How To Become A Lead Consultant: What It Is and Career Path

What is a lead consultant and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

A lead consultant supervises the work of a team of junior consultants at a consultancy firm. Just under the principal consultant in the company hierarchy, lead consultants oversee daily operations related to running projects. They keep regular contact with clients and make sure everything goes according to schedule, as efficiently as possible.

Lead consultants receive and review proposals from their team, make decisions regarding the projects, and act as a mediator between clients and the team, communicating the clients' needs and finding solutions to potential problems. Before making key decisions, however, lead consultants need the approval of a principal consultant.

The position of a lead consultant requires significant experience in consulting, more than five years usually. In order to be considered for the job, a degree or technical qualification will also be required in your field of expertise.

ScoreLead ConsultantUS Average

Salary

7.7

Avg. Salary $103,221

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.3

Growth rate 9%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.19%

Asian 19.48%

Black or African American 9.90%

Hispanic or Latino 10.73%

Unknown 4.99%

White 54.72%

Gender

female 32.09%

male 67.91%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

5.3

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.5

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a lead consultant

Explore lead consultant education requirements

Most common lead consultant degrees

Bachelor's

60.6 %

Master's

23.3 %

Associate

7.1 %

Start to develop specific lead consultant skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	10.88%
Digital Transformation	10.21%
Business Process	8.89%
Project Management	5.38%
Architecture	4.63%

Complete relevant lead consultant training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New lead consultants learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a lead consultant based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real lead consultant resumes.

Research lead consultant duties and responsibilities

Lead a team of 10 members including both onsite and offshore.
Create and manage financial feed from BW to Hyperion for corporate reporting and processing.
Manage design and development of cloud-base billing application for streamlining payroll and invoicing, as well as offering real-time business analytics.
Create mainframe XML parsers and XML generators using COBOL.

Get lead consultant experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a lead consultant. The most common roles before becoming a lead consultant include consultant, senior consultant team lead and senior software engineer.

Prepare your lead consultant resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your lead consultant resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a lead consultant resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable lead consultant resume templates

Build a professional lead consultant resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your lead consultant resume.

Apply for lead consultant jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a lead consultant job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do lead consultants rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Lead consultant reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2020

Cons

It needs more patience to apply the true solution and satisfy your client

A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2019

Pros

Getting Information Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships Analyzing Data or Information Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2019