IIM placements 2025: median salary and share of graduates placed, from official NIRF data

IIM placements 2025: median salary and share placed, institute by institute

Twenty-one IIMs are ranked in the top 100 of the NIRF 2025 Management page. The table follows NIRF rank, which is a rank among all management institutes, so the IIM ranks skip numbers. Graduating, placed, higher studies and median are copied from each institute's NIRF PDF; share placed is our division (placed ÷ graduating).

Every IIM is linked to its CareerBox page; the NIRF PDFs are listed under "Official sources". IIM Bodh Gaya's median is printed as ₹13,00,001 in its PDF (words: thirteen lakh one rupee), which we show as 13 lakh.

Which IIM has the highest median salary?

IIM Mumbai reports ₹33 lakh, with all 536 graduates placed. IIM Bangalore reports ₹32.5 lakh (517 of 517 placed) and IIM Ahmedabad ₹31 lakh. For Gujarat students, Ahmedabad is the one to read closely: 434 of 444 graduates placed (97.75%), 10 in higher studies. IIM Lucknow and IIM Calcutta both report ₹30 lakh, IIM Kozhikode ₹27 lakh, IIM Shillong ₹25.67 lakh and IIM Indore ₹25.5 lakh.

Below that top group the medians drop: IIM Rohtak ₹19.27 lakh, IIM Tiruchirappalli ₹18.1 lakh, IIM Ranchi and IIM Udaipur ₹18 lakh. At the other end, IIM Sirmaur reports ₹12.98 lakh, IIM Bodh Gaya ₹13 lakh and IIM Sambalpur ₹13.15 lakh.

A median is the middle value: at IIM Mumbai, half of the 536 placed graduates earn more than ₹33 lakh and half less.

Which IIM places the highest share of its graduates?

Eleven IIMs show every graduate placed: IIM Bangalore, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Lucknow, IIM Mumbai, IIM Calcutta, IIM Raipur, IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak, IIM Udaipur, IIM Jammu, IIM Shillong. The lowest shares are IIM Sambalpur (90.10%, 173 of 192), IIM Visakhapatnam (95.51%, 255 of 267) and IIM Kashipur (96.86%, 308 of 318).

The causes differ. At Sambalpur, 19 of 192 graduates went to higher studies. At Kashipur and Visakhapatnam almost nobody did (0 and 1), so 10 and 11 graduates are in neither column.

Why "share placed" is not always the "100% placement" you see elsewhere

Three plain reasons, all visible in the NIRF table itself.

1. Higher studies are counted as graduates. NIRF asks each institute for the number of students graduating, the number placed, and the number selected for higher studies. A graduate who joins a doctoral programme is not "placed", but is still a graduate. Divide placed by graduating and that student lowers the share.

2. A "100% placed" line can use a smaller base. If you remove the higher-studies students from the denominator, the share rises. This is our arithmetic, not a NIRF figure:

At IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Sambalpur and IIM Nagpur, every graduate who did not go for higher studies was placed. That is how a "100% placed" line can be true on its own terms and still sit beside 97.75% (IIM Ahmedabad) in the NIRF table. IIM Kashipur and IIM Visakhapatnam show the opposite: removing the higher-studies students barely changes the share, so the gap is real.

3. NIRF counts graduates, not the admitted batch. The count is of students who graduated in the minimum stipulated time. A figure built on another base, such as students who registered for placement, will not match the NIRF share.

Neither figure is wrong. For a candidate asking "what happens to a graduate here", the NIRF share, with the higher-studies column, is the more complete answer.

IIMs vs IITs and NITs: how the NIRF numbers compare

We read the same table for the IITs and NITs. See our IIT placements article and NIT placements article.

The share placed is far higher at the IIMs, and the higher-studies share far lower. Part of the reason is the programme: an MBA or PGP is a 2-year professional degree taken after a bachelor's, and most graduates go straight to jobs. The groups were also chosen differently (a rank cut-off for IITs, all ranked NITs, all ranked IIMs). This is not a ranking of IIMs against IITs or NITs.

The 5-year integrated programme (IPM)

We looked for a 5-year integrated programme in every PDF. Only IIM Ranchi lists one (sanctioned intake 60 in 2023-24). Its placement rows are all zero, because no integrated batch had graduated yet:

The other 20 PDFs carry no integrated placement table, so NIRF 2025 has no integrated-programme placement figures to report.

The route in: CAT 2026

The 2-year MBA/PGP at the IIMs is entered through the Common Admission Test. CAT 2026 is on Sunday, 29 November 2026, in three sessions, and IIM Indore is running it this year. Registration for CAT 2026 closed on 22 September 2026, so this exam is for candidates who already registered. Anyone who missed it is looking at CAT 2027.

Eligibility is a bachelor's degree with 50% (45% for SC, ST and PwBD), and final-year students can apply. The IIMs shortlist on percentiles: IIM Ahmedabad's PGP 2027-29 policy, for example, asks General and EWS candidates for at least the 95th percentile overall and the 85th in each section. The result is expected in the first week of January 2027.

Dates, pattern, fee and cut-off details are in our CAT 2026 guide and on the CAT exam page. The official site is iimcat.ac.in.

How to read the NIRF table yourself

1. Open the NIRF 2025 Management ranking page and click the institute's "More Details" link to get its data PDF.
2. Scroll to "Placement & Higher Studies" and find the heading "PG [2 Years Program(s)]: Placement & higher studies for previous 3 years".
3. Pick the row whose graduating year is 2023-24. The admission year printed in the first column belongs to the batch that joined two years earlier (2022-23).
4. Read four columns: students graduating in minimum stipulated time, students placed, median salary of placed graduates per annum (in rupees), and students selected for higher studies.
5. Divide placed by graduating. Then add placed and higher studies to see how much of the batch is accounted for.

What these figures do not tell you

• They are submitted by the institutes. NIRF publishes the data each institute provides in its own PDF. We did not audit them.
• One batch only. This is graduating year 2023-24. The same PDFs carry 2021-22 and 2022-23, and a single year can swing, especially at the smaller campuses such as IIM Rohtak (227 graduates) and IIM Sambalpur (192).
• No specialisation split. One median covers the whole programme, so we cannot give finance, consulting or marketing figures from it.
• Median is not average, and not the top offer. It covers only placed graduates.
• Only the ranked IIMs. The 21 IIMs here are those on the NIRF 2025 Management page. No IIM appears on the rank-band pages (101 to 150, 151 to 200), so we have no figures for any other IIM.
• Not a ranking by placement. Do not choose between two IIMs on one column. Look at share placed, higher studies and median together, and at the fee.