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Business consultant vs project consultant

The differences between business consultants and project consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a business consultant and a project consultant. Additionally, a business consultant has an average salary of $87,214, which is higher than the $86,654 average annual salary of a project consultant.

The top three skills for a business consultant include data analysis, project management and strong analytical. The most important skills for a project consultant are customer service, project management, and client facing.

Business consultant vs project consultant overview

Business ConsultantProject Consultant
Yearly salary$87,214$86,654
Hourly rate$41.93$41.66
Growth rate11%11%
Number of jobs128,033113,013
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age4444
Years of experience44

What does a business consultant do?

A business consultant is an individual who works directly with business owners on developing a business plan and identifying their marketing needs. Business consultants offer business owners a wide range of services, such as supplementing existing staff, provide expertise in a specific market, and influencing other people. To increase revenue in business, business consultants should have experience success with the previous business owners. Business consultants must also have a bachelor's degree in business management and received years of field training.

What does a project consultant do?

A project consultant is responsible for communicating with the clients for their specific needs, develop strategic plans, and determine project resources to achieve their business goals and objectives. Project consultants are employed across various industries, offering their knowledge and expertise to facilitate clients' requests and propositions. They also collaborate with different development teams to discuss project parameters and analyze opportunities to improve plans and progress efficiency. A project consultant must have excellent communication and critical-thinking skills, responding to clients' inquiries and concerns, and providing recommendations to ensure successful project completion.

Business consultant vs project consultant salary

Business consultants and project consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

Business ConsultantProject Consultant
Average salary$87,214$86,654
Salary rangeBetween $64,000 And $117,000Between $59,000 And $126,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CANewark, NJ
Highest paying stateAlaskaNew Jersey
Best paying companyZSDell
Best paying industryTechnology-

Differences between business consultant and project consultant education

There are a few differences between a business consultant and a project consultant in terms of educational background:

Business ConsultantProject Consultant
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common collegeNorthwestern UniversityNorthwestern University

Business consultant vs project consultant demographics

Here are the differences between business consultants' and project consultants' demographics:

Business ConsultantProject Consultant
Average age4444
Gender ratioMale, 62.8% Female, 37.2%Male, 61.9% Female, 38.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Asian, 13.4% White, 65.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 7.4% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 8.5% Asian, 14.4% White, 65.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage12%12%

Differences between business consultant and project consultant duties and responsibilities

Business consultant example responsibilities.

  • Partner with PMO and lead testing effort to ensure completeness of test data sets and to manage risk.
  • Manage requirements gathering, identify KPI s, and oversee design and architecture decisions.
  • Manage various SOX, HIPAA and PCI compliance projects from the planning stages to completion.
  • Apply the specific rules for HIPAA X12, Medicaid manage care requirements and industry best practices for transaction handling.
  • Manage external technology suppliers to assure functional operations and system architecture meet the business needs.
  • Perform successful UAT - good knowledge & experience in SDLC - SQL querying and data analysis.
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Project consultant example responsibilities.

  • Lead a pilot project to introduce strong document management features to support document repositories in SharePoint.
  • Manage a team responsible for designing service-orient application architecture, standards and best practices guidelines, security and data access frameworks.
  • Create SQL scripts to implement test unit cases and ensure data quality.
  • Gather all systems, applications and processes documentation into one repository on SharePoint to enable incoming vendor education.
  • Implement strategic initiatives for operational transformation, including SDLC processes, role specialization, order tracking and labor tracking.
  • Develop amendment projection and confirmations user interfaces using JavaScript and XML and develop PL/SQL procedures and packages to handle business logic.
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Business consultant vs project consultant skills

Common business consultant skills
  • Data Analysis, 10%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Strong Analytical, 8%
  • Analytics, 7%
  • Healthcare, 5%
  • Tableau, 5%
Common project consultant skills
  • Customer Service, 16%
  • Project Management, 12%
  • Client Facing, 6%
  • Project Scope, 5%
  • Process Improvement, 5%
  • Healthcare, 4%

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