Prospective MBA students want to learn how to lead teams of coders and understand digital technologies — highly technical competencies that have replaced entrepreneurship in a list of most valued skills.

In a survey of 1,200 business school applicants, 18 per cent rated technology management as the skill they most wanted to acquire as part of their MBA. It was the most popular subject, alongside strategy lessons, after leadership, which was picked by 27 per cent of the respondents to the survey, which was commissioned by accreditation body EFMD and carried out by education research company Carrington Crisp.

By technology management, respondents meant the ability to lead teams of people developing new digital services for an employer, such as smartphone apps or online booking systems, according to Andrew Crisp, the study’s author.