25 most prestigious management consulting firms in Europe
McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company are the most prestigious consulting firms in Europe, according to the views of more than 2,800 management consultants. The top 10 is completed by the traditional strategy & operations players Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, Roland Berger, A.T. Kearney and two of the Big Four firms.
Every year Vault, a global career intelligence platform, conducts research on the prestige and employership of firms in the consulting industry. This year’s ranking of Top 25 European Consulting Firms – the fifth edition to date – is based on the input of more than 2,800 consultants of all levels across the continent. Firms were evaluated on seven key areas (see below for area and weighting). The 25 firms with the highest average scores are included in the ‘Vault Consulting 25 Europe’ ranking.
From a prestige perspective, since the launch of the ranking the top three spots have remained unchanged. McKinsey & Company is, similar to the global ranking released earlier this year*, regarded by professionals in the industry as the firm with the best reputation**, followed by its traditional rivals The Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company. On #4 comes Oliver Wyman, displacing Strategy&, which dropped once place to #5, according to the researchers the result of Booz’s decision to sell the firm itself to PwC. The top 10 is completed by the rejuvenated Roland Berger***, A.T. Kearney, Big 4 players PwC and Deloitte, and OC&C Strategy Consultants.
An analysis of the positions between 11 and 25 reveals that KPMG, Accenture and BearingPoint belong to strongest growers, all three rising two places, while Capgemini jumps one spot to #17. Kurt Salmon is the only newcomer in the list of top 25 most prestigious consultancies – exemplifying how difficult it is to enter into the elite of the profession – replacing UK-origin PA Consulting Group.
See the section Rankings & Awards for an overview of all (international) rankings in the consulting industry.
* Note that the Consultancy.uk article covering the global Vault ranking presents the list based on all research areas, while the above article focuses purely on the prestige category.
** Industry insiders from peer firms praise McKinsey, noting that the firm is "market-leading," "transformational," a "top player," "highly prestigious," and "still the best, period."
*** See the article ‘New strategy of Roland Berger aims to triple size’ for details.
