Internal consultant vs principal consultant

The differences between internal consultants and principal consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a principal consultant has an average salary of $116,478, 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 principal consultant are cloud, business development, and C #.

Internal consultant vs principal consultant overview

	Internal Consultant	Principal Consultant
Yearly salary	$91,097	$116,478
Hourly rate	$43.80	$56.00
Growth rate	11%	11%
Number of jobs	70,927	143,753
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 65%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age	44	44
Years of experience	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 principal consultant do?

A principal consultant is responsible for evaluating business' needs and opportunities, identifying potential leads to create project proposals, and maintaining strong business relationships that would generate revenues and increase the organization's profitability. Principal consultants must be up-to-date with the current market trends to ensure that the business adapts to the industry's changes. They also initiate new product development to expand its brand image, working closely with the marketing team for marketing strategies and promotions.

Internal consultant vs principal consultant salary

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

	Internal Consultant	Principal Consultant
Average salary	$91,097	$116,478
Salary range	Between $67,000 And $122,000	Between $90,000 And $150,000
Highest paying City	Washington, DC	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	New Jersey	Oregon
Best paying company	Citi	Pure Storage
Best paying industry	Technology	Finance

Differences between internal consultant and principal consultant education

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

	Internal Consultant	Principal Consultant
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 65%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Northwestern University	Western Carolina University

Internal consultant vs principal consultant demographics

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

	Internal Consultant	Principal Consultant
Average age	44	44
Gender ratio	Male, 62.8% Female, 37.2%	Male, 75.8% Female, 24.2%
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, 6.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.4% Asian, 8.8% White, 70.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage	12%	11%

Differences between internal consultant and principal 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.

Principal consultant example responsibilities.

Manage project risks and issues throughout the SDLC phases, report project/program statuses to steering committee along with financial information.
Provide PMO office support including improving governance processes to achieve expect results.
Manage numerous engagements that are either custom development or package software (ERP) implementations and integration.
Project leadership, strategy and health information management consulting services to healthcare and manage care organizations and health information technology companies.
Design database and business objects using XML schema.
Create XMLType view to generate xml output from a SQL query.

Internal consultant vs principal consultant skills

Common internal consultant skills

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

Common principal consultant skills

Cloud, 11%
Business Development, 10%
C #, 7%
Customer Satisfaction, 6%
Java, 5%
Project Management, 4%

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Internal Consultant
Internal Consultant vs Principal Consultant

Updated January 8, 2025

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