities
- The Bay Area isn’t the only tech hiring hub. Seattle, Cambridge (UK) and other technology ecosystems continue to support strong MBA technology recruiting, with geography and proximity remaining an important advantage.
References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 | Image: Tim Gouw (Pexels)
