What is a Computer Consultant?

Computer Consultants are IT professionals who specialize in a specific area of information technology. Because IT is so vast, there's a potentially limitless opportunity for computer consultants. The industry grows along with the demand for viable computer solutions.

Computer consultants can work as entry-level tech support or maintain servers for e-commerce businesses. They can also do everything in between, from PC repair to cybersecurity and information theft. Computer consultants may also be hired to oversee IT departments, train staff, and manage day-to-day operations.

The educational requirements of a computer consultant vary with the specialization. But you need a bachelor's degree in computer science, computing, or other IT related fields. You may also require certification from software companies like Microsoft, especially if you want to land prominent roles.

What Does a Computer Consultant Do

There are certain skills that many computer consultants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, listening skills and problem-solving skills.

Learn more about what a Computer Consultant does

How To Become a Computer Consultant

If you're interested in becoming a computer consultant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 62.4% of computer consultants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 8.6% of computer consultants have master's degrees. Even though most computer consultants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Computer Consultant
Top Computer Consultant Jobs Near You

Computer Consultant Career Paths

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a computer consultant can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as technical support specialist, progress to a title such as systems administrator and then eventually end up with the title information technology manager.

Computer Consultant

Average Salary for a Computer Consultant

Computer Consultants in America make an average salary of $94,331 per year or $45 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $131,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $67,000 per year.
Average Computer Consultant Salary
$94,331 Yearly
$45.35 hourly
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Roles and Types of Computer Consultant

The role of a computer consultant includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general computer consultant responsibilities:

  • Provide technical assistance to admissions staff. Identify, investigate
  • Serve as a consultant to customers supporting adp's products/technologies use breadth of expertise to service adp's clients solve client problems; taking a broad perspective to identify solutions work with direction to resolve issues
  • Assisting students and faculty with using gis software (e.g., arcgis), printing, scanning

There are several types of computer consultant, including:

Consultant

Role:

Consultants are essential to businesses that want to improve their performance. Typically, consultants advise these businesses in many areas such as operations, profitability, management, and even structure.

Consultants have their work cut out for them because their advice can stretch over so many different areas. You may need some expertise in management, strategy, human resources, finance, and IT (just to name a few fields).

In addition to having all of this knowledge, consultants typically work long hours, we're talking an average of 56 hours a week, but many work even beyond that, to around 70-80 hours. Spending that many hours at the office, you'll probably end up with some good friends, at least.

  • Average Salary: $78,912
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Information Technology Consultant

Role:

An information technology consultant will partner with companies to help use, develop, and integrate information technology systems. You will resolve technical problems and train users to know the value of technology in the company's business. You will also provide the best advice on using technology to achieve business goals as well as train users in the new and existing information technology systems. In the same way, you will design the IT networks and systems to have the right functionality and architecture.

The average salary of an information technology consultant is $73,942 yearly, or $35.55 an hour. The minimal educational requirement is a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related field to Information Technology. You must be able to troubleshoot the software, hardware, and network issues and give a solution to the problem. You should also have experience using different operating systems.

  • Average Salary: $84,790
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Computer Repair Technician

Role:

To most people, motherboards, servers, and other computer parts are nothing more than piles of wires and hardware. However, a computer repair technician can look at those parts and find a solution to somebody's computer problems. These experts are masters at installing and maintaining computer equipment.

Computer repair technicians can do everything from removing spyware programs to diagnosing problems with a computer's hardware. They can work with hardware, software, and everything in between. Often, this knowledge comes from years of practical experience gained on the job. Only about 30% of computer repair technicians bother getting bachelor's degrees.

A person who is handy with tools and knows how computers work might want to look into this field when considering a career. As more and more people start using computers for work and personal use, they will also need help fixing the inevitable problems. In fact, the demand for computer repair technicians is expected to grow by 10% by 2028.

  • Average Salary: $32,627
  • Degree: Associate Degree
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States With The Most Computer Consultant Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active computer consultant jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where computer consultants earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Computer Consultant Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California3,407$98,396
2Texas1,861$83,003
3Florida1,520$73,034
4Virginia1,387$83,464
5New York1,171$80,230
6Illinois1,171$56,003
7Pennsylvania1,034$77,341
8Maryland1,028$76,957
9Massachusetts1,008$78,954
10North Carolina901$86,467
11Georgia900$73,440
12Ohio867$65,649
13Alabama851$65,835
14New Jersey739$94,496
15Arizona724$80,673
16Minnesota710$52,961
17Michigan687$64,518
18Colorado653$49,582
19Indiana614$71,200
20Oklahoma581$68,444
21Washington581$79,070
22Missouri484$53,651
23Wisconsin483$54,621
24Oregon475$76,953
25Mississippi467$66,749
26Utah445$65,041
27Tennessee396$66,626
28Connecticut333$79,758
29South Carolina321$69,273
30Kentucky295$76,120
31Kansas284$51,004
32Iowa265$49,588
33Nebraska239$47,987
34South Dakota225$43,932
35Nevada218$96,298
36New Mexico216$68,770
37New Hampshire211$77,393
38Arkansas203$57,054
39Louisiana202$73,243
40Idaho157$54,903
41Hawaii150$55,481
42Montana137$45,312
43Rhode Island132$91,208
44Delaware125$78,069
45Alaska121$71,728
46North Dakota121$49,463
47Vermont112$88,825
48Maine108$74,173
49West Virginia95$68,993
50Wyoming69$45,471

Computer Consultant Education

Computer Consultant Majors

Computer Science
24.5 %
Business
14.3 %
Computer Information Systems
9.0 %

Computer Consultant Degrees

Bachelors

62.4 %

Associate

20.8 %

Masters

8.6 %

Top Colleges for Computer Consultants

1. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

2. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

3. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

4. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

5. California State University - Bakersfield

Bakersfield, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$7,309

Enrollment

9,142

6. SUNY at Binghamton

Vestal, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$9,808

Enrollment

13,990

7. San Diego State University

San Diego, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$7,488

Enrollment

30,018

8. Boston University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,948

Enrollment

17,238

9. New York University

New York, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,828

Enrollment

26,339

10. Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$50,530

Enrollment

4,571

Top Skills For a Computer Consultant

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.0% of computer consultants listed technical support on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and listening skills are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Computer Consultant Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Computer Consultant templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Computer Consultant resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Computer Consultant Resume
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Computer Consultant diversity

Computer Consultant Gender Distribution

Male
Male
78%
Female
Female
22%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among computer consultants, 21.8% of them are women, while 78.2% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among computer consultants is White, which makes up 54.2% of all computer consultants.

  • The most common foreign language among computer consultants is Spanish at 34.6%.

Online Courses For Computer Consultant That You May Like

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1. Computer Hardware and Software

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This course provides foundational understanding of how computers process information through hardware and software. You will investigate the world of Information Technology (IT) and survey hardware components, mobile devices, operating systems, programs and apps, network fundamentals, the Internet, and touch on security and ethics...

2. The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking

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This course is designed to provide a full overview of computer networking. We’ll cover everything from the fundamentals of modern networking technologies and protocols to an overview of the cloud to practical applications and network troubleshooting. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: ● describe computer networks in terms of a five-layer model ● understand all of the standard protocols involved with TCP/IP communications ● grasp powerful network troubleshooting tools and techniques ●...

3. Computer Basics, Computer Fundamentals Hardware & Networking

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BEST Computer Course: Computer Basics / Computer Fundamentals / Basic Computer Skills / Computer Hardware & Networking...

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Best States For a Computer Consultant

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a computer consultant. The best states for people in this position are California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Computer consultants make the most in California with an average salary of $98,396. Whereas in Nevada and New Jersey, they would average $96,298 and $94,496, respectively. While computer consultants would only make an average of $91,208 in Rhode Island, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. District of Columbia

Total Computer Consultant Jobs: 449
Highest 10% Earn:
$143,000
Location Quotient:
2.55

$94,027

Avg. Salary

View 449 Computer Consultant Jobs In DC

2. Vermont

Total Computer Consultant Jobs: 112
Highest 10% Earn:
$127,000
Location Quotient:
1.39

$88,825

Avg. Salary

View 112 Computer Consultant Jobs In VT

3. California

Total Computer Consultant Jobs: 3,407
Highest 10% Earn:
$157,000
Location Quotient:
1.11

$98,396

Avg. Salary

View 3,407 Computer Consultant Jobs In CA
Full List Of Best States For Computer Consultants

How Do Computer Consultants Rate Their Jobs?

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Top Computer Consultant Employers

Most Common Employers For Computer Consultant

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Dell$93,326$44.8722
2Accenture$88,652$42.6214
3TEKsystems$88,140$42.3819
4Analysts$87,771$42.209
5Wipro Limited$86,721$41.69356
6IBM$83,714$40.2532
7Rutgers University$78,509$37.7423
8University of Southern California$76,361$36.7112
9Temple University$64,195$30.869
10Wake Forest University$63,391$30.489
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Updated April 6, 2023