Business Consultant Job Outlook

The job prospects for business consultants are as enduring and diverse as business operations themselves. Entrepreneurs, small businesses, mid-sized companies, and global corporations in every industry all need guidance and support, and they regularly hire consultants for a broad range of duties. The world’s diverse industries and business structures provide opportunities for an equally wide range of consulting professionals. For example, a newly trained business consultant may not have the experience or reputation to work for a major corporation, but they could still foster a small startup to success. As consultants gain a proven portfolio of satisfied clients, they can attract more prestigious clients, charge higher fees, and draw the interest of other consultants, potentially leading to ownership of a consulting group or employment with a high-powered consulting firm. Some business consultants can specialize in particular industries or kinds of services, appealing to clients who need that focused expertise. Plus, consultants can still find work during difficult economic times, since they help clients manage downturns, reduce losses, transition into new areas, and recover from setbacks. Thus, regardless of their particular experience or regional circumstances, a skilled, active business consultant can always find work.

What is a Business Consultant?

Few business owners possess every skill required to operate and grow their business. The same is true even for many large companies. A business consultant is a knowledgeable professional who provides the missing expertise and services that client businesses need. Their guidance and assistance might be employed to solve problems, remove obstacles, support a company through a crisis or expansion, help their client find and add new customers, or improve the efficiency of a company’s internal operations. Most often, a business consultant is hired to start or expand a business or to facilitate a major transition.

Business consultants may specialize in particular kinds of services, such as information technology, human resources, or legal compliance. Consultants may also specialize in particular industries, such as healthcare, manufacturing, or transportation. Some ‘business’ consultants tailor their services to non-commercial operations like education or government. 

Business consultants can be independent contractors, employees of a consulting firm, or direct hires of the businesses they improve. In some cases, a business consultant acts as a temporary employee, filling a gap for an empty or not-yet-hired position. Depending on their tasks and terms of service, business consultants may be paid on a salaried or contract basis, hired at an hourly or per diem rate, or paid according to their Return On Investment (ROI), the increase in sales a business observes after the consultant improves their operations. 

Studying can improve a worker’s understanding of business consulting practices, make them a better advisor and assistant to client businesses, and teach them how to run a successful consulting practice. However, the best business consultants are more than scholars, teachers, or aides; they possess experience running or participating in a successful enterprise. Such work experience proves their knowledge and skills but also teaches a consultant practical lessons about effective and ineffective business practices. 

What is the Job Outlook for Business Consulting?

The overall outlook for business consulting careers is strong. The need for consulting services remains even during economic downturns, and times of growth create even more and more varied opportunities for consultants. A business consultant's individual success can vary depending on their training and experience, particularly since high-demand knowledge and skills can greatly increase a consultant’s employability and potential salary. Demonstrated results and reputation are also important; a consultant may need to start small, taking lower-paying clients or an entry-level position at a consulting firm, until they have created a portfolio of successful projects and satisfied references.

Job Outlook

Establishing exact employment numbers for business consulting can be difficult due to consultants’ varied job titles and specializations. Freelance business consultants use differing descriptions for their services, and directly employed consultants often have titles other than Consultant. Under any description, though, consultants are highly employable, with many open positions. For the title Business Consultant, alone, estimates range from 60,000 to 90,000 active workers, plus 100,000 or more unfilled jobs. Many of these consultants, around 20% to 30%, are self-employed. Under another possible title, Management Analyst, over one million workers are currently employed, and around 100,000 openings are available every year. Note, however, that this number includes data analysts and managers in addition to management consultants. Another specialty area, Project Management, covers nearly another million jobs and 77,000 new openings per year, but again, these measures include administrators and executives.

More specialized consulting jobs, such as Financial Consultant or Security Consultant, also show tens of thousands of active positions per specialty. Trends suggest that consulting work will continue to increase this emphasis on specialized services. Specializing in a particular industry or type of service, rather than being a generalist, improves a consultant’s employability by focusing their expertise and clarifying their value to employers. 

Potential consulting specialties include:

• Management, Project Management, and Strategy
• Human Resources, Training and Development, and Talent Optimization
• Marketing, Advertising, Digital Marketing, and Social Media Marketing
• Software Engineering and Information Technology
• Security, Risk Management, Legal, and Compliance
• Finance, Accounting, Investment, and Taxation

Future Growth

Growth for the business consulting industry tends to follow overall economic growth. However, consulting work is somewhat resistant to downward trends, as times of difficulty and reorganization also provide consulting opportunities. On average, business consulting jobs are expected to rise by 11% over the next decade, an increase of about 100,000 new positions each year. This increase varies depending on specialty, with the largest increases expected for Security Consultants (33%), Pension Consultants (24%), and Software Consultants (22%) (per Indeed.com). Even the smallest increases, for Financial, Investment, and Accounting Consultants, are still around 6%, and these lower increases may reflect the consistently high demand for these specialties. 

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Industries

Business consultants can find work in nearly any industry, directly or through contracted self-employment. Depending on their training and experience, consultants can serve most organizations, including service providers like hospitality, food service, finance, information technology, transportation, or health care; manufacturers ranging from light assembly to heavy processing; and even fields not necessarily considered ‘businesses’, such as social services, education, and government agencies. Consulting roles exist for both established and emerging industries, and consultants sometimes create industries to serve by fostering entrepreneurs with viable ideas and talents. An aspiring business consultant might also find opportunities by identifying underserved or niche industries. Business incubators and similar government or non-profit organizations also employ business consultants to provide small, starting businesses with free or low-cost advice, training, and services like accounting and marketing.

The greatest growth for consulting services is in high-tech industries such as information technology, digital technologies and marketing, information security, and software development. Emerging technologies like generative AI, cloud computing, and virtual reality are creating new opportunities for consulting services and also changing the way consultants work. Many consultants now work remotely, conducting virtual inspections, interviews, analyses, and presentations. These technologies also increase consultants’ global reach, making it easier for freelance consultants and smaller consulting firms to work with foreign and international industries.

Consulting is a significant industry all by itself, with yearly revenues of $50-60 billion for consulting services alone across the world’s top ten consulting firms. Millions of employees work directly for these firms, many supporting their operations as administrators, managers, analysts, or experts, rather than consulting for any particular client. 

Salary

Across cities, specialties, and experience levels, the yearly income for a Business Consultant in the United States currently averages about $85,000. Salaries for business consultants have historically increased by an average of 2%-4% per year. However, the yearly increase has grown to 10% in the early 2020s, driven by rising demand and a tighter labor market. 

Among various consulting positions, the lowest salaries tend to be for government employees, who earn around $55,000 annually, and directly hired management consultants, who range from $60,000 to $75,000 per year. New freelancers and entry-level hires with consulting firms also earn about $75,000 per year. More experienced employees hired by larger consulting firms, by comparison, can start at $90,000 per year. A proven, highly sought-after freelance consultant can also earn more, typically $90,000 to $100,000 per year. 

Income also varies by the specific industries consultants support and the services they provide. The lowest salaries tend to be for more common or less technical specialties such as marketing, sales, accounting, and finance, which average closer to $40,000 to $50,000 for entry-level positions. Specializations like business administration, project management, strategy, and risk analysis are closest to the average salary range, around $50,000 to $60,000 per year for entry-level positions. Across all positions, consultants in expanding and high-demand fields like information technology, information security, and software engineering earn about $10,000 more per year. An entry-level consultant in these areas, with suitable technical skills, can earn $80,000 per year or more. 

Location also has a significant effect on Business Consultant salaries, depending on variables like the demand for consultants, overall economic activity, and cost of living. In general, highly urbanized areas with high populations and more businesses tend to offer higher salaries for Business Consultants. Regions like the Texas Triangle (including Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston), the greater New York City region (including New Jersey), and the San Fransisco Bay and Los Angeles areas of California offer high average salaries for Business Consultants. Dallas and San Antonio, for example, average $90,000 per year for Business Consultants, across all positions, while salaries in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles can range from $90,000 to $100,000 on average. Higher average salaries are also available in cities like Houston, Salt Lake City, Chicago, San Jose, Boulder, Denver, Phoenix, and Atlanta, each averaging around $85,000 per year. 

How Do I Find a Business Consulting Job?

To qualify for work as a business consultant, a candidate must first know how a successful business starts and operates. They must also have strong communication, analysis, and problem-solving skills to provide clients with appropriate advice and interventions. Prepared with these skills, a potential business consultant should create a promotional plan listing their credentials, describing the services they can offer, and explaining the value of those services. Ideally, they should create a portfolio including examples of past work. Here, research into the field can help to tailor a candidate’s job pitch, identify what services are in high demand, and locate emerging opportunities for consulting. Depending on a consultant’s background and employment goal, their self-promotion might take the form of a resume or a business plan. Establishing one’s credentials as a business expert through training, certification, service, and references also helps to build interest and potential clientele. Finally, the candidate must contact potential employers and present their pitch, convincing the employer to hire them, whether on a specific contracted basis or as a direct employee.

Business Expertise

A consultant’s business knowledge need not be total or universal. This is especially true for consultants who focus their practice on certain aspects of business operations or specific industries. Still, consultants should understand fundamental principles like business planning, financing, staffing, workflow, growth, and troubleshooting. This knowledge can come from study, work experience, mentored training, or a combination of all three. A consultant can and should expand their knowledge further while working, but they need some basic competence to start. Academic degrees are valuable, but professional certificates and certifications — consulting-specific credentials as well as specialties like management, security, or finance — can also verify a candidate’s competence to potential employers.

Other Skills: Communication, Analysis, and Problem-Solving

A prospective consultant should be able to communicate well in multiple settings, gather and analyze information, and identify and solve client problems. These abilities are necessary to examine a client’s business in detail, determine its needs, and apply one’s knowledge to create improvements. Again, a consultant can improve these skills on the job, but training and practice with public speaking, interviewing, investigation, data analysis, and creative problem-solving will make a candidate more qualified to start work as a business consultant. Consulting-specific classes particularly emphasize these abilities.

Career Planning

A business consultant’s preferred type of employment is often guided by their studies, their experience, the services they can provide, and the industries they plan to work for. Many consultants are self-employed, contracting with client businesses to provide one or more services. Others work for consulting firms, companies that employ multiple consultants and act as an interface between those consultants and their clients. A few consultants work directly for corporations, either hired for a limited term to complete a specific task or employed flexibly over a longer period, identifying problems as they arise and improving processes wherever possible. However, these internal positions are rarely entry-level, except for analysts and trainers in the largest corporations, and usually require an established reputation as a skilled consultant.

Each option has benefits and limitations, but a new consultant may not have as many options for their first job. Some start as freelancers simply to gain enough experience and references to secure a more consistent and well-paying position. Some accept entry-level positions with a consulting firm but are initially limited to routine work like interviewing, data analysis, or reporting. This labor can teach useful skills and might be preferable to the complexities and stresses of self-employment but does not grant as much diverse experience or increase one’s professional reputation. Some potential consultants must initially work in other areas, such as human resources or administration, to acquire more experience before launching their consulting career.

Self-Employment

If planning to work as a freelancer, a business consultant will need:

• a comprehensive business plan, detailing the clients they are seeking, the services they can offer, their preferred employment model, and their pricing structure;
• a record of their previous work, either a portfolio describing the specific improvements they generated for clients or, at a minimum, samples of their creations such as live presentations, articles, or taught classes;
• a marketing plan, including statements explaining the nature and value of their work, methods to find and approach potential clients, and an advertising budget; and
• a support network, including professional organizations that provide training, guidance, and client contacts, plus associations of fellow business consultants and business owners.

Consulting Firms

Business consultants seeking a position with a consulting firm should:

• create a portfolio of their previous work, including improvements created for clients, positive references, and/or samples of their creations like presentations or articles;
• prepare a resume listing their education, work experience, and other credentials;
• research potential employers, their needs, and their expectations for candidates;
• prepare for interviews by researching likely questions and preparing answers;
• anticipate starting in subordinate roles, handling routine tasks like interviews, data collection, analysis, and report preparation for more senior consultants. 

Learn the Skills to Become a Business Consultant at Noble Desktop

Business courses at Noble Desktop can teach you most of the skills needed to start working as a business consultant, including general business skills, soft skills used in consulting, and specialized skills often sought by clients. These courses span short classes of one or two sessions, bootcamps of varying lengths, and comprehensive professional training programs. Noble Desktop’s classes are available both online and in person in New York City. All classes include live instruction, supplemental reference materials, a digital certificate of completion, and the option to retake the class for free for up to one year. Students can also view recordings after each class session and for up to one month later. 

Business Skills

Noble Desktop’s “MBA” Business Certificate course covers a full range of professional business skills, including useful tools and information on project management, leadership, finance, marketing, data analysis, generative AI, hiring, and legal concerns. While not a full MBA degree program, this certificate course was developed by experienced professionals to cover the core elements of a business education. In addition, this class’ certificate is licensed by the New York State Department of Education. The primary course runs for about five weeks, including both live class sessions and study projects. In addition to reinforcing class lessons, these projects will generate work samples for a starting portfolio. In addition to the primary course, students can select up to 60 hours of elective classes including programming languages, business software, financial tools, and digital marketing. The course also includes eight 1-on-1 mentoring sessions allowing students to work directly with a mentor to address individual goals, review difficult lessons, improve their portfolios and resumes, and refine their career plans.

Included within the “MBA” Business Certificate but also available as a separate course, Noble Desktop’s Project Management Bootcamp is an accelerated program teaching project management methods, tools, and strategies. The program is primarily designed to prepare students for a career in project management but is equally valuable for business consultants. This course is taught in two class sessions, Project Management Level I and Project Management Level II. The first session addresses the theory, practice, subskills, and commonly used tools of project management. The second class further details the individual phases of a project; covers financial, resource, and risk management; and introduces students to the Agile Project Management methodology and several of its implementations, or “frameworks”. 

Leadership, Management, and Public Speaking

Although often described as ‘soft skills,’ leadership, communication, and management can be improved through study and provide concrete benefits. Business consultants use leadership and management techniques not only when directing clients’ employees but also whenever they advise, teach, and motivate clients or when devising organizational structures. Noble Desktop’s Applied Leadership & Management Skills is a two-session class that first teaches the fundamental elements of leadership, communication, and management, then applies these lessons to specific challenges like setting and meeting goals, managing workplace conflict, setting and meeting a schedule, and creative problem-solving. Another class, Intro to Public Speaking, is a shorter, one-session class that focuses more specifically on group communication skills and improves students’ confidence, clarity, and persuasiveness. These abilities are particularly valuable to consultants when teaching skills, delivering advice, or presenting research to clients. The class also includes a section on skillful, effective use of Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations.

Data Analytics

Data analytics is the ability to gather information, organize it, process it to obtain accurate and informative conclusions, and present these findings in clear, persuasive forms. Consultants regularly use data analysis to investigate and describe their clients’ operations, as a prelude to specific recommendations and interventions and as a way to track the effects of their changes. Most entry-level positions with consulting firms involve data analysis, and a consultant with significant data analytic ability is a stronger candidate for employment. 

Noble Desktop offers multiple types of data analytics training. Their Data Analytics Certificate is their most general and comprehensive program. This certificate program can be completed in under two months on a full-time schedule but offers several alternate scheduling options if needed. The course covers eight units of instruction, starting with a short course on Microsoft Excel to give students a commonly used tool for data collection, organization, analysis, and visualization. The course then covers data analytics in more depth, addressing its foundational concepts, utility for decision-making, and applications in business. Subsequent units teach specific coding and visualization tools, including Python (a general-purpose programming language), SQL (a programming language specialized for data collection and management), and Tableau (a popular data visualization program). The course also addresses machine learning algorithms and their interactions with data analysis. This certificate course includes eight 1-on-1 mentoring sessions and a New York State licensed certificate of completion.

For a shorter and more focused course, Noble Desktop’s Business Analyst Certificate covers several data analysis tools used in business operations. This certificate program takes students from introductory lessons to advanced skills with Microsoft Excel, SQL, Tableau, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Each application’s section is the equivalent of an individual bootcamp, including fundamental skills training, specific methods used for data analysis and/or reporting, and advanced techniques to add more utility and improve efficiency. This course lasts about six weeks on a full-time schedule, with part-time scheduling also available. Completing this course awards students with a New York State licensed certificate.

Financial analysis is one of the most common types of data analysis for businesses and an asset for any business consultant. Noble Desktop’s Financial Modeling Bootcamp is an intensive, three-session course that uses Excel to demonstrate representations, analyses, and concepts useful to understand any company’s finances. Participants are expected to already have good fluency and working experience with Excel. Alternatively, the Financial Analyst Training Program adds two preliminary classes on Excel and its use in data analysis and then presents the same material as the Financial Modeling Bootcamp. 

Marketing

Marketing is another necessity for businesses and a valuable skill for a business consultant. Finding interested customers, developing an appealing product, managing pricing and sales, creating interest and need, and confirming and retaining buyers all require trained strategy. Noble Desktop’s Marketing Strategy class teaches the fundamental concepts of marketing and addresses specific techniques to create, implement, and manage a marketing strategy. The class’ two sessions also include time to practice these methods in guided projects. 

Two additional classes address modern, online marketing methods in more depth. The Digital Marketing Certificate program is a New York State-licensed certificate course that covers a complete range of digital marketing methods and considerations, from website creation and web advertising to email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media sites and campaigns. Students learn not only how to establish an appealing online presence but also how to manage online activity to excite customers, hold their interest, and avoid mistakes. This course can be completed in about one month on a full-time schedule. A shorter course, but also a State-licensed certificate, the Social Media Marketing Certificate program is a subset of the Digital Marketing Certificate program that focuses more specifically on social media use and marketing strategies.