Consulting firms in Washington, DC: 8,289 offices and over half of federal consulting work

This report is for job seekers and students looking at Washington consulting, for agencies and companies hiring a consultant, and for vendors that sell to consultancies. It sets the Census count beside federal spending by code, names who wins the work from the public award record, and covers the big firms, the listed companies, pay and the federal checks to run.

How many consulting firms are in Washington

County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 counts 8,289 establishments in NAICS 5416, Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services, in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro area. They employed 146,556 people and paid $17.76 billion, or $121,190 per employee, with 17.7 employees per office. By size, 5,880 have one to four employees, 728 five to nine, 578 10 to 19, 545 20 to 49, 266 50 to 99, 190 100 to 249, 64 250 to 499, 25 500 to 999 and 13 have 1,000 or more.

Arlington's 589 offices average 37 employees, the largest of any county here. These are establishments with payroll: a firm with three offices counts three times, and a consultant with no employees doesn't count at all.

Federal consulting by kind of work

The second set of columns is federal contract obligations in fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025) for work performed in the metro's counties, from USAspending.gov:

The $9.99 billion total is 54% of the $18.64 billion obligated nationwide under these codes, and the District alone accounts for $3.83 billion. Spending fell 24% from $13.08 billion in fiscal 2024, against 22% nationally; reported fiscal 2026 obligations stood at $9.51 billion, and late reports can still add to that. IT consulting (541512) is bigger again: $20.06 billion performed in the metro in fiscal 2025. Booz Allen's 10-K blames its 6% revenue fall in the year to March 2026 primarily on "a slowed procurement and funding environment, including the government shutdown."

Who wins the work

The largest recipients of fiscal 2025 consulting obligations performed in the metro were Chemonics International ($1.03 billion), Deloitte Consulting ($780.3 million), General Dynamics Information Technology ($372.0 million), Booz Allen Hamilton ($362.7 million), Guidehouse ($253.5 million), BCG Federal Corp. ($215.9 million) and Serco ($129.4 million). By agency, Defense obligated $2.83 billion, Health and Human Services $1.37 billion, USAID $1.16 billion and Homeland Security $935.4 million.

Listed and headquartered here, from each company's latest 10-K:

Booz Allen plans to move its headquarters to Reston in fall 2027. Bowman is mainly an engineering firm, and PPHC a government relations and public affairs group.

The big firms' Washington offices

Offices as each firm lists them on its own site or in its 10-K, checked 30 October 2026:

McKinsey's site didn't respond to our check, but federal records list "McKinsey & Company, Inc. Washington D.C." with $40.3 million of fiscal 2025 consulting obligations performed in the District. EY's office pages gave no addresses, and PwC's site turned away our automated check. For firm-wide rankings see the largest consulting firms; for the audit firms' consulting arms, the Big Four accounting firms.

Jobs and pay

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 62,360 management analysts (occupation 13-1111) in the metro in May 2025, 19.9 per 1,000 jobs and 3.44 times the national concentration, with a median wage of $126,830 and a mean of $145,310. Federal consulting roles often need a security clearance: Booz Allen says about 77% of its employees hold one.

How to vet a Washington consultant

1. Look up its federal record. Federal contractors register in SAM.gov, and USAspending.gov shows every award a firm has won, by agency and code.
2. Check organizational conflicts of interest. FAR subpart 9.5 rests on two principles: preventing conflicting roles that might bias a contractor's judgment, and preventing unfair competitive advantage. A firm that writes your specifications or work statement may be barred from supplying what it specified (FAR 9.505-2).
3. Confirm registration where it operates: DC's CorpOnline and Maryland Business Express. Virginia's State Corporation Commission site didn't respond to our automated check, so search it directly.
4. If you're a District agency, check CBE status with the Department of Small and Local Business Development.
5. Meet the staff who will do the work and agree a fixed fee or labor-hour ceiling for a defined scope.

The Professional Services Council is the trade association for government services contractors, and the Washington DC Economic Partnership covers the District's business base.

Selling to Washington consultancies

General guidance: federal consultancies buy for capture and proposals, compliance, cleared hiring and delivery tools. Under 20 staff, the founder decides; at 20 to 499, a capture or operations lead; at the 38 offices of 500 or more, procurement and security review come first.

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

Bidwise (bidwise.example) sells proposal software to federal consultancies at $24,000 a year. The metro has 1,065 consulting offices with 20 to 499 staff; if a quarter of them bid on federal work, that's about 266 targets, and 20 customers would bring $480,000 a year. The opener cites a recent award to the firm on USAspending and the recompete date. Matching each firm to its award history and finding its capture lead is the research Bebop does for each account; selling to government covers the buyer's side.

Next step: compare the commercial markets in consulting firms in Dallas and consulting firms in Boston.