FT rankings 2026: French and UK business schools lead in top ten for Custom and Executive Open courses

London Business School has kept first place in the Financial Times (FT) Executive Education Open 2026, published on 18/05/2026, which ranks the 100 best schools for open programmes. It is followed by HEC Paris and IESE Business School, Spain, which have maintained their positions in second and third places from 2025.

In the FT Executive Education Custom 2026, published the same day and ranking the 90 best schools offering custom executive education programmes, SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) climbs to the top rank, dethroning IMD (International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland), which falls to third. London Business School is ranked second, as it was in 2025.

Open programmes are designed to enhance skills and improve leadership potential; they are open to anyone, while custom courses are tailored to the training needs of the organisations that commission them.

In the first category, the top 10 is largely dominated by European institutions, mainly by France (three schools), the UK and Spain (two each), Germany and Switzerland (one each). However, Fundação Dom…