Iscte Overtakes the Lisbon MBA as Portugal's Best-Placed Executive MBA in the Financial Times Ranking, Climbing to 55th

Portugal again has three executive MBA programmes among the world's 100 best in the Financial Times's annual ranking, but the order at the top has changed. The Executive MBA of Iscte Executive Education, in Lisbon, is now the best-placed Portuguese programme, at 55th in the world, up 26 places from 81st in 2025, according to the school and to the business newspaper ECO.

The Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova, the joint programme of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Nova SBE, fell from 61st to 71st. The Porto Business School's Executive MBA, which entered the ranking for the first time last year, climbed 13 places to 82nd.

The three programmes

• Iscte Executive Education (55th): the school says this is the programme's best result in four years, after 100th in 2023, 92nd in 2024 and 81st in 2025. It ranks fifth in the world on ESG, the FT's measure of how far ethics, social and environmental issues and the carbon transition are built into teaching, 22nd for its alumni network and 40th for the work experience of its participants. The school says its former participants earn the highest average salary of the three Portuguese programmes in the top 100, and that they give the programme an overall satisfaction score of 9.725 out of ten.
• The Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova (71st): its executive director, Maria José Amich, told ECO that despite the fall it remains the leading Portuguese executive MBA taught in English, and the most international: 34 percent of its students and 54 percent of its faculty are international. It ranks 68th in the FT's research rank and 12th on carbon footprint, the best of the Portuguese programmes on that measure, and all of its teaching staff hold doctorates. It has been in the top 100 every year since 2020.
• Porto Business School (82nd): the school says alumni satisfaction rose from 8.48 to 8.89 out of ten, and that it climbed from 90th to 63rd on career progress, which measures how far graduates move up in seniority and company size. Three years after finishing, its alumni report an average salary increase of 63 percent, the highest among the Portuguese schools and, the school notes, one point below INSEAD and Kellogg.

What the ranking measures

The Financial Times Executive MBA ranking lists the world's 100 best executive MBAs each year. It weighs salary growth, career progression, whether graduates met their goals, diversity, international reach, research, the teaching of ESG and the schools' carbon footprint. Much of the data comes from surveys of each programme's alumni, so a school's position can move sharply from one year to the next.

Executive MBAs are part-time programmes for managers who keep working while they study. For readers weighing one, the FT position is a starting point; the schools' own published fees, timetables and teaching language are what decide whether a programme fits. For immigrants who do not yet work in Portuguese, the language of teaching is the first thing to check: the Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova presents itself as the leading Portuguese executive MBA taught in English.

The results come as Portugal debates what its graduates get from their degrees. A recent study found that more than half of non-EU graduates in Portugal work in jobs below their qualifications.