Most "consulting salary reports" sell you precision they do not have: a single total-cash number for each firm, as if someone published a rate card. Firms do not. What they publish under US pay-transparency rules is a base (sometimes a wide range). What business schools publish is a median base for accepted consulting offers, plus signing and variable bonuses when students report them. Everything else you see online is reconstruction.
This report is built only from those primary layers: firm US job postings, Class of 2025 employment reports, the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational median, and Department of Labor H-1B Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure files. Every table row carries a source and a check date. If a cell would require inventing a point figure, it stays blank or says "not disclosed."
After reading, you should be able to rebuild a defensible first-year cash floor from public records, spot when a prep-site total is folklore, and decide which offer tier is worth the prep hours. For how to use these numbers in an offer conversation, see the sibling method piece, Consulting Salary 2026: $80K to $285K First-Year Pay. The printable companion lives at /resources/consulting-salary-report-2026.
How this report is built (and what it refuses to do)
Four source types, in priority order:
- Firm US postings that state a good-faith annual base or range under state pay-transparency rules.
- MBA Class of 2025 employment reports (HBS, Wharton, Kellogg, Booth) for consulting medians and reported bonuses.
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for the management-analyst occupational median—the floor most candidates forget.
- DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data for attested wage fields on H-1B filings—not total cash, not campus offers, but a public wage trail.
What this report does not do: invent performance-bonus ceilings, average Glassdoor submissions, or paste crowdsourced "year-one totals" as facts. Signing and variable bonuses appear only when a school report publishes them. Discretionary firm bonuses stay labeled as eligibility, not as dollars.
Ned's rule. If a consulting pay number lacks a dated primary link—firm posting, school table, BLS page, or OFLC file—treat it as rumor until you can match it to one of those four.
MBB US base pay from firm postings
These are bases (or posted ranges) copied from US role disclosures. They are not total compensation. Bonuses, if any, are discretionary and usually not numbered in the posting.
| Firm | Level (US) | Posted base / range | What the posting says about bonus | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bain | Associate Consultant (first-year) | $120,000 | Eligible for discretionary performance bonus; other discretionary elements possible | Bain Associate Consultant posting | 2026-09-24 |
| Bain | Consultant (first-year) | $200,000 | Eligible for discretionary performance bonus; other discretionary elements possible | Bain Consultant posting | 2026-09-24 |
| McKinsey | Associate (new joiners, US) | $192,000 – $192,000 | Eligible for bonuses at firm discretion | McKinsey Associate posting text (Dallas Supply Chain) | 2026-09-24 |
| McKinsey | Business Analyst – Operations (new joiners, US) | $125,000 – $132,000 | Eligible for bonuses at firm discretion | McKinsey BA–Operations posting text | 2026-09-24 |
| BCG | Associate (US campus, first-year base) | $110,000 | Eligible for discretionary performance bonus and PSRF | BCG Associate US Campus posting text | 2026-09-24 |
| BCG | Consultant (advanced degree, first-year base) | $190,000 | Eligible for discretionary performance bonus and PSRF | BCG Consultant Advanced Degree posting text | 2026-09-24 |
Limits: McKinsey and BCG rows come from mirrors of the firm's pay-transparency paragraph—open the live careers posting before you negotiate. Bain's figures are from Bain.com on the check date and sit above older $112k / $192k folklore. Practice-specific McKinsey BA bands can exceed generalist campus rumors. Do not average BCG Associate and Consultant into one starting salary.
MBA Class of 2025 consulting outcomes
School reports measure accepted offers among graduates who sought employment, not a firm's published rate card. Medians cluster tightly at the post-MBA strategy tier.
| School | Consulting share | Median consulting base | Signing / variable (as reported) | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard Business School | 21% of Class of 2025 into consulting | $190,000 (25th $190k; 75th $192k) | Median signing $30,000 (91% receiving); median variable $40,000 (91% receiving) | HBS consulting industry employment data, Class of 2025 | 2026-09-24 |
| Wharton | 28.2% of accepted offers | $190,000 (25th $190k; 75th $192k) | Median sign-on $30,000 among those reporting (84 students, 55.6% of consulting acceptances) | Wharton full-time industry choices | 2026-09-24 |
| Kellogg | 38% of Class of 2025 | $190,000 (reported range $67,113 – $210,000) | Median signing $30,000 | Kellogg Full-Time MBA career outcomes | 2026-09-24 |
| Chicago Booth | 36.7% industry / 37.8% function into consulting | Overall class median base $175,000; consulting is the top function | Class median sign-on $30,000 (65% of acceptances reporting a sign-on) | Booth 2025 Full-Time MBA Employment Report story | 2026-09-24 |
Limits: Booth's public summary does not break out a consulting-only median; use HBS, Wharton, and Kellogg for the $190,000 cluster. School variable bonuses are student-reported, not firm guarantees. Kellogg's $67,113 floor shows why one "consulting salary" is a bad summary statistic.
Big 4 and strategy-adjacent US ranges from postings
Large professional-services and strategy-arm postings often publish wide geographic ranges. They are compliance disclosures, not campus offer cards. Use them to see the band the firm will defend, not to assume you land at the midpoint.
| Employer / role type | Posted US base range (examples) | How to read it | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deloitte – Consultant, Strategy / Corporate Development track | $76,600 – $157,200 (range not adjusted for geography; top of range atypical for new hires) | Wide band; posting states hire near the top is uncommon | Deloitte careers JobDetail 358107 | 2026-09-24 |
| Accenture – Strategy Team Lead / Consultant (retail merchandising posting) | State bands such as CA $70,350 – $188,100; NY $66,300 – $188,100; most listed states $59,100 – $188,100 | Experience-hire strategy range, not an undergrad campus quote | Accenture job R00354278 | 2026-09-24 |
Limits: These rows are not MBB peers in role design. They show why Big 4 and Accenture "salary" pages that print a single undergrad or MBA base without a posting link are doing work the firm itself did not do in public. Strategy-arm campus bases (Strategy&, EY-Parthenon, Monitor Deloitte) belong in an offer letter or a dated posting you open yourself—not in a invented point column here.
Occupational context: BLS management analysts
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for management analysts reports a May 2025 median annual wage of $101,860. In professional, scientific, and technical services—the industry bucket that includes most consulting firms—the median was $107,330. The lowest tenth earned under $60,640; the highest tenth earned above $171,640.
That gap is the point. An MBB or top MBA consulting base sits well above the occupational median because those offers are selective, travel-heavy, and bonus-eligible—not because "consulting" as an occupation pays $200,000. When someone quotes a boutique or internal-strategy role at $95,000, they are often closer to the BLS middle than to the MBB table above.
DOL H-1B LCA disclosure data: what it can and cannot prove
The Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification publishes quarterly LCA disclosure files for H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 attestations. Employers file a wage they will pay (or a range) for a titled role in a worksite area. Those wage fields are public records.
Useful as: a cross-check that a titled wage field sits near the firm's US pay-transparency base. Not useful as: total cash, signing, performance bonus, campus medians, or partner economics. Filings mix specialists and offices; prevailing-wage fields are legal floors, not offer targets.
To reproduce: download the latest LCA Excel from the DOL page, filter employer and job title, and compare wage-rate fields to the posting table. Do not treat a third-party H-1B "median" as primary unless you re-ran the filter.
Worked example: a first-year cash floor you can reproduce
Suppose you hold a US Bain Consultant offer and want a defensible floor, not a folklore total.
- Start with Bain's posted first-year Consultant base: $200,000 (Bain Consultant posting, checked 2026-09-24).
- Add a signing bonus only if your letter states one. As a school-side benchmark—not a Bain guarantee—HBS, Wharton, and Kellogg all report a $30,000 median consulting signing bonus for Class of 2025 acceptances.
- Stop before inventing a performance bonus. Bain's posting says you may be eligible for a discretionary bonus; it does not publish a dollar ceiling in that compensation paragraph. HBS reports a $40,000 median variable bonus among consulting acceptances who reported one—student-reported, across employers, not Bain's scorecard.
Reproducible floor if the letter matches the school median signing figure: $200,000 + $30,000 = $230,000 cash before any performance bonus. Anything labeled "$285,000 Bain total" without a dated primary link is someone else's reconstruction. Run the same steps for McKinsey ($192,000 Associate base from the posting text) or BCG ($190,000 Consultant base from the advanced-degree posting text).
That arithmetic is also how you should pressure-test prep hours. A $40,000 gap between two realistic offer tiers is roughly a recruiting season of focused case work—not a reason to skip drills, and not a reason to panic if bases compress.
What changed heading into 2026
Three patterns show up in primary sources without needing a crowdsourced tracker:
- Bases at the top end are still high, and some firm pages have moved. Bain's live US first-year bases on 2026-09-24 ($120,000 AC / $200,000 Consultant) sit above the older cycle numbers still circulating on forums. McKinsey Associate postings still show a flat $192,000 US band in mid-2026 mirrors. BCG's advanced-degree Consultant posting still states $190,000 first-year base.
- MBA consulting medians are glued near $190,000. HBS, Wharton, and Kellogg Class of 2025 consulting medians all land at $190,000 base, with $30,000 median signing where reported. That is a market signal, not a firm-by-firm rate card.
- Wide Big 4 / Accenture ranges remain the honest public form. Deloitte and Accenture postings disclose bands spanning tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Treating the midpoint as "the salary" is a candidate error.
Flat or slowly moving bases raise the relative value of firm brand, staffing mix, and exits. Cash still matters; pretending the tables above are total packages does not.
Use these numbers before the offer call
Decide your tier first—MBB, strategy arm, or broad consulting—using the posting and school tables, then practice like the gap is real. Everything on CoachNed is open for seven days, no card; then $120 for a recruiting season or $49 a month.
- Run three turns of a case at /start if you have not timed a structure yet.
- Grade the resume that has to get you the interview at /consulting-resume-grader.
- Put an CopperCup voice case on the calendar at /interview when you need a full debrief, not another salary tab.
City cost differences are a separate layer; see Consulting Salary by City 2026 once you have an office list.
Frequently asked questions
What is a typical McKinsey or Bain starting salary in the US in 2026?
Use the firm's own posting, not a blog total. As of the check dates in the MBB table, McKinsey Associate US new-joiner disclosures show $192,000 base; Bain lists $120,000 for first-year Associate Consultants and $200,000 for first-year Consultants. Bonuses are usually discretionary and not fixed in those paragraphs.
Are consulting salaries going up in 2026?
Primary sources do not support a broad arms-race narrative. MBA Class of 2025 consulting medians sit at $190,000 base at HBS, Wharton, and Kellogg. Some firm postings (notably Bain's live US bases) sit above older folklore numbers; others still show the prior cycle's Associate or Consultant base. Read the dated posting for the role you hold.
Why do prep sites quote higher "total cash" than this report?
Because they add estimated performance bonuses, signing, and sometimes relocation into a single point figure. This report leaves undisclosed bonus dollars blank. School reports that publish median signing or variable bonuses are cited as school data, not as firm guarantees.
Do H-1B filings show what consultants actually earn?
They show attested wage fields for sponsored roles in DOL OFLC disclosure files. That is useful as a cross-check against posted bases. It is not total cash, not a campus offer distribution, and not partner pay.
Where can I get the printable version of this report?
The public resource page is /resources/consulting-salary-report-2026. Pair it with the method guide at /blogs/consulting-salary-guide.
Sources
- Bain Associate Consultant role (jobid 10397) — US first-year Associate Consultant base $120,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Bain Consultant role (jobid 10409) — US first-year Consultant base $200,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- McKinsey Associate posting text via DiversityJobs — US new-joiner Associate salary range $192,000–$192,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- McKinsey Business Analyst – Operations posting text via DiversityJobs — US new-joiner range $125,000–$132,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- BCG Associate, United States, Campus posting text via TalentAlly — first-year Associate base $110,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- BCG Consultant, Advanced Degree, United States posting text via Emploive — first-year Consultant base $190,000. Checked 2026-09-24.
- HBS recruiting employment data, Class of 2025 industries — consulting median base, signing, and variable bonuses. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Wharton MBA Career Management full-time industry choices — consulting base percentiles and sign-on. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Kellogg Full-Time MBA career outcomes — consulting share, median base, range, signing. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Chicago Booth 2025 Full-Time MBA Employment Report — consulting placement share and class-level pay. Checked 2026-09-24.
- BLS OOH: Management Analysts — May 2025 median wage and industry medians. Checked 2026-09-24.
- DOL OFLC performance and disclosure data — primary portal for H-1B LCA wage filings. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Deloitte careers: Consultant, Strategy Growth and Transformation — example wide US wage range. Checked 2026-09-24.
- Accenture careers: Strategy Consultant job R00354278 — state-by-state US salary ranges. Checked 2026-09-24.
CoachNed is not affiliated with McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, Accenture, or any firm named above.