IIM Lucknow’s 2024-26 graduating batch recorded an average package of ₹33.2 lakh per annum and a median of ₹32.9 lakh, against more than 580 offers from over 200 domestic and international recruiters. Consulting firms took the largest single share of that hiring, and the recruiter list reported for the batch includes Accenture, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, EY-Parthenon, Kearney, McKinsey & Company, PwC and Alvarez & Marsal. Finance, technology and consumer employers accounted for most of the remainder, among them Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, American Express, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Procter & Gamble, Aditya Birla Group and Tata Administrative Services. The highest domestic package reported for that batch was ₹1 crore per annum and the highest international offer was ₹65 lakh.
Those outcomes are produced by a fairly rigid two-year structure with a narrow window for specialisation, set by the second-year elective package, the compulsory summer internship, and a first-year core that leaves no room for choice at all.
Placement Outcomes and the Recent Trend
IIM Lucknow publishes final and summer placement reports on its own website, which makes year-on-year comparison possible without relying on secondary aggregators. The 2024-26 cycle covered the 40th batch of the flagship programme and the 21st batch of the agribusiness programme, with 559 students placed. The averages reported across recent batches are below. Note that these are cost-to-company figures, not take-home pay, and that the composition of each batch changes.
| Graduating batch | Reported average CTC |
|---|---|
| 2023 | ₹32.2 LPA |
| 2024 | ₹30.0 LPA |
| 2025 | ₹32.3 LPA |
| 2026 | ₹33.2 LPA |
The 2023-25 batch, placed a year earlier, saw 604 offers made to a batch of 583 students across the flagship programme and the agribusiness programme, with over 180 recruiters participating. Its average was ₹32.3 lakh, its median ₹31 lakh, and its highest domestic offer ₹75 lakh, so the jump to a ₹1 crore top offer in the following year came from a single outlier and not from a general shift in the distribution.
Domain-wise reporting from the 2024-26 final placement report puts consulting at roughly 38 to 39% of offers, well ahead of every other function. The domain averages reported for that batch:
| Domain | Average CTC |
|---|---|
| Consulting | ₹36.9 LPA |
| Finance | ₹34.8 LPA |
| Product, Technology & Analytics | ₹33.2 LPA |
| General Management | ₹30.9 LPA |
| Operations | ₹30.1 LPA |
| Sales & Marketing | ₹28.5 LPA |
The gap between the highest and lowest domain averages is under ₹9 lakh. The ₹1 crore offer sat in the finance domain, where the domain average was ₹34.8 lakh.
Second Year: Two Integrative Courses and Roughly Fifteen Electives
The second year sets functional direction, and it is short. It runs across three terms (Terms IV, V and VI) and contains only two compulsory courses, both described by the institute as integrative in nature. Everything else is a package of about fifteen elective courses of an advanced and applied character.
The institute presents that elective package as the specialisation route, unlike institutes that build separate cohorts around named MBA specialisations — the programme does not attach a named major to the degree. No formal specialisation is conferred — a student who takes eight finance electives graduates with the same MBA as one who takes eight marketing electives. Concentration is signalled to recruiters through the elective transcript, the summer internship and prior work experience.
Electives are grouped by area: Marketing, Finance and Accounting, Strategic Management, Human Resource Management, Operations Management, IT and Systems, Business Environment, Communication, Decision Sciences, and General Management. Course titles listed by the institute include Advanced Marketing Research, Brand Management and Corporate Valuation and Restructuring in Term IV; Business to Business Marketing, Behavioral Finance and Strategic Human Resource Management in Term V; and Political Marketing, Corporate Banking and Risk Management, and Talent Management and Development in Term VI.
Two substitution routes exist. A student may take up to two Courses of Independent Study, or one Dissertation Project, which the institute treats as equivalent to two elective courses. Both routes trade breadth for depth in a single area, which matters for anyone targeting a research-heavy or niche role.
The Summer Internship Sits Between the Two Years
A two-month Summer Training placement is compulsory after the first year. The institute frames it as work on specific, time-bound assignments inside an industrial or business organisation, and it functions as the main pre-placement channel into the final recruitment cycle.
Summer placements for the 2025-27 batch, concluded in October 2025, produced over 580 offers for 532 participating students. The highest domestic stipend was ₹3.95 lakh per month and the highest international stipend ₹2.5 lakh per month. The batch average stipend was ₹1.67 lakh per month with a median of ₹1.72 lakh, and the top half of the batch averaged ₹2.18 lakh per month. Recruiters at the internship stage included McKinsey & Company, BCG, Bain & Company, Accenture, HUL, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Google and Procter & Gamble, with Barclays, D.E. Shaw, Morgan Stanley, Mondelez, Nestle, Wells Fargo and Adani Group participating for the first time.
The sequencing matters for applicants planning a career switch. Elective selection for the second year and internship performance both happen before final placements open, so the functional direction is effectively fixed several months before recruiters arrive on campus.
First Year: 22 Compulsory Foundation Courses
The first year carries no choice at all. It is spread over three terms and consists of a compulsory package of 22 foundation courses covering concepts, tools and techniques across functional areas. The institute’s stated intent is basic coverage of every management discipline before any narrowing happens.
The foundation package spans finance and accounting, decision sciences, business environment, marketing, operations, human resource management, information technology and systems, strategic management, communication, legal aspects, and general management. Named courses in the finance and accounting group include Financial Reporting and Analysis, Management Accounting and Financial Management. Decision sciences runs as a three-course sequence, Quantitative Analysis for Management I, II and III. Business environment covers Managerial Economics, Macroeconomic Environment and Indian Economy. The human resource group includes Behaviour in Organisation, Designing Work Organization and Human Resource Management. Operations covers Operations Management and Supply Chain Management, and IT and Systems covers Information Technology Concepts and Management Information Systems.
Two features of the core are worth flagging for applicants comparing programmes. The quantitative load is front-loaded across three separate terms instead of a single stats course, which is relevant for candidates from non-quantitative undergraduate backgrounds. And the core includes a values and citizenship component alongside the functional subjects, consistent with the institute’s Centre for Leadership and Human Values.
Pedagogy and Research Infrastructure
The institute describes its teaching as case-based, supplemented by lectures, exercises, seminars, role plays, management games and project work, with regular student presentations used to build both analytical and communication skills. Case volume in the first year is heavy by design, since 22 courses are compressed into three terms.
Eight Centres of Excellence sit alongside the teaching programme: the Centre for Public Policy, the Centre for Food and Agribusiness Management, the Centre for Leadership and Human Values, the Centre for Business Sustainability, the Internet Commerce Research Centre, the Enterprise Incubation Centre, the Centre for Marketing in Emerging Economies, and the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness. The Enterprise Incubation Centre operates as a separate Section 8 company and supports early-stage startups, which gives students building a venture an on-campus route that does not depend on the placement process.
An international student exchange programme lets students complete part of the second year at partner business schools abroad. IIM Lucknow holds AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditation, and it placed 5th in the Management category of the NIRF India Rankings 2025 with a score of 77.97 — behind IIM Ahmedabad among others, but ahead of most non-IIM institutes on the same list.
Admission, Batch Profile and Fees
The programme is officially the Post Graduate Programme, referred to as PGP on the institute’s own pages, and it confers the degree of Master of Business Administration. It is two years, full time and residential, delivered at the Lucknow campus; the Noida campus houses the executive programmes IPMX and PGPWE along with the PGP in Sustainable Management.
Admission runs through CAT, followed by a Written Ability Test and Personal Interview. For the 2026-28 cycle the institute kept its CAT 2025 cutoffs unchanged: general category candidates need 90 percentile overall with 85 in each of VARC, DILR and QA; EWS and NC-OBC need 82 overall with 77 sectional; SC needs 65 overall with 55 sectional; ST and PwD need 60 overall with 50 sectional. Shortlisting for the interview weights CAT at 60%, class 12 marks at 10, graduation marks at 10, work experience at 10, and a diversity factor at 10 (split evenly between academic discipline and gender). Final selection shifts the balance sharply toward the interview: Personal Interview 40%, CAT 30, WAT 10, class 12 and graduation 5 each, diversity 5 and work experience 5.
The 2025-27 intake enrolled 643 students across all full-time programmes, of which 520 are in the flagship PGP. That PGP cohort is 32% female, 32% freshers with no prior work experience, and 53% from non-engineering academic backgrounds. Total programme fees for recent batches have been reported at ₹20,75,000, which covers tuition, infrastructure, admission charges, refundable deposits and basic hostel rent, and excludes mess charges billed separately each term.
- CAT score60%
- Class 12 marks10%
- Graduation marks10%
- Work experience10%
- Diversity factor10%
- Personal interview40%
- CAT score30%
- Written ability test10%
- Class 12 marks5%
- Graduation marks5%
- Diversity factor5%
- Work experience5%
Why the Second-Year Electives Matter More Than a Formal Major
IIM Lucknow does not name a specialisation on the degree. A recruiter evaluating a candidate reads the elective transcript, the summer internship function and prior work experience instead of a labelled major, which is why the roughly fifteen electives spread across Terms IV, V and VI carry more practical weight than the syllabus structure alone suggests — two candidates with identical core transcripts can present very differently to a recruiter based on elective choice alone. The placement, admission and fee figures in this article come from the institute’s own placement reports and programme page, both updated every admission cycle, so check them directly before relying on a specific number for a decision.