A complete breakdown of entry-level base salaries at 48 consulting firms, from MBB to Big Four strategy arms, boutiques, and specialist shops, across the US, UK, Germany, and Switzerland.
An entry-level consulting offer is rarely just one number. It is built from a few distinct pieces, and the relative size of each piece tells you a lot about the firm making the offer.
The base salary is the fixed amount you can count on, paid out over the year regardless of how the firm or your group performs. On top of that, most firms add a year end performance bonus, which is tied to your individual rating, your team's results, and how the firm did overall. A smaller group of firms also pays a signing bonus to new hires, usually in the $5,000 to $30,000 range depending on degree level and firm tier. Together, these three pieces make up your all in first year compensation.
Base salary is what this guide focuses on, because it is the most comparable number across firms. Bonuses vary year to year and firm to firm in ways that are hard to predict in advance, but base salary is set, published internally, and rarely negotiated at the entry level.
48
Firms tracked
$124K
Highest base (US)
$90K
Median base (US)
The five firm groups, and how pay differs between them
The clearest way to understand consulting pay is by firm group, not firm name. Within a group, base salaries tend to cluster tightly, because firms watch each other closely and adjust quickly to stay competitive for the same pool of candidates.
MBB
McKinsey, Bain, and BCG set the market. Undergraduate base salaries sit around $110,000 to $112,000, with the three firms typically within $2,000 of each other in any given year. MBB also pays the same base salary across every US office, so choosing a lower cost of living city like Atlanta over New York means keeping more of the same paycheck.
Big Four Strategy
The strategy only arms of the Big Four, PwC Strategy&, EY-Parthenon, and Deloitte's Strategy & Analytics practice, pay closer to MBB than to the rest of their parent firm. Entry-level base salaries are typically around $100,000, with total compensation including bonuses able to approach MBB territory at the high end.
Strategy Boutique
Firms like Oliver Wyman, Kearney, L.E.K., and OC&C are smaller and more specialized than MBB but compete for similar candidates. Base salaries in this group often land within a few thousand dollars of MBB, particularly at firms with deep expertise in financial services, healthcare, or operations.
Big Four Core
The general consulting practices at Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC, separate from their strategy arms, hire the largest number of entry-level consultants by far. Base salaries here typically range from $75,000 to $90,000, and unlike MBB, these firms often adjust pay by office location to reflect local cost of living.
Specialist & Other
This is the widest and most varied group: economic consulting shops like NERA and Cornerstone Research, restructuring specialists, industry focused boutiques, and in-house strategy teams at large corporations. Pay varies more here than anywhere else, from the high $60,000s to over $100,000, depending heavily on the firm's niche and how in demand that specialty is.
US entry-level salary by firm
Filter by group or sort to find where a firm lands. Figures are entry-level base salary only.
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Competitiveness
Meta and American Express are non-consulting compensation benchmarks and are excluded from this table.
Salary distribution across 48 firms
Each bar represents a $5,000 band. Most consulting offers cluster between $80,000 and $100,000, with a long, thin tail above $110,000 occupied almost entirely by MBB and Big Four strategy.
Base salary in thousands. Hover a bar for firm names.
Average pay by firm group
The gap between MBB and Big Four Core is the single biggest pay jump in entry-level consulting.
Compare firms head to head
Pick two or three firms to compare base salary, firm size, and focus side by side.
UK, Germany & Switzerland salaries
Entry-level base pay outside the US runs meaningfully lower at every firm group, even before accounting for currency conversion. A McKinsey base salary in London is roughly 55% of the New York figure once converted to dollars at current exchange rates, and the gap is similar at Big Four firms in Frankfurt and Zurich.
What moves your offer
Four factors explain most of the spread you see in this guide. Understanding them helps you read any individual offer in context, rather than wondering whether a number is good or bad in isolation.
Firm group
This is the single biggest factor. MBB and Big Four strategy arms pay a consistent premium over Big Four core and most specialist firms, often $20,000 to $30,000 above at entry level. Firms watch their direct peers closely and rarely let pay drift far from the group norm.
Office location
MBB pays the same base salary in every US office, so location does not change your paycheck but does change how far it goes. Big Four and many specialist firms adjust pay by city, meaning the same role can pay differently in New York versus a lower cost market.
Degree level
A master's or MBA hire enters at a meaningfully more senior level than an undergraduate hire at the same firm, with base pay that can be 60% to 70% higher. This guide focuses on undergraduate and standard master's entry, not MBA hiring.
Practice area
Specialized practices like economic consulting, restructuring, or M&A due diligence sometimes carry different pay bands than generalist strategy roles, even within the same firm. A Deloitte Strategy & Analytics offer and a general Deloitte Consulting offer can differ by $15,000 or more in base pay.
How base salary becomes total compensation
Base salary is only the starting point. At MBB, a typical undergraduate hire can expect a performance bonus of up to $20,000 to $30,000 in a strong year, plus a signing bonus in the $5,000 range, pushing all in first year compensation toward $135,000 to $145,000.
At Big Four strategy arms, total compensation can land in a similar range once bonuses are included, even though base salary alone looks lower than MBB on paper. Big Four core practices generally carry smaller bonus pools, so the gap to MBB widens once you look past base pay.
Specialist firms are the hardest to generalize about. Some, particularly in economic consulting and restructuring, pay strong bonuses tied to billable hours or case outcomes. Others, especially smaller regional boutiques, keep bonus pools modest and compete mainly on base pay, hours, or career speed instead.
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