One of the advantages of top-tier MBA degrees is their portability – candidates from top schools often have the opportunity to work in any city they want. For certain industries such as automobile manufacturing, a location like Detroit is synonymous with the industry and is regarded as “the place to be” in terms of career growth. But what if there was a way to analyze what U.S. cities have to offer MBA students?
Utilizing data provided by MBAs across the nation, we are able to analyze metrics such as average compensation, the most common functional roles and industries, and the companies that hire a large number of MBAs in any major city in the United States. Eleventh up in our analysis: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(This entry is part of a series exploring such measures for various cities. You can find our other entries in the series here: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and New York.)
According to the sources Bungalow, Numbeo, and Apartment List, the average cost of living in Philadelphia is approximately $2800/month, with the median rent of a one-bedroom being $1700/month. In terms of the average post-MBA salary in this city, the data indicates it is around $110,629 while the average post-MBA compensation is $150,633.
City ranks for three separate measures out of a total of 55 evaluated cities
When looking at the top ten industries of MBAs living in this city, Consulting leads the pack by a large margin with 18.7% of MBAs belonging to this industry, followed by Pharma, Medical Devices, & Biotech with 13.8%. Consumer Products and Investment Management share third place with 9.5% each while Insurance trails after with 6.9%. Diversified Financial Services and Technology, Internet, & Ecommerce tie for fifth place with 6.0% each. This leaves Computer Services & Information Technology (4.3%); Hospitals, Medicine, & Healthcare Services (3.4%); and Manufacturing (3.4%) finishing off the list. Our other category, which constituted almost one quarter of our data, included industries such as Commercial Banking; Chemicals & Plastics; and Construction, Repair, & Maintenance.
Now that it has been established what the popular industries for business students in Philadelphia are, let’s take a look at the functions they are hired for. Consulting comes in first again with 22.4%, followed by Marketing with 15.5% and Corporate Finance with 9.5%. General Management and Information Technology share the fourth position, tying with 7.8%. Business Development, Corporate Strategy, Investment Management, and Operations all tie for the next position with 4.3% each. Product Management rounds out the list with 3.4% while the Other category encapsulates 16.4%.
You may be wondering which employers are hiring for these MBA functions. According to the data, the top 5 employers are The Vanguard Group (8.6%), Deloitte Consulting (6.9%), Johnson & Johnson (6.0%), Accenture (3.4%), and Campbell Soup Company (3.4%).
However, when specifically looking at the top employers for the Consulting Industry, Deloitte Consulting has 36.4%, Accenture has 18.2%, and ZS Associates has 13.6% of all the MBAs in our dataset from this industry living in Philadelphia. Trailing behind them is the Boston Consulting Group with 9.1% and AC Lordi with 4.5%. In contrast, Pharma, Medical Devices, & Biotech—the next most common industry— has its top employers as Johnson & Johnson with 37.5%, HVH Precision Analytics and Merck with 12.5% each, and GlaxoSmithKline and Integra Lifesciences with 6.3% each. Likewise, Consumer Products has a different set of top employers with the Campbell Soup Company having 36.4%, the Hershey Company having 27.3%, and Chewy, Church & Dwight, and Johnson & Johnson tying for third place with 9.1% each.
The last question asked was which business schools have the most alumni working in this city. Unsurprisingly, the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania) comes in first with the alumni making up 8.6% of the data. The New York University Stern School of Business comes in second, making up 18.8%. This is followed by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with 7.8%, Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management with 5.2%, and the University of North Carolina Kenan–Flagler Business School with 5.2%.
MBAs in Philadelphia – City Guide:
Are you interested in learning more about MBAs in other US cities? Continue checking out the RelishCareers Blog, where we will continue posting information about popular cities for business students. Candidates can also sign up for an account through RelishCareers and registrants will be informed of all upcoming blog posts through email.