EMBA programmes must meet certain criteria to be eligible for The FT Executive MBA Ranking – they must be accredited by either the US’s Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) or Europe’s EQUIS. The ranking consists of the following 16 indicators:

Salary today (20%) - Average salary three years after graduation.

Salary increase (20%) - Average difference in salary between before the EMBA and now. Half of this figure is calculated according to the absolute salary increase and half according to the percentage increase relative to pre-EMBA salary.

Career progress (5%) - Calculated according to changes in the level of seniority and the size of company alumni work in now, versus before their EMBA.

Work experience (5%) - A measure of pre-EMBA experience according to the seniority of positions held, number of years in each position, company size and overseas work experience.

Aims achieved (5%) - The extent to which alumni fulfilled their goals or reasons for doing an EMBA.

Female faculty (4%) - Percentage of female faculty.

Female students (4%) - Percentage of female students on the program.

Women on board (1%) - Percentage of female members of the advisory board.

International faculty (5%) - Calculated according to the diversity of faculty by citizenship and the percentage whose citizenship differs from their country of employment.

International students (5%) - The percentage of current EMBA students whose citizenship and country of residence differs from the country in which they study, as well as their diversity by citizenship.

International board (2%) - Percentage of the board whose citizenship differs from the country in which the business school is situated.

International course experience (5%) - Percentage of classroom teaching hours that are conducted outside the country in which the business school is situated.

Extra languages (1%) - Number of extra languages required to be learnt during the programme   (programme not fully available in English).

Faculty with doctorates (5%) - Percentage of full-time faculty with a doctoral degree.

FT research rank (10%) - Calculated according to the number of articles published by a school’s current full-time faculty members in 50 academic and practitioner journals between January 2017 and May 2020. The rank combines the absolute number of publications with the number weighted relative to the faculty’s size.

Corporate social responsibility rank (3%) -  Proportion of core courses dedicated to CSR, ethics, social and environmental issues.

For all gender-related criteria, schools with a 50:50 (male/female) composition receive the highest score.