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Best Boutique Consulting Firms

Which are the best small, mid-sized and specialist consulting firms to work for?
Survey Methodology

What is a boutique firm?

While there is no hard and fast definition, the term is generally understood within the consulting industry to refer to firms that are narrower in focus and smaller in size than the larger, generalist firms that can offer advice across a wide range of practice areas and industries. Thus, each of the firms on this ranking are specialists in their practice areas--some have, in fact, just one area of specialization, and all had fewer than 750 consultants at the time of publication.

Why work for a boutique?

There are many reasons why someone would choose to work for a boutique consulting firm over one of the larger competitors in the industry. For example, boutiques tend to offer better work-life balance opportunities. Some staff employees locally, as opposed to firms that operate on 100% travel models. And sometimes, it just comes down to specialization: if you're only interested in economics or public sector consulting, it might not make sense to work at a firm where you'll be expected to rotate through a variety of practice areas in your first two years.

Every year, we look at our consulting survey data from a number of angles, trying to find insights and takeaways about the consulting industry that we haven't seen before. One of those insights led directly to the creation of the Best Boutique Firms ranking--that when you compare responses of employees from large firms and those who work for boutiques, one major factor stands out: big firm consultants are much more likely to value the prestige of their organization than those who work for boutiques.

Interestingly, the remaining factors that motivate employees at the two groups of firms are almost identical and, when prestige is excluded, are also weighted almost identically.

As a result, we decided to examine our data from that perspective: to eliminate prestige as a concern, and simply rank the boutique firms based on the remaining factors that consultants identified as being important to them, weighted as closely as possible to their relative importance in our survey data. The result is this ranking, which is weighted as follows:

25% Firm Culture
20% Satisfaction
20% Work/Life Balance
10% Level of Challenge
10% Compensation
10% Overall Business Outlook
5% Promotion Policies

As ever, our survey is only open to consultants who are currently employed at reputable firms in the industry. When rating quality of life issues, consultants are only permitted to rate their own firm. For prestige and practice area rankings, however, consultants are only allowed to rate competitors, and NOT their own firms.

Take Our Survey

Each year Vault invites eligible consulting firms to participate in our annual Consulting Survey. Please contact us if you’re interested in having your firm considered for inclusion.

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2024 Best Boutique Consulting Firms

#1
SCORE 9.702
2023 Rank 1

ghSMART

ghSMART Founder Dr. Geoff Smart’s Psychology PhD dissertation found that those private equity firms best at choosing teams made the most money. Equipped with an expertise in human behavior, he and his early colleagues went on to advise private...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews Jobs
#2
SCORE 9.594
2023 Rank 2

Aminad Consulting

Aminad is a boutique management consulting firm dedicated to generating realistic and implementable change. The firm is focused on strategy, predominately within supply chain and operations. Aminad works with federal agencies, with a specific...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews Jobs
#3
SCORE 9.092
2023 Rank 22

OC&C Strategy Consultants

Focusing on strategic analysis, OC&C Strategy Consultants breaks the concept of strategy consulting down into five organizational areas: group strategy, business unit/divisional strategy, product/market/channel strategy, transaction support,...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#4
SCORE 9.062
2023 Rank 14

Putnam

Putnam, an Inizio Advisory company, is a leading scientific and strategic consulting partner that helps the global life science community make confident decisions, build value, and bring life-changing innovations to clinicians and patients. For...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#5
SCORE 8.987
2023 Rank 11

SciVida

SciVida is a boutique management consulting firm that focuses exclusively on life sciences. The company jetted onto the scene in 2021 and has achieved rapid success within the life sciences consulting space. Headquartered in Research Triangle...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here
#6
SCORE 8.908
2023 Not Ranked

Clarkston Consulting

Clarkston Consulting is a business and technology consulting firm serving the consumer products, retail and life sciences markets. Besides its headquarters in Durham, NC, the firm has offices in six U.S. cities. Clarkston Consulting was founded...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#7
SCORE 8.889
2023 Rank 12

ScottMadden Management Consultants

ScottMadden is a management consulting firm that operates in two main areas: Energy and Corporate and Shared Services. While it is best known for its work in the energy industry, the firm's Corporate & Shared Services practice works across...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#8
SCORE 8.836
2023 Rank 23

Epsilon Economics and Epsilon Life Sciences

A well-known economics and litigation consulting firm, Epsilon Economics and Life Sciences has two separate but connected business units: one in economics and one in life sciences. Within its economics unit, the company provides specialist...

Overview Survey Says
#9
SCORE 8.799
2023 Not Ranked

LifeSci Consulting, LLC

LifeSci Consulting is a global strategy, operations, and transactions advisory services provider for clients in the life sciences sector. Headquartered in New York, the firm has performed more than 1,000 strategy consulting engagements for over...

Overview Survey Says
#10
SCORE 8.754
2023 Rank 6

The Cambridge Group, LLC

Note: The Cambridge Group was acquired by PA Consulting in November 2022. If the consultants at The Cambridge Group were your Economics 101 professor, you would not have learned supply and demand, but rather demand and supply. The simple...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews