Consulting firms in Chicago: 7,619 offices, from one-person practices to the big firms' towers

This report is for three kinds of reader: people looking for consulting work in Chicago (including students weighing offers), organizations hiring a consultant, and companies that sell to consulting firms. It covers how many firms there are and what kinds, where the big firms sit, the federal work done here, pay, how to vet a firm and how firms of each size buy.

How many consulting firms are in Chicago

County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 counts 7,619 establishments in NAICS 5416, Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services, in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN metro area. They employed 99,893 people and paid $13.54 billion in 2023, an average of 13.1 employees per office.

Cook County holds 59% of the offices and 78% of the jobs. Lake County, Illinois, has more consulting employees than DuPage with fewer offices. CBP counts establishments with paid employees, not companies: one firm can run several offices, and consultants who work alone without staff aren't counted.

The kinds of consulting, by Census code

The Census Bureau splits NAICS 5416 by subject. In the Chicago metro:

HR consulting is the standout: 387 offices averaging 51 employees, with 24 of them at 100 or more, and 14.7% of the 134,151 HR consulting jobs in the US. General management offices paid $171,913 per employee on average (our calculation from CBP payroll). IT consulting is counted separately, under computer systems design (541512): 2,009 offices and 24,517 employees here. Picking the right code for a firm is covered in the NAICS code for consulting.

The big firms' Chicago offices

From each firm's own office page or annual report, checked 30 October 2026:

Booz Allen's locations page lists no Chicago-area office. McKinsey's site didn't respond to our check, EY's office pages didn't show addresses and PwC's site blocked automated access, so check those three directly. The Big Four's audit, tax and consulting arms are compared in the Big Four accounting firms, and firm-wide revenue is ranked in the largest consulting firms.

Listed and headquartered here. Huron Consulting Group (Nasdaq: HURN), 550 W. Van Buren Street, is the only listed company in SEC EDGAR's management consulting codes (SIC 8742 to 8748) with its head office in the metro. Its 2025 10-K reports total revenues of $1.70 billion and revenues before reimbursable expenses of $1.66 billion (up 11.9%): healthcare $837.5 million, education $500.2 million and commercial $325.1 million. It had about 8,610 full-time professionals and 305 managing directors and principals.

Federal consulting work done in Chicago

USAspending.gov shows $75.7 million in federal contract obligations in fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025) for NAICS 5416 work performed in the metro's counties, down from $98.7 million in fiscal 2024. The largest recipients were NORC (listed as National Opinion Research Center, $17.4 million), Tetra Tech ($12.5 million), Federal Specialized Services ($9.0 million, for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and STG International ($7.0 million). Health and Human Services ($22.0 million) and the EPA ($13.7 million) were the largest buyers. That's small next to the commercial market, so most Chicago consultancies live on private clients.

Working in Chicago consulting

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 37,510 management analysts (occupation 13-1111) in the metro in May 2025, with a median wage of $105,090 and a mean of $116,590; the 10th percentile earned $60,760 and the 90th $177,770. That occupation covers analysts in every industry, not only consulting firms. If you're a student, the firms in the table above post openings on their own careers pages, and the 391 offices with 20 to 99 staff are the next tier to research.

How to choose and vet a consultant

1. Name the problem first. Strategy, HR, supply chain and IT are different firms with different codes (above). A firm with ten specialists in your issue beats a large office with two.
2. Check the firm exists where it says. The City of Chicago publishes its active business licenses; on 31 October 2026, 180 listed "Provide Business and Management Consulting" and 246 "Professional Consulting (Home Based Business)". The Illinois Secretary of State's business search blocked our automated check, so search it directly.
3. Check independence if a Big Four firm audits you. If your company files with the SEC, Rule 2-01 of Regulation S-X says an auditor isn't independent if it provides certain services to its audit client, including financial information systems design, management functions and executive search.
4. Meet the team who will do the work, ask for two references from engagements of your size, and agree in writing who owns the deliverables and models.
5. Prefer a fixed fee for a defined scope; use hourly rates only for open-ended advisory work.

Selling to Chicago consulting firms

Consultancies buy tools their people use on client work (research and data, resource planning, proposal and knowledge software, AI tools), plus recruiting, training and insurance. General guidance: at the 7,091 offices under 20 staff, a founder or managing partner decides. At the 391 offices with 20 to 99, look for a chief operating officer or practice leader. The 137 offices of 100 or more are often branches of national firms, where buying is national: find the practice or alliance lead, not the local office.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional.

Staffwise (staffwise.example) sells resource-planning software at $40 per user per month and targets Chicago consultancies with 20 to 99 staff. A 40-person firm is 40 x $40 x 12 = $19,200 a year, so winning 15 of the 391 offices would add about $288,000 a year. The opening email asks how the firm schedules consultants across overlapping projects and offers a two-week trial on one practice. Working out which of the 391 are independent firms and who runs operations at each is the research Bebop does for each account.

Next step: compare Chicago with the consulting firms in New York City market, or see the city's whole business base in companies in Chicago.