Master in International Management / CEMS

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business placed 18th worldwide in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking, with a weighted three-year salary of about US $119,000 and a 95% employment rate at three months.⁴ The figure that sets it apart from its neighbours on the table is cost: WU is a public university, and its tuition is a fraction of what private European business schools charge for comparable outcomes.

Overview

WU is one of Europe’s largest business universities, founded in Vienna in 1898.¹ Its entry on the Financial Times Masters in Management table is the Master in International Management, a two-year, fully English-taught degree that embeds the CEMS Master in International Management — the joint degree run by the global CEMS alliance of which WU is a member.¹

The programme is structured as a “WU year” followed by a “CEMS year.” In the CEMS year, students spend one semester at WU and one on exchange at a CEMS partner school elsewhere in the world, combined with an international business project for a corporate partner and a series of skills seminars.¹

Curriculum & Structure

The first year builds an advanced management core — strategy, finance, marketing, and international business — taught in English. The CEMS year layers on the alliance’s signature components: the exchange semester, the corporate-led business project, block seminars, and a language and global-citizenship requirement.¹ The result is a degree explicitly engineered for internationally mobile management careers, with a cohort drawn from across the CEMS network.

Application & Deadlines

WU admits to the programme once a year for an autumn (winter-semester) start, and the application window closes in early January — 8 January for the 2026/27 intake.² Unlike the rolling-admissions model many private schools use, this is a single annual round, so the deadline is firm. Dates for the 2027/28 intake had not been published at the time of writing.

Tuition & Funding

As a public institution, WU charges the standard Austrian tuition: €363.36 per semester for EU/EEA students and €726.72 per semester for non-EU/EEA students, plus a compulsory Students’ Union (ÖH) fee of €26.20 per semester.³ Across the two-year programme that works out to roughly €1,450 (EU) to €2,900 (non-EU) in tuition — among the lowest of any programme in the European top 20, and a major part of the school’s value proposition. Living costs in Vienna and the exchange semester are the larger financial considerations.

Career Outcomes

The Financial Times 2025 ranking reports a weighted three-year salary of about US $119,000 and a 95% employment rate at three months.⁴ WU reports that 97% of graduates find employment within three months and 75% join multinationals — a figure that reflects the reach of the CEMS corporate-partner network.⁶ Named recruiters include voestalpine, Google, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, zeb, ABB and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, spanning consulting, technology, industry and financial services.⁶

Campus & Reputation

WU’s modern Vienna campus is one of the most distinctive in European higher education, and the university’s scale, public funding and CEMS membership give the International Management degree an unusual combination of academic depth, international reach and low cost. For the broader case for the degree, see our pieces on whether a MiM is worth it in 2026 and MiM versus MBA.