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Strategist vs consultant

The differences between strategists and consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 8-10 years to become a strategist, becoming a consultant takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, a strategist has an average salary of $104,881, which is higher than the $78,912 average annual salary of a consultant.

The top three skills for a strategist include project management, customer satisfaction and powerpoint. The most important skills for a consultant are customer service, strong analytical, and project management.

Strategist vs consultant overview

StrategistConsultant
Yearly salary$104,881$78,912
Hourly rate$50.42$37.94
Growth rate10%11%
Number of jobs44,596171,733
Job satisfaction-4
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 73%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Average age3944
Years of experience104

What does a strategist do?

The job of the strategist involves the development and implementation of a strategy. Generally, strategists set goals, identify actions to achieve the objectives, and mobilize resources for the actions. They make functional strategies for businesses and profit improvement. They are considered as the thinkers who develop the course of a project of the business program. The skills necessary for this job include critical thinking, management skills, attention to detail, and leadership skill. They should be equipped with knowledge about business and management.

What does a consultant do?

Consultants are individuals who were tapped by a company or an organization to work on a specific activity, depending on their field of expertise. They act as guides for the organization in undertaking projects that are related to their field. Consultants would usually assist organizations in planning, often giving advice when the need arises. They would, at times, take the lead in activities that involve data gathering and interpretation of data gathering results so that they can provide solid recommendations on actions that the organization may undertake. They may also guide the organization in implementing any changes brought about by their consultancy and in evaluating the effectiveness of the changes.

Strategist vs consultant salary

Strategists and consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

StrategistConsultant
Average salary$104,881$78,912
Salary rangeBetween $62,000 And $176,000Between $58,000 And $107,000
Highest paying CityHartford, CTWashington, DC
Highest paying stateConnecticutNew Jersey
Best paying companyThe CitadelL.E.K. Consulting
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between strategist and consultant education

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

StrategistConsultant
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 73%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common collegeUniversity of GeorgiaNorthwestern University

Strategist vs consultant demographics

Here are the differences between strategists' and consultants' demographics:

StrategistConsultant
Average age3944
Gender ratioMale, 54.5% Female, 45.5%Male, 58.4% Female, 41.6%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%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 Percentage10%12%

Differences between strategist and consultant duties and responsibilities

Strategist example responsibilities.

  • Manage change requests using CMS for corporate website.
  • Experience in managing online affiliate programs for e-commerce sites.
  • Plan Instagram launch, manage posts, and tracking success on the account.
  • Manage HubSpot activities, including blogs, email marketing, landing pages and CRM maintenance.
  • Lead the team to develop the company's only OEM product for the security/surveillance market.
  • Manage all top line donation form fundraising strategy including design, copy, naming conventions, redirects and A/B testing.
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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.
  • Show more

Strategist vs consultant skills

Common strategist skills
  • Project Management, 12%
  • Customer Satisfaction, 9%
  • PowerPoint, 8%
  • Portfolio, 6%
  • Digital Marketing, 5%
  • Client Facing, 4%
Common consultant skills
  • Customer Service, 10%
  • Strong Analytical, 7%
  • Project Management, 6%
  • C++, 5%
  • C #, 5%
  • Java, 5%

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