Internal consultant vs management consultant

The differences between internal consultants and management consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both an internal consultant and a management consultant. Additionally, a management consultant has an average salary of $99,360, which is higher than the $91,097 average annual salary of an internal consultant.

The top three skills for an internal consultant include project management, process improvement and internal controls. The most important skills for a management consultant are healthcare, project management, and portfolio.

Internal consultant vs management consultant overview

	Internal Consultant	Management Consultant
Yearly salary	$91,097	$99,360
Hourly rate	$43.80	$47.77
Growth rate	11%	11%
Number of jobs	70,927	153,045
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 65%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	44	44
Years of experience	4	4

What does an internal consultant do?

An internal consultant is responsible for providing consultation on the business process and operations to identify key areas of improvement and review its effectiveness to support the business goals and objectives. Internal consultants must have excellent organizational skills and expertise in business planning and project management to strategize and improve existing methodologies that would raise the company's performance. They also develop training and programs necessary for the employees to maximize their productivity and manage efficiency.

What does a management consultant do?

A management consultant's responsibility focuses on conducting an in-depth analysis of a company or business, including its target market. Through their findings, they can devise strategies that will help the business grow and attain a significant profit. There are also instances when a management consultant must solve particular issues that will require them to investigate the problem, assess damages, identify risks, and recommend the best solutions to take. Furthermore, a management consultant must adhere to the company's vision, mission, and policies at all times.

Internal consultant vs management consultant salary

Internal consultants and management consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Internal Consultant	Management Consultant
Average salary	$91,097	$99,360
Salary range	Between $67,000 And $122,000	Between $72,000 And $136,000
Highest paying City	Washington, DC	Jersey City, NJ
Highest paying state	New Jersey	New Jersey
Best paying company	Citi	Apple
Best paying industry	Technology	Technology

Differences between internal consultant and management consultant education

There are a few differences between an internal consultant and a management consultant in terms of educational background:

	Internal Consultant	Management Consultant
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 65%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Northwestern University	Northwestern University

Internal consultant vs management consultant demographics

Here are the differences between internal consultants' and management consultants' demographics:

	Internal Consultant	Management Consultant
Average age	44	44
Gender ratio	Male, 62.8% Female, 37.2%	Male, 65.9% Female, 34.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 8.5% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 9.2% Asian, 12.4% White, 65.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 8.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Asian, 13.6% White, 64.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	12%	12%

Differences between internal consultant and management consultant duties and responsibilities

Internal consultant example responsibilities.

Manage project and perform UAT of any changes from AppStore releases that relate to sales compensation elements.
Manage a team responsible for designing service-orient application architecture, standards and best practices guidelines, security and data access frameworks.
Conduct UAT sessions to validate requirements against application.
Perform gap analysis and create needed architecture and systems overviews documentation from existing Visio drawings, program coding and PowerPoint presentations.
Analyze internal knowledge infrastructure and develop optimized information system/organization.
Identify key performance indicators (KPIs), then used it to measure and set improvement targets.

Management consultant example responsibilities.

Streamline and program manage operations for end-to-end creation of all assets using Smartsheet.
Lead daily agile scrum meetings towards the end of the development phase of the project.
Monitor and control project schedule for SaaS product to achieve project deliveries in at least 95th percentile.
Lead teams in implementation of value map streaming, ISO 9000 and waste reduction in manufacturing process.
Manage functional design team activities using baseline scope document information and develop process standards in line with SDLC methodologies.
Develop light-weight (fast) proprietary cloud-base licensing engine and UI to manage and track end user subscription licenses.

Internal consultant vs management consultant skills

Common internal consultant skills

Project Management, 18%
Process Improvement, 18%
Internal Controls, 9%
Sigma, 8%
Internal Clients, 7%
Business Development, 7%

Common management consultant skills

Healthcare, 9%
Project Management, 7%
Portfolio, 6%
Business Process, 5%
Business Strategy, 5%
Business Development, 4%

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Internal Consultant
Internal Consultant vs Management Consultant

Updated January 8, 2025

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