Hi I am a 37 year old German Sales and Marketing Professional with 10 years of work experience in a multinational pharmaceutical company, mainly took care of the sales for the DACH region. I hold a bachelor of business administration from St. Gallen. I want to invest in myself with an MBA and resign from my job/ first to have kind of a sabbatical and have all the toolkit for the future to be a well rounded professional business leader, ultimate goal director level/ C-suite in healthcare or MedTech industry. Beside this I would love to work and live in the UK with my family. Given the current situation with Covid and my current role, it is hard to focus on the GMAT so that I hold offers from UEBS and DBS full time MBA. When compared the FT rankings Durham does better in the 3years average but are very similar salary-wise. How this gap can be explained? I know that these options are not the Harvard level schools, but which would you guys recommend in regards of reputation,experience and quality of cohort, outcome of the MBA in general. Also the diversity plays a huge role to have a great exchange of knowledge and network.Guess placement and career service are in favor of DBS. Many thanks for your feedback

My feeling is that Durham gets slightly younger, hungrier students who are the Durham brand in an aspirational way. Edinburgh gets older students, often making a more complex transition, and they move much more slowly into work. I'd say that Edinburgh is a more exploratory, developmental, strategic, soft-skills oriented experience and Durham is more focussed on functional skills and conventionally designed to feed into traditional MBA employers. 

Of course the gap in the rankings is 100% explained by the variables. Compare them side by side. 

Thanks for your feedback. I did the side by side comparison but was surprised that the gap is quite big for their similar score profile.

Their scores are not similar at all. Compare the career progress variables:http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/edinburgh-university-management-school/global-mba-ranking-2020#global-mba-ranking-2020http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/university-of-durham-business-school/global-mba-ranking-2020#global-mba-ranking-2020

Yes on this variable Edinburgh is ahead also on international mobility. Maybe I am interpreting the rankings wrongly, in the „key“ variables they seemed very comparable. Variables like value for money and less qualitative indicators are in favor of Durham. It will be a difficult choice..experienced cohort vs younger, hungrier cohort.. 

Yes, generally Durham is ahead. On many of the variable, especially where they are close, there could be a very narrow difference: seven spaces on international mobility is rather modest. 
Personally, I don't think Durham is an attractive place to live and I'm unsure how much of the school will be at Ushaw college now the new business school don't be ready until 2022. But, practically, if you were aiming to move into a traditional UK employer it would be the better choice. 

Very much appreciated. Thanks for your support and valuation

Duncan, the top 10 list in this website does not mention Durham MBA. Update required?

Which top-ten list are you referring to? Some of the top-ten lists are described as representing search volumes, such as the ones under 'Browse Business Schools'. Personally, I don't think that's very useful.