Berkeley Haas MBAs Got A Big Boost In Pay & Bigger Bonuses In 2023

Haas School of Business MBAs saw their average total compensation grow nearly 5% in 2023. Noah Berger photo

By now it has become routine to describe the decline in job offers and acceptances at major U.S. business schools in 2023. The fact is: Every B-school that produces an employment report saw its offers and acceptances by three months after graduation decline. And that was indeed the case at the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

But the Haas School’s MBA Class of 2023 employment report, released Tuesday (December 5), contains enough good news for the premier public business school in the United States to offset that placement downturn — and then some. Average base salary for MBAs in the most recent graduating class grew from $153K to $162,831, and median base salary grew from $155K to $166,650. Average signing bonus grew from $33,418 to $36,777.

Add it all up and adjust for the percentage of grads reporting a bonus (69.4%) and you have a total compensation average of $188,354 — 4.8% higher than last year’s total of $179,696. That’s an even higher rate of growth than the Class of 2022 enjoyed — 3.7% — when it reported average total pay that climbed from $173,351 in 2021.

OFFERS & ACCEPTANCES DECLINE BUT MATCH 2021 NUMBERS

Haas's downturn in placement rates for its MBAs comes amid a tightening job market and economic forces outside the school's career office's control. But unlike some of its peer schools, Haas's decline in job offers and acceptances three months after graduation was not dramatic.

• In 2021, out of 239 graduates looking for jobs in a class of 283, 215 got offers by 90 days after graduation, and 211 accepted, for an 89.9% offer rate and an 88.3% acceptance rate.
• In 2022, out of 275 Haas MBAs looking for jobs in a class of 320, 258 received offers and 255 accepted, for a 93.8% offer rate and a 92.8% acceptance rate.
• In 2023, out of 257 grads looking for jobs in a class of 294, 231 received offers and 228 accepted, for an 89.9% offer rate and an 88.7% acceptance rate — almost mirroring the offer and accept rates from 2021.

CONSULTING MEDIAN SALARY LEADS ALL: $192K

In 2022, median consulting base salary grew to $175,000, up 6.1% from 2021, while tech grew to median $151,000, up 4.9%. Finance grads earned a median $140,000, down $10K or 6.7%. High base salary was $215,000, reported by someone in "Other," while grads in four different industries reported a median base salary of $200K: tech, real estate, consumer products, and healthcare. The lowest median base salaries were reported in "Other" ($65K), finance ($80K), and consumer products ($83K). Eighteen percent of Haas grads reported their jobs have a social impact component, and 14% went to work for startups.

This year, consulting was up again to $192K, an increase of 9.7%, while tech grew to $157,100, up 4%. Finance grads earned a median $167,300, rebounding from last year's loss and eclipsing even the 2021 median of $150K. High base salary in 2023 was someone in investment management who went to work in Los Angeles: $240K. Unlike last year, no industry had a median salary of $200K; the lowest median salary was $130K in both consumer packaged goods and real estate. Nearly 22% of grads reported jobs with a social component, and 12.7% went to work for startups.

It's been an interesting couple of years for those working in health care. In 2021, the sector declined to 6.6% of the class from 11.6% the year before, even as salaries stayed at a median of $135K. In 2022, the slide continued, to 5.1%, but the median salary jumped to $152,500. This year the sector rebounded somewhat to 7.5%, but median salary declined to $150K. As Abby Scott, Haas assistant dean for MBA career management and corporate partnerships, told P&Q in 2021, 2020 was an outlier year when Haas grads were "probably driven by a desire to help bring strategic thinking to the fight against the pandemic," and in any given year Haas should be expected to send about 6% of its MBA class into health care.

UC-BERKELEY HAAS MBA JOBS BY INDUSTRY 2013-2023

VERY STABLE PAY FOR HAAS INTERNS

Geographically, most Haas MBAs stayed in the West of the U.S. (75.4%, down from 80.2% in 2022), which the school helpfully breaks down into subregions: 6.6% in the East Bay, 7% in Los Angeles, 3.5% in Seattle, 18.9% in the South Bay, and the lion’s share, 38.6%, in San Francisco. Another 9.2% relocate to the Northeast, up from 7.1% last year, and 2.2% take jobs based in Asia.

Top employers — those who hired three Haas MBAs or more — once again include Amazon, Deloitte, Bain, EY-Parthenon, Boston Consulting Group, and Cisco Systems.

The internship landscape was remarkably stable from last year to this. For Class of 2023 interns last summer, the average monthly salary was about $9,600 (median about $9,400). Most — 27.6% — did tech internships, followed by consulting (19.8%) and finance (19%). Those in consulting averaged the most salary, $13,890; those in nonprofit the least, $4,396. For Class of 2024 interns this summer, average and median monthly salary were about the same ($9,616 and $9,360, respectively); most again worked in tech (27%), again followed by consulting (19.7%) and finance (18.9%), and 10.7% went into the health care/pharma/biotech sector, up from 9.7%. Consulting interns made the most, averaging $13,916 a week, and nonprofit interns made the least: $5,874.

DON'T MISS YALE MBAs JOINED THE $200K PAY CLUB IN 2023 and 2023 JOBS REPORT SHOWS THAT STANFORD MBAs ARE STILL THE BEST-PAID IN THE WORLD