Government contractor vs consultant

The differences between government contractors and consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-8 years to become a government contractor, becoming a consultant takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, a consultant has an average salary of $78,912, which is higher than the $76,972 average annual salary of a government contractor.

The top three skills for a government contractor include cost accounting standards, financial statements and security clearance. The most important skills for a consultant are customer service, strong analytical, and project management.

Government contractor vs consultant overview

	Government Contractor	Consultant
Yearly salary	$76,972	$78,912
Hourly rate	$37.01	$37.94
Growth rate	8%	11%
Number of jobs	27,738	171,733
Job satisfaction	-	4
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 54%	Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Average age	46	44
Years of experience	8	4

Government contractor vs consultant salary

Government contractors and consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Government Contractor	Consultant
Average salary	$76,972	$78,912
Salary range	Between $49,000 And $118,000	Between $58,000 And $107,000
Highest paying City	-	Washington, DC
Highest paying state	-	New Jersey
Best paying company	-	L.E.K. Consulting
Best paying industry	-	Technology

Differences between government contractor and consultant education

There are a few differences between a government contractor and a consultant in terms of educational background:

	Government Contractor	Consultant
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 54%	Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo	Northwestern University

Government contractor vs consultant demographics

Here are the differences between government contractors' and consultants' demographics:

	Government Contractor	Consultant
Average age	46	44
Gender ratio	Male, 54.6% Female, 45.4%	Male, 58.4% Female, 41.6%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.8% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 17.7% Asian, 2.9% White, 70.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.6%	Black or African American, 7.8% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 13.8% White, 65.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	4%	12%

Differences between government contractor and consultant duties and responsibilities

Government contractor example responsibilities.

Lead data migration effort from an unsecure network to an IRS secure network.
Manage and process a conversion of manual time keeping of jobs to an electronic system within Deltek.
Manage all logistics of shipping sensitive information, software and laptops to destinations overseas.
Identify and lead multiple self-identify audit issues on application portfolio management, password security and separation of duties.
Assist with the Govenor and Lt.
State of Nevada, EPA, etc . )

Consultant example responsibilities.

Lead IIS tuning to get the maximum through put.
Manage daily data operations and customer support for SaaS web application products in Linux.
Manage several contractors in the development and coding of DB2 interface programs, as well as modification of the package software.
Manage operational incidents and changes to consistently meet SLA compliance
Introduce Jenkins to help automate manual deployments to multiple environments.
Design and code windows service to automate NRA applications email distribution.

Government contractor vs consultant skills

Common government contractor skills

Cost Accounting Standards, 11%
Financial Statements, 9%
Security Clearance, 6%
Logistics, 6%
Payroll, 5%
DOD, 4%

Common consultant skills

Customer Service, 10%
Strong Analytical, 7%
Project Management, 6%
C++, 5%
C #, 5%
Java, 5%