Consultant Salary – How much should you be making?

March 1, 2020 · Consulting

Written by: Mattias Loxi

Calculate your consultant salary. This is the time of the year when people often negotiate their salaries. Meanwhile, consultant companies’ hire at a faster rate than ever before. Many people start working as consultants for the first time, while some people see it as an opportune time to jump ship to a new consultant company. The question still remains: what can you expect to be making as a consultant?

For a consulting company, deciding on a salary for a consultant is in essence an easy thing, and can be summarized using three criteria:

How much can we charge for your work?


If you have a great resume with a specialised niche, little competition, and your skills are in high demand, the prices for your services can soar.

How marketable are you as a consultant?


If you have a clear niche, the right experience, and interview well you are in a great position. If you can get hired to key roles there is great potential for extended contracts and the risk of hiring is reduced.

How much do you engage yourself in the consultant company apart from the assignment?

If you make the consultant company’s brand stronger by hosting training sessions or other activities you can easily add to your salary. Another thing you can do is dedicating time to the consultant group to increase teamwork or bringing in new recruits and assignments.

When you set your rate you should keep all the above three factors in mind. However, the easiest thing to do is figuring out the price the consultant company can charge (something they have a lot of data on) and then calculate how much you should earn backwards. Like this;

Price per Hour 60 € 80 € 100 €
Total possible income (2000h) +120 000 +160 000 +200 000
25 days of vacation -12 000 -16 000 -20 000
30 days for extra vacation, conference/education, sickness, between assignments -14 400 -19 200 -24 000
Total earned 93 600 124 800 156 000
Revenue margin (12%) -11 200 -15 000 -18 700
Consulatant Managers 1 in 25 -4 700 -4 700 -4 700
Sales 1 in 25 consultants -3 800 -3 800 -3 800
Admins 1 in 25 consultants -2 200 -2 200 -2 200
Education -2 500 -2 500 -2 500
Conference / Meetings -3 000 -3 000 -3 000
Office, CEO, Marketing, Fixtures etc -6 000 -6 000 -6 000
Left to Payroll 60 200 87 600 115 100
Social fees (30% adjust for your country) 12 900  18 740  24 680
Pension (10%) 4 300 6 260  8 220
Yearly Salary 43 000  € 62 600 €  82 200 €
Monthly Salary  3 584 € 5 217 €  6 850 €

Create winning consultant profiles!

Mattias Loxi - cofounder of Cinode. Marketing/Sales.

Mattias Loxi - cofounder of Cinode. Marketing/Sales.

Mattias is one of the founders of Cinode. Now in Marketing and Sales - runs the most popular blog and newsletter "Veckans konsultnyheter" about the Swedish consulting Industry. Also a lot of Speaking engagement. Add him in Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattiasloxi/

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