If you want to know what to expect for management consulting salaries in 2025, you're in luck. In this live call, the Management Consulted team dissects the highly anticipated 2025 Consulting Salary Report, sharing key shifts in consultant compensation and what it means for candidates, firms, and the global economy.
Catch the replay below where we answer these questions and more:
- Did salaries rise, stay the same, or decrease?
- What's the outlook for hiring and retention in 2025?
- Will firms raise salaries going into 2026?
Additional Resources:
- Download 2025 Salary Report
- Resources for consulting firm recruiting and HR representatives
- Resources for career services and consulting club leaders
- Resources for job seekers
- Connect with Namaan and Jenny Rae on LinkedIn
Transcript:
0:06
What the heck is going on inside of consulting compensation in 2025?
Well, today you're about to find out.
In this episode, our team breaks down the 2025 consulting salary report.
And not just telling you the numbers because you can go see those for yourself by downloading the salary report.
0:23
Just check out management consulting.com or see the link in this episode's show notes.
But today, we're going to uncover the trends and the insights behind the numbers and what they say for the global economy, for candidates and for firms alike.
So listen in to learn what to expect for consulting, compensation, salaries, and hiring trends in 2025.
0:45
Before we let you go, we'd love to get your quick comment rating and review on the podcast, whether you're tuning in from Spotify, from Apple, from YouTube, or somewhere else, it really helps boost the show.
All right, let's get into the episode.
Let's go ahead and and dive right in.
1:03
The theme of today's call is that consulting is a window under the soul of the broader economy.
So what we're not going to do today is just walk you through how much McKinsey Bain and BCG pay - then say, here are the numbers, and have fun.
We will walk through the numbers, but we're going to talk about the broader implications of consulting firms compensation strategy and how that affects your job search and how that affects how much you your you should be paying your people if you're running a consulting firm or another business.
1:29
Here's how we're going to get there.
So first we're going to talk about the big picture salary trends that are taking place in the industry and the key drivers underpinning that trend.
We're then going to go into talking about what this means both for candidates and for firms.
Then we'll walk through some of the specific numbers and then we'll end with a little bit of Q&A and an overview of the updated 2025 hiring cycle.
1:52
So 43% of you on this call said, hey, I'm here because I'm a job seeker.
And so if you're a job seeker, it would behoove you to know when you should apply and when your recruiting season is happening.
And so stick around.
We'll, we'll walk you through that at the end of the call today.
So what the heck is happening with consulting compensation in 2025?
2:12
OK, here's here's what happened, right?
Consulting starting salaries froze for offers that had start dates in 2025, even as demand for consulting services rose.
And if you read our consulting report last year, and if you were on this call last year, we predicted this, We said that demand for services would rise, but compensation would not keep up with that demand.
2:34
And there are three reasons why that ended up being true #1 there's a greater supply of talent in the marketplace and there is demand for it.
So a loosening labor market ensured that there were many more of you who wanted consulting jobs than there were job openings, IE this is a competitive market, it remains.
2:52
So this upcoming recruiting cycle, kind of moving into 2026, from what I'm seeing so far, is going to be the most competitive recruiting cycle we've seen since we've been around and we've been around for almost 20 years #2 you saw consulting firms start to really roll out artificial intelligence on their project teams.
3:14
And so this is what AI enablement is enabling consulting firms to do.
It's allowing them to get more output from the same or even less head count.
So you're able to get more output from the same size project team, or you are maybe even able to reduce the size of your project team.
3:31
You don't have AI take the place of an analyst and get the same or more output.
And So what does this do?
This reduces demand for new hiring.
And then third, because of how loose the labor market was, you saw reduced attrition inside of consulting as well, right?
3:49
Fewer consultants left the industry last year.
That led to less new hiring, right?
That lower demand leads to depressed starting salaries.
So when you kind of look beneath the surface, there are really reasonable explanations for why starting salaries froze, even though this is pretty unprecedented.
4:08
This is the first two year stretch in 15 years where we haven't seen starting base salaries rise.
And so if you're ending entering the industry this year, your purchasing power is really decreased over folks who entered two years ago when you consider the cumulative effects of the inflation that we've seen here in the US and abroad.
4:28
Jenny Rae.
Anything else you want to add to what has happened before we start to look forward?
Well, I just want to highlight that it sounds a little doomsday.
You might wonder, is consulting at the end of its life cycle?
And one of the things that's important to point out in context of all of this is, is just two things.
4:45
I just want to underpin what Naman said #1 consulting revenues rose last year as they have risen every single year since we have been tracking them.
So every consulting sector we're seeing significant growth or moderate growth in.
5:02
And so this is not representative of the end of the consulting life cycle, as some media outlets would like to paint it.
That's not what is happening here.
So if you do decide to enter the industry, there is significant upside on the firm's, you know, and, and they're thinking about what they're investing in and the transformation that they're doing.
5:22
The second thing is that I would argue that even that in this loosening labor market, consulting firms, and Naman's going to talk about this more tactically, have really doubled down on investing outside of pure comp.
So while you've seen comp freeze, you've seen an adjustment in some of the alignment pieces, for example, the variable comp portions.
5:42
You've seen culture changes inside the firms.
You've seen firms really get active about about competing, actually not as much to get new talent, which they're able to get pretty readily, but really to retain the talent that they've had.
And so all of those really speak to a broader shift that's happening in the market.
6:02
But it is not because of a threat to the industry.
It's because of natural transformation that's taking place because of changes that we're seeing consulting firms recommend to others.
They're doing them unto themselves.
One of the things that we'll do here as we move throughout the calls, we'll, we'll make a download link available for the full report.
6:21
One of the things that we write inside the full report is when you look under the surface, the patient is much healthier than it than it seems on the on the surface.
And so all of this is actually good news for consulting firms because they were able to expand margins last year.
They were able to to hold the line on compensation as they saw their demand increase.
6:39
And so partners at consulting firms are in a much happier place this year than they were last year and then they were two years ago because of some of these strategic talent moves that they've made and because of the emphasis that they placed on implementing AI inside of their project teams.
So if that's what's happened so far, what does this mean for you, the job seeker, and what does this mean for the industry as a whole?
7:03
So what Jenny Ray and I are going to do is we're going to break down 5 trends that we see taking place inside the industry over the next 12 months #1 compensation data gives us a clue as to who the economic winners and losers are.
An early insight into this, into this phenomenon gives candidates a big competitive advantage, can give investors a big competitive advantage, can give business owners a big competitive advantage.
7:29
No matter who you are, which seat you sit in, knowing who's going to win and who's going to lose, or at least having a better idea of that in Jenny Rae, that's helpful for you.
Second, we're going to talk about what Jenny Rae already mentioned, how consulting firms are using variable comp as a point of differentiation to control their fixed costs. 3rd, we're going to talk about how perceptions of the value of an MBA are all over the place inside the industry.
7:54
You have some firms that value an MBA really highly and others who really don't value an MBA much more than an undergraduate or specialty master's degree.
We're going to talk about why that is and how for you, those of you who are considered an MBA should think about the types of firms that you pursue. 4th.
8:10
One of the implications of that or the second order implications of that is that less NBA hiring at some firms opens up new opportunities for top candidates.
And it also opens up opportunities for firms that maybe wouldn't have had a shot at top NBA talent in the past.
And so we'll talk about that.
8:26
And then fifth, we'll talk about how companies across sectors are seeing the value in bringing strategy in house.
And and so you're seeing increasing demand for services from the management consulting industry is you're also seeing more and more of the Fortune 500 bring strategy in house as well.
8:44
So this is really shifting the mix in terms of the type of work that consulting firms are are executing on behalf of their clients.
Here's trend #1 demand for consulting services is robust.
It's higher now than it was last year, but it's not evenly distributed.
9:03
And I think that's a key point for career services folks to know, for job seekers to know, and for everybody on this call to know.
So Jenny Rae, one of the things that I know you've been talking about a lot lately is the convergence of business cycles.
Can you walk us through this phenomenon?
And then we'll talk about some of the 2nd order effects of that.
9:20
One of the favorite things that we get to do here are host panels for firms.
We always rotate many firms in and off of our panels this year and so in November, we held a state of the consulting industry panel and a number of the practice leaders or business leaders across some major consulting firms.
9:37
We're talking about how we used to see the cyclical 18 month to three-year period where we would have either companies focus on cost cutting or revenue generation that would kind of shift from 1:00 to the other.
And they were just talking about this.
9:53
And then we could have did some deep digging and found that this is very true across organizations.
Companies are doing both cost cutting and revenue growth work at the same time right now.
And so they're in fact they're cost cutting to grow revenue, which is rare.
We haven't often seen that before.
10:10
Usually we've seen invest cash in revenue.
We've seen cut back in order to conserve cash.
Now we're seeing cut release immediate cash that we can invest in revenue growth and that just speaks to some of the transformation that's happening with the advance of technology, certain geopolitical changes that is affecting that as well.
10:28
But this business convergence of do we grow or do we shrink, The answer is yes.
And businesses that are able to successfully serve their clients actually not just in one of those, but in both are really winning in this market.
And so one of the things that this convergence of business cycles is doing is spurring this demand for increased consulting services.
10:50
When you have an increased demand, your the utilization of your current consultants increases.
So last year we saw delayed start dates across many of the firms, right?
And that was because current consultants were on the beach.
They weren't being staffed on as many projects or as consistently as they needed to be for the firms to make a return on the investment they'd already made in that existing talent.
11:10
As you see that utilization increase of current consultants, you're going to see that they need newer and more staffing to keep up with demand.
You're also going to see attrition increase because the more that utilization increases, the more that that some consultants risk burnout, the more that people are spurred to leave because they're working longer days and longer weeks.
11:32
And so then that feeds the hiring cycle.
Now specifically, where we're seeing demand for consulting services and where we expect to see a requisite demand for new talent is in these three functions and sectors #1 supply chain.
There's a lot of talk right now, both in the US and globally about tariffs.
11:53
And there are a lot of companies that are near shoring supply chains, on shoring supply chains, looking to mitigate risk in that area.
And you are seeing a lot of consulting firms, a lot, especially in the big four, work with clients now on protecting and rerouting their supply chains in advance of any tariff activity that could be coming from this administration or from countries around the world.
12:21
So supply chain's a hot sector in a, in a hot practice area.
And consulting this year #2 is healthcare here in the US?
Healthcare makes up 1/6 of the US economy.
It's a massive part of our GDP.
It's ripe for disruption.
And you're seeing a lot of digitization.
12:37
You're seeing a lot of kind of operations projects and healthcare focused on throughput at hospitals, for example, happening this year.
A lot of consolidation in the sector.
There's a lot of work right now in healthcare and consulting firms are at the forefront of it. 3rd is cloud services and that includes artificial intelligence and some of the knock on effects of AI implementation in in the broader economy.
13:05
And so if you are a candidate looking to maximize your chances of breaking into consulting this year, supply chain practices, healthcare practices, cloud services practices, right, especially at places like Accenture are hiring.
And so if you are a strategic candidate, which I would argue all of you are because you're on the call today, then you're going to pay attention to where the demand is and you're going to pay attention to where the hiring is.
13:29
And so that's one of the reasons that we're holding this call while you're here is so that you know where to target as you ramp up your job search.
Heads up, Future consultants If you're serious about breaking into consulting, but you know that you'll need all the help you can get, join our Super Prep program to change your chances.
13:50
Check out the link in this episode's show notes to confirm your seat for the next Super Prep cohort.
In Super Prep, we'll help you add business and consulting experience to your resume to fill in gaps through a one week virtual consulting project known as Strategy Sprint.
These projects run once 1/4.
14:08
Next, we'll help you integrate your new consulting experience into your resume and cover letter through custom edits by our MBB team.
15:03
Look, 10 years ago we used to say not all consulting is created equal land where you want to end up and and that that was our best practice advice.
Right now, the general word on the street is that that actually advanced hiring, that admiring hiring with experience and specifically with consulting experience is some of the Hot Pocket area and also some of the hardest to fill.
15:29
Roles.
So as we're meeting with consulting firms, they're like, gosh, if somebody had one or two years of experience that we would love that.
They've plenty of recent grads.
And so our recommendation is that from a comp perspective, you, you don't actually have to worry inside consulting because again, their salary transparency when you're entering into a role, you're going to get paid that role amount and you're going to jump if you're going to jump based on experience.
15:53
But getting experience and working up that experience curve can be a significant advantage.
So that, that is a shift that that we've seen.
And I just wanted to make sure we make note of that.
Yeah, absolutely that, that's a good point.
I think one of the things we're going to talk about here as we move throughout the call today is the increasing opportunity at some boutique firms, right?
16:12
And the, the value proposition that that they can provide is giving you that year or two of experience getting your foot in the door.
Let's move back to, to trend #2 here, which is around variable compensation.
So firms are adjusting variable variable compensation going both ways.
16:28
Some are increasing the Max variable compensation that you can earn.
Some are decreasing the Max variable compensation you can earn.
And I, I think there's really two major implications of this.
Number one, kind of your target firms either increasing or decreasing the Max variable comp that they offer gives you a really good insight into the type of culture that you're joining.
16:47
And we'll talk about that in a minute.
And then #2 some of this movement honestly is just window dressing because nothing has really changed.
Only 5 to 10% of consultants at like the average firm will earn the Max compensation that they are entitled to in any given year.
And so you have a lot of firms that are raising their variable compensation caps while leaving base salaries the same.
17:09
So the total offer letter looks bigger and you're happy, right?
And the firms are able to say, hey, like we're raising compensation, right?
They know that 90% of their incoming cohort isn't going to hit that Max number anyways.
And so as you're comparing offers, as you're comparing firms, one of the things that we often advise our clients to do is, yes, take variable compensation into account, but really focus on base salary and focus on signing bonus in the first year if you want to know how much you you'll actually take home.
17:41
And if it was up to me, if everything else was equal, I'd take an offer with a higher base salary over a higher signing bonus, even if the total was the same, because my raises in years 2-3 and four will be based on my base salary, not based on total compensation.
And so really pay attention to base salary and don't assume that you're ever going to earn 100% of the variable COM that's available to you.
18:04
I would cut that Max number in half and have that be a reasonable expectation of how much I could expect to take home in any given year.
Now one of the things that Jenny Ray mentioned earlier and Jenny Ray, I'll let you speak to this since you mentioned it, is that some firms are going the other way.
They're reducing Max variable compensation and they're introducing or enhancing non financial compensation.
18:24
So can you talk to us a little bit about what non financial compensation looks like?
I'm happy to.
So non financial compensation can include things like days off, it can include welfare or healthcare bonuses, right where it's like you, you get a massage a month.
18:40
It's bringing additional training into the office, it's adding career development training or off site career development experiences.
It's bringing the organization together.
Even post COVID, this was kind of a question.
We're back now.
Portugal is in play, right?
18:56
The the Cayman Islands, they're in play like let's go, let's be together.
Firms are spending money on these things and they're really, they're really like anchoring people into these kinds of experiences that are both for your personal benefit, but also for connectivity inside the firm.
Naman.
19:13
If you want me to go a little deeper, I can, but I think it also might be helpful to tease out the difference between variable comp that is individual and variable comp that is tied to firm performance.
So I don't want to, I don't want to jump the gun if you're going to highlight that somewhere else.
But, but I think that that's, it's really important to recognize this, especially if you're here from a firm, because it's not just diagnosing as a job seeker what you're going to get paid, but also like, why are firms thinking about this strategically?
19:40
So I'll, I'll just seed that with one thing that came from a call that we had with a partner last year.
They they said never again do we want to delay start dates.
So one of the ways that you do that is a business that is a very fixed cost heavy business.
19:55
These organizations are very, very, you know, salary oriented is that you try to shift some of the pay to be more variable so that you're able to flex real time pay, not just.
In the the longer term.
20:10
So yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about that now or do you want to attack that later?
Yeah, absolutely, Jenny, Ray, I'm seeing some firms that are.
So let me just break down what variable compensation can look like.
So you have performance bonuses which are really kind of your individual variable compensation.
20:26
And then you have some firms that offer profit sharing, which is company wide performance.
And so for the firms that that lean on the profit sharing side, the entire firm has to hit its targets for the year.
And then a cut of the incremental profit is split amongst everybody in the firm depending on what level you're at.
20:46
And so your profit share slice is much smaller usually than what your individual performance bonus allotment would be at most firms.
And so I'm thinking through as your, and I'll talk about the candidate side first.
21:03
Is your candidate OK?
What is this variable compensation actually look like?
Is it based on firm performance or is it based on individual performance?
For me personally, I'm someone who's motivated actually more by my own individual performance than by a four thousand person firm meeting goals collectively.
And so as I was, you know, if I was examining offers today and I had two on the table, I would want to bet on myself more and I'd want to go with an offer that offered kind of a higher cap on an individual performance bonus because that's something I can control, you know, much more than an entire firm's performance.
21:36
Now, some of you who are more risk averse, right?
And, and you are thinking, you know what profit share sounds nice because it's not all on my shoulders.
Great, right.
Like that's a, a, a meaningful difference in terms of the culture of a firm and the types of people that have gravitated towards certain firms that I think it's important for people to realize that they're doing their due diligence and, and examining these different opportunities.
21:58
I'm also seeing a lot of other types of non financial compensation, I'll call them, kind of pop up in the industry this year.
So more dinner allowances for staying in the office after 8:00 PM than I've ever seen before.
More cell phone and personal technology reimbursements than I've ever seen before.
22:13
Again, nice perks appreciated, but much lower at a much lower cost to the firms than raising base salaries.
Anything else you want to add to that, Jenny Ray?
No, I think, I think you really covered it.
22:30
I think the main thing that for the firm side is that they're thinking about they, they've like these firms value people.
They, they value their people, they're valuable inside the organization.
They're really working on creating that value.
So if you give somebody a cell phone allowance, they can point to the phone and, and where every time they're using the phone, they can remember like the firm paid for this, right?
22:51
So $1000 or or $2000 including your plan for the year.
It ends up being a very sticky opportunity.
So when you're thinking about those kinds of perks that you're offering inside your organization, if you're working as a a firm leader, that's really vital.
23:07
And then the second thing is that still most firms just in terms of the scope that the amount of firm based variable comp that you get versus personal variable comp, the the personal variable comp eclipses the firm based variable comp, at least at the levels that really this report covers.
23:27
And that shift happens more into senior levels.
So what's novel about what's happening now is that you're seeing partner style compensation packages move.
Down.
In the firm, right.
And so, so, but they're still not like a partner is, is going to be 70% at risk, you're going to be like 3% at risk in terms of whether the firm meets performance or not.
23:51
And so that that's where you'll really begin to see those major differences.
If you've already read the report or perused it, one of the things that you would have noticed is that undergrad entry level compensation is in a much narrower band than entry level MBA compensation.
24:11
It's a a much broader spectrum of comp that you can expect to earn as an incoming MBA into the industry.
And what that tells us is that firms perceive the value of an MBA differently.
While there is consensus on the on the value that early career analysts bring to the table.
24:27
And so let me just walk you through a couple of these starting salary bands and then we'll get into the implications.
So I think one of the things that's important to know upfront is that in consulting, MBA and undergrad analysts primarily do the same work, right?
MBA S are valuable primarily.
24:46
Primarily there's value to having an MBA, but firms don't need a ton of them compared to historical precedent.
And so the, the range generally Speaking of, of, of starting base salaries on the undergrad side, it's about 90K to 110K base salary in the US.
25:05
On the NBA side, it's 120K to 190K.
So you can see a $70,000 spread versus a $20,000 spread.
And so this tells us, right, that OK, MBAs are historically twice the cost, right?
25:21
But at least initially in the first year, don't add twice the value from the perspective of of consulting firms, because they're doing a lot of the same work as their undergrad counterparts.
And in an efficiency oriented environment, this doesn't fly.
And I've heard first hand from leaders at consulting firms this year that the their cohort mix is shifting.
25:43
So they may be hiring the same number of people, but they're hiring less MBAs this year and more undergraduates and specialty master candidates to take their place because of what we've just outlined.
And so one of the things that that this does, you know, besides for the, you know, affect maybe the historical relationship that firms have had with their MBA partners is it does increase the need for robust training at firms because the experience level, the age level right at consulting firms is skewing younger.
26:14
And firms that haven't historically invested in executive communication training in executive presence training, right?
And some of those softer skills that MBAs bring to the table at A at a higher level, we're seeing that they are having to invest now in a different way because the cohort mix, the age mix, the experience mix is shifting at those firms.
26:34
And so it's not even necessarily that the firms are that making a purely financial decision.
It's just that some of that spend is being reallocated away from comp to training and professional development.
And firm C outsize benefit from this because it increases retention and so it there's a better return that they're seeing from taking this strategy as opposed to what we've seen as being normal in the past.
26:58
Jenny Ray, anything you want to add to that?
I'll give you the floor.
I think 2 main things my kids like to remind me that I was, you know, in College in the 1900s.
So a few things have changed in the last couple of decades #1 is that actually the, the folks coming out of university, we're really seeing advanced experience on their resume.
27:19
So when, when I graduated, it was like, you don't need to have done anything.
They would even tell us you don't, you don't have to practice for case interviews, which was like, quite frankly, complete bollocks even then.
But still, the, the real shift was that when we were off doing, you know, summer camps, the kids now are building businesses in, in their sophomore year and they're working for these major national name brands in their junior years.
27:46
And the emphasis on early career experience.
It is kind of one thing that's not captured on here that I just wanted to add on.
So one part of it is that the the questionable value out of an MBA is, is coming into scope, right?
28:01
Do you even need it in your career?
More folks are opting for no MBA S are widening the ban of who they accept.
So they have kids that are 22 to 23 as well as, you know, people that are they're not kids anymore 353637 that are in these MBA programs.
28:17
But I think the bigger story story is that our undergrads are, are superhuman.
These, these folks are amazing.
But it for those of you that are in the career services sector, this is putting an increased burden on training your students to be almost MBA level ready at the undergraduate level.
28:35
And because firms are asking for this, they're, they're willing to invest internally, like Naman said, they are bringing training in, they're asking for additional support externally.
They're building versus buying, but they're still looking for at in the the the talent war folks to have the significant amount of preparation that.
28:54
So you know, we're we're still seeing that.
I would say NBA's add the same amount of value in terms of somebody who was a $50,000 a year, you know, non business career earner when it comes to somebody just rising up through the ranks and staying, we're seeing 10 years at firms increase as well.
29:12
So the internal MBA is incredibly real.
The on the job MBA is incredibly real and the the undergrad MBA is actually also incredibly real.
So what does this mean for both firms and for candidates?
29:29
Well, we've seen a lot of consolidation in the industry over the last decade, but there are hundreds of middle market firms that do amazing work, offer, you know, kind of industry standard compensation that haven't traditionally maybe had a chance at some of this talent at the NBA level.
29:46
Or maybe they haven't been considered as as options, you know, by NBA candidates who are looking to break into consulting.
And so we're seeing this great almost matchmaking happen for the first time between specialized practice areas, boutique firms and top talent where there just hasn't been alignment before.
30:04
These firms often hire smaller cohorts.
They often kind of break out of the traditional recruiting cycles, but they offer amazing opportunities for top candidates.
They often offer faster promotion cycles, earlier project ownership.
There's more room for negotiation on some of these things as you're in the interview process and the offer process.
30:24
And so, you know, if I was at a small consulting firm today, I would be paying attention, right, to what's happening in terms of MBA hiring at the larger firms and see if there was kind of new talent that was available to me that might not have been available to me five years ago.
And if I was an MBA candidate, I'd be broadening my scope in terms of the firms that I was targeting to ensure that I was maximizing my chances of landing an offer that I was really stoked about.
30:51
So this, this matching process is taking place.
And one of the things that we're doing at management consultant is actually playing matchmaker.
And so we work with dozens and dozens of these boutique consulting firms who come to us and they're like, hey, like we've never had to recruit this kind of talent before.
31:07
Like where, where does this talent live?
And the answer is a lot of that talent lives in our community.
And so one of the great joys of our team is getting a chance to connect some of the candidates in our community with the amazing firms that we built relationships with.
And if you've got questions about we, how we can help you do that, then just please reach out.
31:25
We're happy to chat.
I know we're we're getting close to the end of our time today and I do want to save some time for questions and discussion.
I also want to save some time for walking through the numbers specifically.
So let's just wrap up with trend #5 and Jenny, right?
31:41
I'll let you speak to this if you'd like.
It's just the the continued explosion of in house strategy groups inside the Fortune 500 and how they're a viable alternative to management consulting.
One of the things that folks will see in our report is that we include compensation not just from traditional consulting firms, but from the strategy groups that some of these companies that folks see here on the slide.
32:02
Yeah.
One of our goals this year was to really expand the comp collection inside strategy groups.
And I think we're still really honestly at the early stages.
Our goal is to help to demystify these alternatives and to create pathways for people who are really looking for this type of work, analytically heavy, project based, rotational.
32:22
And these firms offer it in spades.
In fact, sometimes they're offering more direct access to senior leadership then you then you have when you're buffered at a consulting firm as an analyst and you have someone who's senior who's actually managing that relationship.
The, the, the downside, and there really is only one, is that you have to really like the industry that you're in because Capital One doesn't do hamburger projects and JP Morgan doesn't do travel projects and United Health Group just is focused on healthcare.
32:50
And so, you know, for, for folks that want that more kind of rotational experience, not just practically and analytically, but also from an industry perspective.
And that's a really important note for the benefits of being in direct consulting.
33:06
That's one of these things that these firms just simply cannot provide.
But on all of the other fronts, they've they've really come up the curve.
They through hiring consultants externally have built internal practices, have built internal training processes, have built internal sprints and internal communications training and internal analytical training.
33:26
And so especially if you kind of know that you want to land somewhere and stay for a while, these are incredible places to have very varied work and, and a really quick actually pathway to P&L leadership inside the organizations as well.
So we'll continue to focus on advancing more of the comp studies that we're doing in this space.
33:48
And if again, if any of you that are listening are from one of these organizations and you want a very, very, you know, kind of popular pathway to candidates to share about what you do and and what you offer, we're certainly excited about helping with that.
34:05
I always tell people Jenny Rae, if you know what you want to be when you grow up, these are fantastic opportunities for you.
And if you don't know yet, then right, the rotational type of experience that consulting or traditional consulting provides is for you.
But we have a lot of candidates in our community that for family reasons, right, or others that they're just not maybe able to travel as much as a traditional management consultant would.
34:27
And you have an alternative career path here that can offer you a lot of the same benefits, a lot of the same rigor, with a little bit of a different lifestyle.
Namon, can I just mention one last thing about that though that I think is interesting.
I do think that that the main selling bonus and the reason that comp was lower at many of these firms originally was because consulting was considered to have a low score on lifestyle, right?
34:53
And now that consulting firms, consulting firms are in office, but they're travelling less, they're certainly not demanding as much.
They have a lot more visibility into the timing and planning that they have.
They're considered to be much better places for women and family members to work, right?
35:09
Lots of different benefits that are happening.
What, what you're actually seeing is that comp has to come to parity.
So a lot of these we're seeing faster rises in these areas to meet the consulting firms where before they used to say like trade off lifestyle for comp and now they're just saying actually they're starting to look a lot more similar in that way as well.
35:34
I'd say there's still a delta, but less than there ever has been before, for sure.
Yeah.
So before we open things up for questions, let's just show you some numbers from key firms that I know you all care about.
And So what you can see here if you're watching on YouTube or LinkedIn or here live with us or video podcast on Spotify.
35:53
As you can see the numbers for MBB, here's the high level take away, right?
Starting salaries froze at both the pre NBA and the post NBA entry levels at Bain, BCG and Mackenzie.
But the big difference that we saw here is that BCG is actually one of those firms that raised its Max performance bonuses specifically at the NBA level.
36:12
So this year, if you're an NBA higher at BCG, your Max total compensation is potentially higher.
Even though your base salary is the same as it would have been two years ago.
Bain still leads the way in terms of Max total compensation.
These are just very marginal differences, as you can see here on the slide.
36:29
It's really just signaling more than anything else.
Not a meaningful difference in terms of total compensation at all.
So you can see Mackenzie, Bain, BCG.
If you've got multiple offers from this group of firms, compensation probably isn't going to be your determining factor of when you decide where you're going to want to go.
36:51
As we look at the Big Four, one of the things that surprises a lot of people is that in the strategy practices, many of of the Big four strategy practices aren't far behind.
MBB, when it comes to starting salaries and specifically Parthenon at inside of EY and strategy and inside of PwC are on par with MBB.
37:10
The big kind of dichotomy that you see in the Big 4 is that Deloitte, EY and PwC have really invested robustly in their strategy practices.
KPMG lags a little bit behind in terms of that investment and in terms of that prestige.
37:26
And so the comp reflects that.
Right now, we're seeing again that gap narrow as well, but that's historically been true, at least in terms of the strategy practices inside of the Big Four.
Where are we seeing increased hiring specifically inside of the Big 4, government and public sector practices, especially in the Middle East, and then digital practices as well.
37:49
One of the other things that you'll notice in the report that is a little bit interesting is that the total comp at Deloitte looks lower at the undergraduate level than its BIG4 peers.
And that's because at Deloitte, you don't see a performance bonus at the undergrad level until Year 3.
38:06
And so just something to keep in mind as you're doing your due diligence in some of these firms.
And if you have a question about why Deloitte does that, we can address that in the Q&A.
Last thing I'll just mention here in terms of specific numbers are boutique firms.
38:23
And the way here at management Consulted that we define boutique is not a small firm.
That's not what we mean when we say boutique.
We just mean a firm that has an industry or a functional focus area and they compete against larger players in that particular domain.
That's our definition of boutique.
38:39
So you're as you're looking at this slide, you're seeing a lot of massive firms on here, firms that are right 10X the size and the scale of MBB.
So to us boutique doesn't equal small, it means specialized.
And so inside of kind of the non MBB and the non BIG4 consulting firms, we did see some firms that actually raised salaries.
39:00
And so you're seeing the compensation gap between these firms and MBB narrowing.
And some of these firms even offer more total maximum compensation, right?
So firms like Alvarez and Marcel, firms like Carney, Alex Partners, you can see Accenture Strategy on here, Oliver Wyman are all fantastic places to work, are all actively hiring and pay just as much, if not more than some of the firms that you would maybe consider to be the marketplace leaders in comp or at least expect to be the market leaders in comp again.
39:34
Inside of the full report, you'll get all of this information and more on over 100 firms, base salaries, signing bonus, performance bonus, relocation, retirement benefits, some of the non financial benefits that we mentioned.
All of that's in the report for you.
39:53
Before we open things up for Q&A generally, let's just quickly talk through hiring cycles, right?
I think the key take away here is that the hiring cycles for this year are already here, right?
Like the, the prep runways should start for a lot of candidates today or at least here over the next couple of weeks, right?
40:11
So if you are an advanced professional degree candidate, a JDAMDAPHD, your hiring season starts next month.
Right.
So a lot of these firms run PhD specific recruiting programs.
Application deadlines for for those programs are in February, interviews happen in late Feb, early March and those programs happen in the spring.
40:34
And if you are lucky enough to be accepted to one of those programs, you're often also extended an automatic interview invite for a first round full time interview.
And so you really want to take advantage if you're a PHDJD or MD of those programs.
40:52
As we share the recording in the report, we'll share some more information with those of you who registered for this live call in terms of what those programs are and when those deadlines are.
If you're an undergraduate or specialty masters candidate, your recruiting season starts in April, which is crazy because you're going to start recruiting in April for jobs that won't start until summer of 2026.
41:15
But that's just the nature of the beast when it comes to consulting recruiting.
And so that means that if you are right now a second semester sophomore, you need to start thinking about getting ready for interviews that will determine where you intern your junior summer.
And if you are a second semester junior, now is the time for you to be preparing for full time interviews for jobs that will start the summer after you graduate.
41:41
And so at a lot of our university partners, we are doing spring programming to help prepare these sophomores and juniors for recruiting.
That's going to happen this summer.
So if you're in career services and you feel like, hey, you know what?
Like our programming doesn't happen till the fall, like we're too late.
41:57
Then get in touch with us and we'll help you come up with a strategy to capture students at the right time in terms of getting them prepared for these opportunities.
If you're an incoming first year MBA, your recruiting starts this summer.
A lot of the firms that we've talked about today have dedicated summer programs to kind of expose you to the industry and expose you to job opportunities early.
42:19
You want to take advantage of those.
You'll find more information on the management consulted website on those.
And then rising second year MBA.
If you want to re recruit in the fall, then that re recruitment season is going to happen in August.
And then finally, I know we have a lot of lateral hires, experienced hires in the call.
42:38
We've talked about today how firms are looking for folks with experience and primary hiring season for lateral hires happens in the spring.
So March to May is when you will find an outsized number of experienced folks landing job offers.
And so if you are in industry right now and you want to move into consulting or if you're at a consulting firm and want to make the jump to a different consulting firm, you should be working on your resume now.
43:03
You should be starting to prepare for case interviews now.
You've got a six to eight week runway to kind of hit that peak season at full speed.
If you've got questions about how this applies to you, please shoot us an e-mail.
Our e-mail address will be in the chat.
43:20
It'll be in the show notes.
If you're listening to this via podcast, write to us and we'll help get you sorted.
With that.
Jenny Ray, let's move into Q&A.
We've got about 10 minutes left in our session and some folks here actually submitted questions ahead of time.
43:37
So we want to honor the time that you took to send us questions ahead of time.
Japheth was kind enough to kind of pop these here up on this slide and he even categorized them for us.
So Japheth, thank you so much.
So let me just walk through these quickly and let's see which ones are worth addressing.
43:55
We've talked about BIG4 consulting entry level salaries already.
So I I think that questions been answered.
We've talked about what the standard offer is at the NBA level as well.
Alright, Jenny Rae, how about this?
Do you want to address this 1st and I can add on how do I negotiate my salary while working at a Tier 2 consulting firm with a typical starting base of 150K?
44:17
Yeah, the short answer is you don't.
The beauty of salary transparency is that it does not leave room for negotiation.
They tell you what you're going to earn, which means not just you, but everybody else who you're working with knows what you're going to earn.
It's part of building great dynamic teams inside an organization that you're never wondering if that person who's right next to you is making 10 grand more than you.
44:37
What the only thing that you can negotiate for, and if you're an experienced tired, this is always our top advice, is you can you can adjust for the position, right?
So you can fight for.
Hey, I, I really think that I should be classified as a pre manager level higher, not AMBA higher.
44:55
So can you move me up one level?
That increased level comes with increased compensation.
But from a base perspective, the firms are incredibly aligned with where they are across the board at, at firms like McKinsey, Bain and BCG, actually even across offices.
45:12
So they don't care about purchasing power.
It's just like if you're a McKinsey, New York person or a McKinsey, you know, Cincinnati person, right?
McKinsey Cleveland is maybe a better example.
But like if you, if you're in one of these offices where you have more purchasing power, good for you, right?
So BIG4.
45:29
So depending on what, what the classification of Tier 2 is here, if, if you're thinking of big Forest here too, they actually do deviate from that.
So someone in Cleveland versus New York would get paid differently based on where they are located.
So if you want to negotiate, you cannot negotiate for the same office in the same position.
45:47
But you could change the office and you could change the position and your negotiations if you would like to get more comp.
And if you're one thing I'll add on to that Jenny Rae, I'm glad you mentioned negotiating for position because that's exactly what I would have advised as well.
There is some room for negotiation if you're a lateral higher on variable comp, right?
46:05
So base salary equals risk for a firm, right?
Variable comp less risk.
And so if you're willing to bet on yourself, there's opportunity if you're in a lateraling over to maybe can I have some wiggle room on the variable comp side, but not necessarily on the base salary side.
46:25
Yeah.
Industry trends, which sector division within consulting is currently on the rise?
We talked about healthcare, we talked about supply chain, we talked about cloud services.
At the top of the call today, those are driving outsize demand.
There are more, but those are the highest growth potential for the next 12 months.
46:44
Are there substantial shifts in salary when specializing in a particular consulting discipline?
There absolutely are.
Generally speaking, strategy practices will see the highest salary because those projects are able to earn the most for the firm like they cost the most for a client.
47:04
And so then that filters down to the consultants who are staffed inside of that practice, inside of some of these practice areas and sectors that we see as being particularly hot.
If you do have some kind of specialized knowledge or background or experience and you're able to come in at a mid to senior level, that's when you see, right, maybe a kind of outside salary growth like in your career versus someone who'd even be in strategy, right?
47:31
So if you are coming into a digital practice and you have experience at, you know, at Open AI or if you've been working on Copilot at Microsoft and now you're going to come over to a digital practice inside of consulting and bring some of that experience, that perspective, right, to a practice that's rapidly growing, OK, then you could make more in that particular practice than you could in strategy.
47:53
But generally speaking, strategy pays the most and then you go down from there.
Come on, bit.
Yeah.
Where are consultants leaving too, right.
Turnover, turnover rate depends on the firm, depends on the geography.
48:08
There's a lot of variance in terms of turnover rate.
But where do consultants go post consulting?
Some of them go to get an MBA, some, a lot of them go to go to go own AP and L inside of an organization that was a client of theirs, right.
Like often times one of the reasons that you want to go into consulting is to leave it right?
48:27
And so you, you get the training, you get the rotational experience, you get the branding, you get the network, and then you leave, right?
You leave because you want ownership, right?
As an advisor, you have a lot of influence, but no formal authority.
That's not for everybody and it's not for everybody for an extended period of time.
48:43
And so you leave to go work inside of a, a, a big corporate, some might go to, to private equity, the pipeline from consulting to investment banking, not super large.
That's not a common exit opportunity, right?
Like they're kind of two divergent career paths.
48:59
It happens, but it's not common.
I can just say one more thing about this.
We haven't collected the formal data on turnover by firm.
Firms keep it, it's usually pretty close to the vest.
But anecdotally, it's, it's the, the tenure per firm is lengthening, which contributes to in a small way, it's not the the number one thing, but it contributes to the splat salary, the phenomenon that we're seeing, right.
49:27
If they're able to keep people and there are fewer spots opening up in a lower demand because like before at Main, we would have to hire based on X percent of attrition than that X percent goes down by 5% or 10% or 20%.
We actually have to hire few fewer people at the base level in order to maintain them through more senior levels as well.
49:46
So I think it's just important to note that that we are certainly anecdotally seeing the tenure at firms extend and the project duration at firms extend as well.
So your likelihood of having like I had 11 projects in 2 1/2 years, that would be a phenomenon today.
50:04
It's more likely that you'll have five in 2 1/2 years.
And so a lot of people stick around because they want to get more of the well-rounded experience that they came for in the first place.
Yeah, yeah.
Someone asks.
You know, with with the NBA hiring trending downwards, do you also expect advanced degree candidate hiring to trend lower as well?
50:23
Not as much, right?
There's two reasons for that.
Number one, firms really value diversity of background.
And so you don't want 6 engineers on a team, you don't want 6 MBA S on a team, right?
You want the perspective and the skill set that PHDSJDS and MD's bring to the table.
That's number one.
50:40
Number two, there are some firms that actually pay their advanced degree candidates a little bit less than MBA S And so that's not true for every firm that some firms, right, see some cost savings, if you will, as well as that diversity of background thought and perspective by hiring more advanced degree candidates and less NBA candidates.
51:04
And then the last question that came in was what will the job market be in 10 years?
And my answer to that is if I knew I'd have a lot more money than I do right now and, and I would probably not be here, I'd be making some moves, right to to take advantage of what would be happening in the next 10 years.
51:20
So we have some hot takes and predictions that maybe we can share on a different episode, Jenny Rae, about what the next decade's going to hold, but obviously no one knows.
No one knows specifically, but let's just say one thing.
We expect that the consulting revenues will increase for the next 10 years.
We we don't see any reason why they won't because consulting thrives an uncertainty and uncertainty is increasing.
51:41
We also expect that we will see The Who is getting hired and the rates that they're getting hired and what you're expected to do to change.
It's changed in the last decade.
It will change again in the next 10 years.
So the expectations will increase.
Your technological expertise will need to increase, but fundamentally critical thinkers and great communicators will always be and high demand in the space.
52:06
So what the numbers will be and where the big pockets of wins will be.
We, you know, we, we cannot go into that for sure, but we have a significant amount of confidence in the durability of this industry, despite what the news would love to make you think.
And we've really broke that down in detail inside the report.
52:27
We had more time and space there to talk about our rationale for why that's the case than we do today.
And so download the report, it's 100% free.
All of our analysis is in there as well to kind of walk you through why what's happening in the industry is happening and then what we expect to see over the next 135 in 10 years.
52:48
With that being said, we're at the top of the hour.
Thanks so much everybody for joining us today for this conversation on consulting salaries and what they mean for you.
If you've got follow up questions, please feel free to write us.
Our e-mail address is in the chat.
53:03
It's in the show notes.
We'd love to hear from you.
And happy Tuesday.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode on 2025 Consulting Salary Trends.
Of course, if you haven't already, go check out the report.
It's completely free.
It's available for anyone to download.
53:21
Just go to the link in this episode Show Notes for Management consultant.com to get the report for yourself, today we'll catch you again on another episode of Strategy Simplified,