Management Consulting Hiring Trends: August 2025 Highlights

What August’s Consulting Hiring Data Reveals

Here’s the clearest signal from this month’s dataset on management consultant hiring. Management consulting postings are running ahead of last year in four of the past six months, averaging about 22 percent higher year over year. Activity peaked in May, dipped in June, and ticked back up in July. Even with the rebound, totals are still roughly 48 percent below the five-year average, and S&P 500 postings slid about 13 percent from February through July.

Want to see how your firm stacks up? Request a demo of Aura to benchmark against consulting peers by role, geography, and growth rate.

Top Management Consulting Roles in Demand

If you’re skimming for what teams are hiring right now, here’s the quick leaderboard.

• Technology Lead tops the list with 257 postings

• Corporate Strategy follows with 171

• Solutions Specialist at 122

• Information Security at 93

• Project Manager at 88

• Transformation Specialist at 68

• Financial Analyst at 62

• DevOps Engineer at 58

• Clinical Research Associate at 51

• Technical Support at 47

The mix reveals a skewing toward tech leadership and corporate planning, with security, transformation, and finance all showing significant activity.

States with Fastest Hiring Growth

Five markets posted the sharpest growth rates versus their recent three-month averages:

• Georgia up 25 percent on 274 postings

• Colorado up 19 percent on 108

• Massachusetts up 15 percent on 249

• Alabama up 8 percent on 53

• Washington, D.C. up 7 percent on 213

Top States for Consulting Job Postings

Total postings remain concentrated in a familiar top ten:

1. Texas 339

2. Illinois 326

3. California 311

4. Georgia 274

5. Massachusetts 249

6. New York 236

7. Washington, D.C. 213

8. Virginia 199

9. Florida 122

10. North Carolina 119

That’s a wide geographic footprint, useful for staffing plans and market entry comparisons.

Consulting Firms Leading Hiring Growth

Two different views matter: fastest growers and biggest footprints.

• Fastest growth rates: FTI Consulting up 49 percent to 160 postings, Charles River Associates up 45 percent to 55, Alvarez & Marsal up 34 percent to 598, Guidehouse up 18 percent to 502, Booz Allen Hamilton up 13 percent to 195.

• Largest job posting volumes: Slalom Consulting 796, Alvarez & Marsal 598, Guidehouse 502, BCG 277, Mercer 200, Booz Allen Hamilton 195, FTI Consulting 160, Oliver Wyman 88, McKinsey 87, Huron 62. This list blends strategy houses with HR-heavy and operations-oriented firms, which makes for handy peer sets when you benchmark pipelines and team mix.

Key Hiring Trends and Takeaways for the Consulting Industry

• Momentum is improving year over year in most months, yet the market hasn’t returned to its longer-run baseline. Plan for pockets of strength rather than a full snap-back.

• Hiring demand is bifurcated by function. Technology leadership and corporate strategy sit at the top, with security and transformation roles not far behind.

• State-level growth is rotating. Track both rate and base, as places like Georgia appear on both lists and can impact recruiting capacity and client coverage.

• A few firms dominate the absolute volume while several others are growing quickly off smaller bases. Use both lenses when calibrating competitor activity.

If you want to pressure-test your own plans against the market, Aura’s outside-in dataset makes this simple. Filter your peer set, compare role mix by function, and map geographic exposure so that staffing and BD conversations start with "facts not feelings."

Explore Aura’s intelligent workforce analytics to benchmark your firm’s growth against competitors. Request a free demo today to see role mix, geographic exposure, and competitor activity in real time.