What is management consulting?
Management consulting is a highly competitive and highly rewarding career path. It involves advising businesses on how to improve performance, solve problems, and achieve their goals.
This is Part 1 of our mini-series on ‘How to Become a Management Consultant’. In this video John Chisholm from Crescente explains what you’ll learn from watching this series of videos.
If you are thinking about becoming a management consultant, regardless of your current career or career stage, this series is for you.
Management consulting work categories
This is Part 2 of our mini-series on ‘How to become a Management Consultant’. In this video John shares definitions of management consulting. He then explains the type of work, industries and sectors that you can work in as a management consultant.
As a management consultant the types of work you might get involved in includes:
- Strategy Development: Creating long-term plans that align with the organisation’s goals and market conditions.
- Operations Optimisation: Streamlining processes to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance productivity.
- Change Management: Facilitating smooth transitions during mergers, acquisitions, or organisational restructuring.
- Financial Advisory: Offering insights on cost management, budgeting, and financial planning to improve financial health.
- Technology Implementation and Market Analysis: Management Consultants assist in selecting and integrating technology solutions that support business objectives and conduct in-depth research to understand market trends, customer needs.
Roles and responsibilities
What makes this a really interesting career is the range of skills needed. The day-to-day tasks of a management consultant are listed below. These are the ‘consulting skills’ you are going to need in addition to a technical specialism.
- Meeting with clients to discuss their needs
- Conducting research to better understand a client’s business
- Interviewing senior and junior employees and the organisation’s customers
- Collecting and analysing data, then proceeding to come up with reports
- Identifying and probing problems, then initiating plans to tackle them
- Highlighting areas where improvements are needed
- Developing computer models to assess the success of proposed recommendations
- Presenting recommendations to a client
- Charting a course forward with the client
- Providing ongoing support to clients
What are the educational requirements to become a management consultant?
According to the National Career service you’ll need: 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, Undergraduate degree. Category-specific qualifications can be important. Work experience is also key. You can become a management consultant via a university course, an apprenticeship, applying directly or a graduate training scheme. You could do a degree or postgraduate qualification in: business studies, finance, maths, science, management. A postgraduate qualification, like a master’s in business administration (MBA), may also be helpful.
Work experience is essential if you want to become a management consultant. Try and gain relevant work experience in a technical discipline and in analysing business improvements and leading change. If you are new to work then this experience might come from college projects or social and community activities. As discussed in a previous video, consulting firms are likely to offer opportunities for you to work with them for a few days or weeks.
Watch the video below, or follow the links to the UK National Careers Service or Prospects website for more information.
Visit the UK National Career Service page for Management Consultant here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/management-consultant
Prospects Website: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/management-consultant
What are the salary expectations and day rates for management consultants?
If you want to know how much you could earn as a management consultant, or what you should be charging for a day of work then this video is for you.
According to Indeed salaries, the average salary for a management consultant is £54,876 per year. However, this amount can differ based on your location, experience, company and education.
£500 to £1000 per day is common for freelance consultants.
The jobs website Indeed provides more information: https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/how-to-become-a-management-consultant
How long does it take to become a management consultant?
As a management consultant, who should you work for?
Should you work for a global multi-national or a small consultancy? What are the pros and cons for each? And which is best for newly qualified and more experienced professionals? What the vie to find out.
The Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has over 90 corporate members, 30% of which are large companies. This suggests that 70% are smaller consultancies. Our own research on LinkedIn for ‘Business consulting services’ in the UK, most firms have 200 or fewer headcount. This suggests the majority of management consultants work for small and medium-sized enterprises, or even work for themselves as a solo freelancer.
The top-tier consultancies include the “Big 3” (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) and the “Big 4” (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC). Whereas mid-tier consultancies (Accenture, A.T. Kearney, Oliver Wyman, L.E.K. Consulting, Roland Berger, and Strategy& (part of PwC)) offer a wide range of highly differentiates services, and often provide a more personalised approach to client needs.
Here’s a few more considerations when considering who you might want to work for as a management consultant:
Services: While the Big 4 are known for a broader range of services, including audit, tax, and advisory, mid-tier firms often specialise in specific areas like strategy, operations, or technology consulting.
Client Focus: Mid-tier firms can offer a more tailored and personalised approach to clients, leveraging their size advantage to understand specific needs and challenges.
Culture: Some mid-tier firms are known for their more collaborative and less hierarchical cultures compared to the top-tier firms.
Growth: Mid-tier firms are increasingly recognised for their ability to adapt to changing market dynamics and provide clients with both strategy and implementation support.
What skills do you need?
In this video we use the Management Consultants Competency Framework for structure. This is jointly produced by the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) and the Chartered Management Institute.
The framework is an important resource that you can use to develop your skills, benchmark your progress and prepare for the Chartered Management Consultant professional assessment.
How long does it take to become a management consultant?
In this video John from Crescente uses the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Career Pathway as a structure for considering how long it takes to become a management consultant and highlights some characteristics of the career different stages along the way.
There is no single route to qualify as a management consultant. In fact it will really depend upon which industry category you are working in and whether you want to specialise in a specific technical discipline, or you choose the management route.
In this video John provides an overview of the management consulting qualifications from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) which is the Level 7 Award, Certificate, Diploma and Extended Diploma in Professional Consulting.
CMI Level 7 in Professional Consulting – syllabus and assignment brief examples
