The Industry That Advised Disruption is Being Disrupted

• Overall hiring at top consulting firms has declined since its peak in 2023, with consultant hiring falling more sharply than total hiring. Within consulting roles, demand has shifted away from entry-level positions and towards senior consultants.

• Job postings show a decline in process improvement and project-tracking activities for entry-level consultants, while analytical tasks are growing, suggesting that consultants are increasingly valued for interpretation and judgment, while process improvement work is increasingly handled by AI roles.

• While entry-level consultant hiring has slowed, hiring for AI roles has grown. By 2025, AI roles outnumber entry-level consultants at top consulting firms, signaling significant automation of traditional consulting tasks.

For decades, the consulting industry has positioned itself as a magnet for top talent, built on the promise that exceptional people deliver novel, high-impact solutions to clients’ most complex problems. In recent years, however, layoffs and hiring freezes at top consulting firms have prompted renewed discussion about how consulting work is staffed and how talent needs may be evolving. At the same time, the increasing adoption of AI tools by top consulting firms has introduced new considerations around workforce composition and the types of roles required to support client engagements.

Revelio Labs’ job postings data reveals that hiring at leading consulting firms has declined steadily since 2023. Overall talent demand is now roughly 20% below its 2023 peak, while demand for consultant roles specifically is about 40% lower over the same period. However, looking more closely at consultant hiring by seniority based on profile data, reveals a more nuanced pattern. Since 2020, demand for senior consultants has continued to rise, increasing by 55%, while hiring for entry-level consultants has fallen by 10% after reaching a peak in 2023. This divergence reflects a change in the composition of consulting work rather than a uniform slowdown in demand. Firms appear to be placing greater emphasis on senior-level expertise, while reducing hiring for more junior roles—potentially reflecting changes in how work is organized as new technologies, such as AI, are incorporated into consulting workflows.

Analyzing the activities listed in job postings for entry-level consultants reveals a clear shift in consulting responsibilities since the hiring peak in 2023. Activities related to process improvement and project tracking have declined the most, while analytical tasks have grown over the same period. This pattern suggests that consultants continue to be valued for high-level analysis and client-facing interpretation, even as more operational and optimization-focused work becomes less central to entry-level consulting roles. At the same time, AI roles at top consulting firms appear to be filling this gap, with job postings increasingly emphasizing process improvement and automation activities that were historically handled by junior consultants.

This workforce shift is further marked in the changing ratio of junior consultants to AI roles responsible for the development and implementation of AI at top consulting firms. In 2015, junior consultants formed the backbone of these firms, with nearly four entry-level consultants for every AI role. As AI adoption has expanded, hiring for AI roles has increased while hiring for entry-level consultants has declined, coinciding with the growing use of AI to automate tasks historically performed by junior consultants. By 2025, this ratio looks markedly different, with the number of AI roles overtaking the number of entry-level consultants at these firms.

Consulting is just one of several industries experiencing shifts in the mix of roles and activities as AI becomes more embedded in the workforce. As a highly AI-exposed industry, however, consulting appears to be at the forefront of this transition, despite its historical reliance on large cohorts of junior consultants. Hiring for entry-level roles has declined and become more selective, with firms placing greater emphasis on more senior consultants who can oversee, interpret, and contextualize outputs from increasingly automated processes. Among the consultants who are still being hired, analytical and client-facing work has become more central, while optimization tasks are increasingly handled by AI. This pattern suggests that top consulting firms may be an early indicator of broader workforce changes that could extend to other highly AI-exposed industries, where hiring for entry-level roles is already showing signs of decline.