What Degree Do You Need to Become a Business Consultant?

Business consultants provide expertise and skilled services that improve and grow businesses. Many people assume that a business consultant must have a degree in business administration, project management, or possibly finance. However, since different clients need different kinds of assistance, almost any degree could potentially benefit a business consultant, as long as it gives them skills to offer. Knowledge about business operations, specifically, can be gained in a variety of ways, including reading, non-college courses, mentoring relationships, and job experience. A business consultant does not necessarily need any college degree if they have other training and/or experience. What matters most for a consultant is applying what they know to produce results for clients.

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. 

Do I Need a Degree to Become a Business Consultant?

Clients expect a consultant to be a knowledgeable resource, not only well-versed in business operations but also skilled in observation, analysis, and communications. However, these abilities do not have to be gained through formal education or proven with a specific degree. A degree program is just one way to build and prove ability. Other routes include individual study, training programs, certifications, and work experience. 

A degree can certainly help to reassure clients or employers that a consultant has studied appropriate subjects and trained useful skills. However, consultants can gain comparable business knowledge while working as an executive, administrator, or manager in a business environment. Successfully starting and growing a small business also teaches lessons that can be conveyed later as a consultant. When discussing your credentials with a potential client or employer, relevant work experience is more impressive than any degree. 

Before working, some background study may be necessary, but here again, there are options outside of formal degree programs. For example, business training is available through textbooks, websites, and video tutorials. Professional training programs from non-college schools are even better than self-guided lessons. These courses provide most of the same information faster and for a lower cost than a degree, plus they include portfolio-building projects, career guidance, and support services to get novices started in their first job. Certificates provided by training schools may not have the reputation of a formal degree, but they do prove the completion of a valid course of study. 

Studying other related subjects can also demonstrate useful knowledge and skills. For example, a business consultant specializing in software development will benefit from a degree program in computer science, software engineering, or a related discipline like information technology. Once again, consultants can gain these abilities through other routes, including working as a software developer, self-guided study, or a training program. 

To be successful, consultants also need various other skills, including communication, data analysis, resource management, and marketing. While a college student might pursue a minor in business consulting, major degree programs for this specific career are rare. Some of a consultant’s necessary skills can be gained on the job, especially for novices climbing through a consulting firm. However, some starting ability is necessary to qualify for such jobs, and a freelance consultant needs adequate expertise to serve clients on their own. Here, non-college training programs have the most to offer. Students can take individual courses on skills like public speaking and data analysis, and some training providers do offer specific courses on business consulting, explaining the career and teaching its necessary subskills. 

Finally, another way to prepare for a consulting career and demonstrate one’s abilities is an official consulting certification. Certifications are awarded by national or international organizations based on a candidate’s proven qualifications, which include education, work experience, and examinations. Examples of common certifications for business consultants include Certified Management Consultant (CMC), Project Management Professional (PMP), and Talent Optimization Consultant (TOC). These certifications often include training programs to help candidates prepare, programs that teach them some subjects directly and show them what more they need to learn in other areas. Successfully completing a certification provides as much proof of one’s competence as a degree, if not more, due to its specific requirements.

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Common Degrees for Business Consultants

Intuitively, pursuing a business degree might seem like a natural route for students interested in business consulting. A significant number of new consultants, especially those hired by consulting firms, do have a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. A Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA) is an even stronger credential and likely to secure a higher starting salary or justify higher fees. However, a majority of working consultants do not have business degrees, and their necessity has been declining over time. Instead, other degrees are increasingly valuable for consultants, giving them expertise they can share with clients or apply to clients’ problems. Potential consultants can gain business knowledge instead through minors, training programs, or work experience, rather than making business their primary study program. 

Other common and highly recommended degree programs include:

• Economics: Knowledge of economic patterns and other monetary concerns can be valuable not only when working for financial businesses but also when addressing a client’s investment needs, pricing, purchasing, marketing plans, and salaries.
• Finance: Like Economics, a degree specifically in Finance or related disciplines like Accounting or Financial Analysis gives a consultant valuable monetary skills they can offer to clients, plus a stronger understanding of money matters in general.
• Engineering: Science and engineering are rarely students’ first thoughts when planning a business consulting career, but an Engineering degree conveys practical skills that many businesses need, whether to design products or production methods, improve facilities, or understand technical operations well enough to guide their improvement. Students with a solely business-focused degree often lack the ‘hard’ skills required to assist businesses with primarily technical or mechanical operations.
• Operations Management: Closely related to business administration and project management, a degree in Operations Management trains a consultant to understand, analyze, and improve a business’ structures and processes, valuable skills for clients who need to streamline or upscale their operations.
• Law: A legal degree is particularly useful for consultants who plan to offer legal services to their clients, such as contract creation and arbitration, regulatory compliance, and intellectual property protection. This knowledge also helps consultants notice and correct legal concerns in other areas, such as providing required disclosures to customers or protecting their private information.
• Marketing: Marketing consultants provide a popular specialized business service and are often hired by marketing firms as their interface between clients and internal experts like product designers and social media marketers. Freelance consultants with a Marketing degree can assist customers better with their promotional, advertising, and sales plans.
• Computer Science: Computing skills are necessary for almost every modern consultant, especially as client businesses increasingly move into digital spaces. A general Computer Science degree can teach a consultant how to understand and use tools like information technologies, enterprise software, cloud-based and web-based services, social media, digital modeling, and generative AI. Specific degrees in related areas like Software Engineering, Digital Media, or Web Development provide saleable skills clients need and allow a consultant to incorporate these tools into their repertoire.
• Other Sciences: Like Engineering and Computer Science, a degree in a technical, scientific field can provide expertise that certain clients require. Chemistry and Physics are the two most common science degrees, but medical and health studies also have useful applications, especially when serving health care providers.
• Other Specialties: Many other degrees — and several non-degree programs — offer paths into business consulting. Business consultants working now have started with degrees in Political Science, History, Psychology, Communications, Education, International Relations, Public Relations, and Statistics. These educational paths tend to emphasize analyzing patterns and conveying this knowledge effectively. Of course, their specialized knowledge may also have applications to particular clients’ needs.

Tips for Starting a Business Consultant Career Without a Degree

Two requirements stand out among successful business consultants who did not complete a degree program: skill training and experience. Professional consulting certifications also help to overcome the challenges of securing clients or employers without a degree. First, prospective consultants should research this field, creating a plan for their education and employment. Then, when starting their career, consultants without a degree will need to promote themselves more strongly, emphasizing their proven abilities and being flexible and open to all potential clients.

• Skill Training: Seek training in general areas that all consultants need, like business, data analysis, and communications, and specialized skills that give you something more to offer clients. Consider all non-traditional training options, including self-guided study with textbooks, websites, and video lessons, or live training programs like bootcamps and certificate courses. Make a plan to guide your education and keep a record of your completed studies.
• Experience: Pursue employment, if possible, in businesses related to your area of interest. Even general work experience can give you opportunities to demonstrate your ability, especially in positions like administration, finance, or operations management. Work experience also teaches skills through on-the-job training and daily challenges, and it will show you what more you need to learn.
• Certification: While not a firm requirement, professional consulting certifications can provide concrete proof of your abilities and guide your consulting career. Research and choose the most appropriate consulting certification for your intended work, then use its requirements as a guide to your planning. Be ready to pass the certification’s required examinations at the appropriate time, once you have completed any prerequisite training and work experience.
• Research: One of the challenges of training outside of a formal degree program is the lack of guiding structure. You will need to research business consulting and create plans for your education and early employment, as above, and also create a consulting business model. If you plan to work as a freelance consultant, start building your portfolio, description of services, and marketing strategy. If seeking employment with a consulting firm, plan your future resume and interview pitch. These early structures will guide your preparations and ensure that your time is spent wisely.
• Self-Promotion: A degree provides evidence of organized, relevant studies. To overcome the absence of this credential, a consultant without a formal degree will need to emphasize their other qualifications. Make sure your work experience, training certificates, and any earned certifications are not only listed but explained well. Also, discuss the specific ways your services will help clients, including any improvements already proven with past employers.

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.