Non-engineers today nearly on par with engineers at premier B-schools: What's shattering the 'engineering dominance' in management?

Engineering and Management were mostly taken as dual disciplines. Accordingly, the premier B-schools like IIMs have long enjoyed the maximum influx of engineers. The engineers dominated management classrooms for decades; their numerical strength was well entrenched in the system, and the non-engineers used to appear to be mere aberrations. But the scenario is shifting now. Engineers' monopoly on management schools is weakening. Classrooms are experiencing an uptick in the numbers of economists, accountants, and students from commerce and humanities streams entering them. Their performance is increasing and approaching that of their engineering counterparts in top MBA courses.

The numbers are clear. At IIM-Indore, non-engineers now comprise 55% of the 2025–27 batch. IIM-Lucknow comes next with just below 53%, and IIM-Ahmedabad has moved to 50%, sharply up from 33% in a mere three years, the TNN reports indicate.

While figures paint the picture, the question is: What are the drivers that are rewriting history and breaking the monopoly of engineering domination?

The anatomy of change

The surge of non-engineers in India's top B-schools is no accident; it is a consequence of profound structural changes both in the applicant pipeline and in the needs of management education.

Corporate demand for new skill sets

The 21st-century corporate world is not merely demanding number-crunchers; it is demanding managers who are able to communicate, cooperate, and create. The recruiters find it more valuable to have critical thinking, emotional quotient, and creativity, skills in which the non-engineers, educated in economics, commerce, and the humanities, possess a natural advantage.

As the requirements of these skills gain momentum, the non-engineers are flocking to B-schools to complete the skill gap.

Intentional academic design by B-schools

It is no coincidence or accident. The best B-schools have deliberately and deliberately redesigned their admission architecture to cultivate and encourage diversity. At IIM-Ahmedabad, director Bharat Bhasker said, "The institute started introducing academic categories roughly a decade back to have diversity. More applications from non-engineers have resulted in a healthy mix of students in classes."

Rising ambitions of non-engineers

Management was the "natural next step" for long for engineers. But now, commerce, economics, and arts students are looking at B-schools as their own grounds, not other people's. In IIM-Lucknow, for example, 268 out of 507 students in the recent MBA batch belong to non-engineering streams. Director M.P. Gupta informed TNN, "Commerce-related courses have attracted the most students."

The increasing numbers of commerce graduates joining B-schools reflect a change in the generational perception of non-engineers about approaching management as a career booster.

Shifting nature of business problems

With the character of work, the issues that companies are dealing with are changing their face as well. It is not addressed by quantitative models only. Whatever it is — managing global supply chain disruption, navigating ESG mandates, or driving diverse teams — the call for soft skills, cultural literacy, and systems thinking is imperative. B-schools are, in fact, reflecting this reality in their recruiting processes.

A gender dimension

The ascent of non-engineers coincides with increasing female presence at B-schools. In IIM-Indore's 2025–27 batch, among the 270 non-engineers who have been admitted, 179 are females. Director at IIM Indore, Himanshu Rai told TNN that, "At IIM-Indore, representation of non-engineers has increased steadily over the last five years." Background diversity is, in most instances, also being converted into gender diversity. 

The end of an era, and the dawn of balance

This is not data representation or statistics, but it suggests towards serious structural reordering of India's B-schools. The engineering hegemony in management courses is crumbling. It is being replaced by a nearly-even split that introduces pluralism and intellectual diversity into classrooms.

The engineer can no longer be the default face of India's B-schools. The future is in a balanced blend, and that is the strength of the future generation of Indian management leaders.