Guides
GSA consulting rates: government consulting hourly rates by role, experience and business size
The median GSA ceiling rate for management consultant job titles is $166.89 an hour, across 1,143 rates on 334 federal contracts, and the middle half runs from $130 to $213. Across every title containing “consultant” the median is $162.64 (14,263 rates). These are the maximum hourly prices firms on the federal Multiple Award Schedule may charge, computed by Hyperresearch from GSA’s full CALC+ ceiling-rate file on November 8, 2026.
Data pulled November 8, 2026 (GSA CALC+ index of that date, 329,775 distinct rates). Download the tables as CSV.
These are ceiling rates, not prices paid. GSA describes awarded schedule rates as “not-to-exceed ‘ceiling’ prices” (CALC+ user guide). An agency can ask for a lower price on any order and must ask on orders over the simplified acquisition threshold (FAR 8.405-4). What agencies actually paid on task orders is not in this file, so treat each figure as the top of an accepted range, not the going rate.
GSA consulting rates by role
Hourly ceiling rates in US dollars, all experience levels and business sizes, as of November 8, 2026. “Rates” counts distinct contract rates; “Contracts” counts the federal contracts they come from.
| Role (titles matched) | Rates | Contracts | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | Typical minimum experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Management consultant | 1,143 | 334 | $130.36 | $166.89 | $213.08 | 8 years |
| Strategy consultant or strategic planner | 544 | 264 | $128.64 | $170.34 | $234.21 | 8 years |
| Subject matter expert (any field) | 18,312 | 3,394 | $153.47 | $193.86 | $243.26 | 10 years |
| Program manager | 9,602 | 3,252 | $150.82 | $183.84 | $222.03 | 9 years |
| Project manager | 14,146 | 4,494 | $125.84 | $153.86 | $184.52 | 6 years |
| Data scientist | 1,509 | 498 | $137.57 | $168.48 | $205.31 | 5 years |
| IT consultant | 1,722 | 575 | $124.58 | $153.34 | $195.54 | 5 years |
| Business analyst | 5,177 | 1,510 | $98.37 | $122.37 | $151.13 | 5 years |
| Management analyst | 1,477 | 436 | $91.32 | $118.31 | $148.42 | 5 years |
| Any title containing “consultant” | 14,263 | 2,729 | $127.80 | $162.64 | $211.58 | 6 years |
| All labor categories on the schedule | 329,775 | 6,830 | $92.15 | $127.91 | $171.03 |
“Typical minimum experience” is the median of the minimum years each rate requires. A title can sit in more than one group: a title like “IT Project Manager Consultant” would count as a project manager, an IT consultant and a consultant.
Management consultant hourly rate by experience
Experience moves the rate more than business size or worksite. The management consultant median more than doubles from the 0 to 2 year band to the 15+ band.
| Minimum experience | Rates | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 2 years | 134 | $89.77 | $107.88 | $129.36 |
| 3 to 5 years | 288 | $112.22 | $140.87 | $169.27 |
| 6 to 9 years | 286 | $139.64 | $164.55 | $207.56 |
| 10 to 14 years | 290 | $164.32 | $193.06 | $234.83 |
| 15+ years | 145 | $203.74 | $236.80 | $291.50 |
Median ceiling rate by experience for the other roles (rates in brackets):
| Role | 0 to 2 years | 3 to 5 years | 6 to 9 years | 10 to 14 years | 15+ years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy consultant or planner | $106.34 (52) | $131.60 (119) | $168.72 (147) | $212.12 (140) | $260.65 (86) |
| Subject matter expert | $142.25 (704) | $158.12 (3,217) | $182.05 (4,642) | $204.48 (6,449) | $247.14 (3,300) |
| Program manager | $149.21 (439) | $157.22 (1,834) | $178.49 (2,635) | $193.69 (3,310) | $215.04 (1,384) |
| Project manager | $121.04 (1,434) | $142.13 (5,111) | $162.03 (4,326) | $175.28 (2,642) | $189.78 (633) |
| Data scientist | $135.18 (252) | $156.17 (553) | $185.94 (432) | $207.39 (222) | $213.19 (50) |
| IT consultant | $116.46 (299) | $144.53 (611) | $164.12 (454) | $197.15 (276) | $229.02 (82) |
| Business analyst | $97.36 (1,259) | $118.85 (2,164) | $144.08 (1,252) | $160.03 (390) | $213.75 (112) |
| Management analyst | $88.30 (353) | $114.05 (528) | $132.52 (342) | $155.59 (186) | $204.97 (68) |
The 25th and 75th percentiles for every cell are in the CSV.
Small business vs large firm consulting rates
Firms the schedule classes as “other than small” have higher ceilings in every role except strategy, where the two are within $1.13.
| Role | Small business median (rates) | Other than small median (rates) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management consultant | $164.38 (779) | $177.22 (364) | 7.8% |
| Subject matter expert | $189.04 (14,012) | $210.20 (4,300) | 11.2% |
| Program manager | $179.53 (6,966) | $196.88 (2,636) | 9.7% |
| Project manager | $150.65 (10,739) | $163.44 (3,407) | 8.5% |
| Data scientist | $164.49 (1,151) | $192.56 (358) | 17.1% |
| IT consultant | $150.45 (1,342) | $166.31 (380) | 10.5% |
| Business analyst | $120.08 (3,893) | $133.89 (1,284) | 11.5% |
| Any “consultant” title | $159.28 (10,430) | $174.16 (3,833) | 9.3% |
Most of the gap survives holding experience fixed. A project manager with 6 to 9 years has a median of $158.40 at small firms (3,258 rates) and $171.62 at larger ones (1,068), 8.3% more. For management consultants with 10 to 14 years it is $189.77 (193) against $203.09 (97), 7.0% more. The exception is the 0 to 2 year band, where project manager and subject matter expert medians are within 1% by size. Small businesses hold 68% to 78% of the rates in each group.
Worksite matters less. Across all “consultant” titles the median is $158.49 when the work is at the government’s site (7,094 rates), $166.47 at the contractor’s site (6,410) and $169.42 for virtual work (759).
Deloitte, Booz Allen, McKinsey and BCG GSA rates
Large firms post ceilings across all their labor categories, so a firm-wide median mixes analysts with partners. Medians over every de-duplicated rate a firm lists, by exact vendor name:
| Firm (vendor name on the schedule) | Rates | Median | 75th percentile | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ernst & Young LLP | 49 | $255.20 | $337.84 | $447.62 |
| Deloitte Consulting LLP | 1,669 | $231.02 | $315.84 | $472.66 |
| KPMG LLP | 94 | $212.84 | $287.21 | $461.17 |
| Accenture Federal Services LLC | 1,196 | $192.50 | $260.86 | $488.26 |
| Booz Allen Hamilton Inc | 1,879 | $153.32 | $219.95 | $489.36 |
McKinsey and BCG each hold one schedule contract with a short list of titles: 10 at McKinsey, 9 at BCG. McKinsey’s four Business Analyst titles carry ceilings of $343.45 to $367.15 an hour for one to three years’ experience, and its Capabilities & Insights Expert is $396.76. BCG’s Executive Strategy Senior Associate is $478.56 and its Principal Data Scientist $368.24. Neither contract lists a partner or engagement manager title. McKinsey’s entry-level analyst ceilings sit above the 90th percentile of the management consultant group ($274.82).
How we calculated this
- Dataset: GSA CALC+ Labor Ceiling Rates, through the public API at api.gsa.gov/acquisition/calc/v3/api/ceilingrates/ (documentation). No key or login was needed.
- Pulled: November 8, 2026, from index
ceilingrates-2026-11-08_02-00-02. The index held 354,265 rows; we fetched 354,263 unique row ids, every row, in slices by experience, business size and price so that no query passed the API’s 10,000-row window. We used the JSON results rather than GSA’s CSV export, because the export dropped about 0.24% of rows in our tests.- De-duplication: the API repeats a rate once for each Special Item Number it is offered under. We count one rate per contract, title, business size, worksite, education, minimum experience and price: 329,775 distinct rates.
- Role groups are our own classification, by text match on the labor-category title. “Management consultant” and “management analyst” leave out specialty titles such as configuration, records or risk management analysts. “Strategy” covers strategists, strategy consultants, advisers and analysts, and strategic planners, but not content, marketing, brand, digital or technology strategists. “Subject matter expert” includes titles tagged SME, in any field. Titles with assistant, clerk, administrative, intern, trainee or apprentice are left out of every group.
- Statistics: percentiles by linear interpolation; the price is the current contract year’s ceiling. Cells with fewer than 30 rates are blank in the CSVs.
- Check: for six exact titles our row counts match the API’s own counts exactly, and our medians are within about $1 of the API’s approximate median.
- Biases: one contract can list many titles for the same role at different levels, so large contracts weigh more. Contractors write their own titles and experience minimums, so “Management Consultant III” at one firm is not the same job at another. The file covers firms that hold a GSA schedule, which tilts toward government-focused firms. No rate in the index is below $20.10 or above $500.00, so any ceiling over $500 an hour, if one exists, is missing.
How to use GSA rates as a buyer or a seller
Checking a quote. A commercial client is quoted $250 an hour for a strategy consultant with 12 years’ experience. The federal ceiling median for that band is $212.12 and the 75th percentile is $257.83, so the quote sits near the top quarter of what GSA has accepted as fair and reasonable. It is not out of line, but a buyer can point to the $212 median when negotiating.
Pricing a federal bid. A small firm offering a management consultant with 6 to 9 years’ experience is up against a small-business median of $162.34 and a middle half of $137.91 to $194.75 (208 rates). A ceiling above $195 puts the firm in the top quarter of its small-business peers. Management consultant rates that require a master’s have a median of $217.19 (211 rates) against $157.42 for a bachelor’s (886), though master’s rates also tend to ask for more experience.
Budgeting a project. Eight hours at the management consultant median is $1,335 a day. A 20-hour-a-week engagement for 12 weeks is 240 hours, or $40,054 at the median and $51,139 at the 75th percentile, before any discount the agency negotiates.
Next year’s price. 84% of rates on the schedule already list a higher ceiling for the next contract year, 14% stay flat and 2% list none. The median step from this year’s ceiling to next year’s is 2.6% for management consultants and 2.5% to 3.0% across the other groups.
Rate vs salary. A ceiling rate is the price billed to the government, not pay. The management consultant median of $166.89 is 3.4 times the $48.97 median hourly wage of employed management analysts (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The two count different people, so read the ratio as scale only; a billing rate also has to cover benefits, overhead, unbilled time and profit.
What GSA rate data cannot tell you
- Prices paid. Agencies negotiate discounts on orders, and the file holds only the ceiling.
- Commercial rates. Private clients are not bound by schedule ceilings. McKinsey and BCG list 10 and 9 titles with no partner rates, and Bain does not appear in the file.
- Hours. A rate says nothing about how many hours a firm will bill. Fixed-price and value-based work does not show up at all.
- Job content. Titles and experience minimums are written by each contractor. Two “Senior Consultant” rates can describe very different work.
- Thin cells. Some splits rest on few rates: the business analyst 15+ year band for larger firms has 52 rates, and most strategy cells for larger firms have fewer than 30 and are blank in the CSV.
Download the data
Each table is a CSV aggregated from GSA’s file, with cells under 30 rates left blank. The tables are free to use under CC BY 4.0 with credit to “Hyperresearch, from GSA CALC+ ceiling rates as of November 8, 2026”.
- Rates by role
- By role and experience band
- By role and business size
- By role, experience and business size
- By role and worksite
- By role and education
- Large firms, all titles
Consultant rates from other sources, including court-filed rate cards, fractional executive pricing and consultant surveys, are on consulting rates in 2026.
Sources
- U.S. General Services Administration, CALC+ ceiling rates API, index of November 8, 2026, and API documentation.
- U.S. General Services Administration, CALC+ User Guide for Labor Ceiling Rates.
- Federal Acquisition Regulation, 8.405-4 Price reductions.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, management analysts, median hourly wage.
Need rates for one role, agency or region, with the sources checked? Hyperresearch can run that as a Deep report for $49.