Summary: Generalism in consulting is a short phase, not a long-term positioning. The market rewards early specialisation because clients buy expertise, not optionality.
Generalists Are Trained. Specialists Are Paid.
A recent Business Insider piece ‘The days of the consulting generalist may be numbered‘ misses the point. Not because it is wrong, but because it is late. The market moved years ago. Clients have been hiring specialists for a long time, and most consultants are only now catching up to that reality.
Generalism still exists inside firms. But externally, it is not what gets bought.
The market moved before the narrative
The idea that AI is “killing the generalist” is a cute headline, but it simplifies what is actually happening. Clients did not suddenly decide they want specialists. They have always wanted them.
What has changed is transparency. AI has made it harder to justify broad, unanchored advice. When parts of the consulting toolkit become faster and cheaper, clients become more selective about where they see value.
They are not paying for structured thinking alone. They are paying for:
• Experience in a specific context
• Pattern recognition from similar situations
• The ability to move from insight to implementation
This aligns with what we have seen across senior hiring in the UK and Germany. Roles are no longer framed as “strategy consultant” in a generic sense. They are framed around a capability, a sector, or a problem set.
That shift has been underway for years. AI is accelerating it, not creating it.
Generalism ends earlier than most careers plan for
One of the biggest disconnects in consulting careers is timing. Many consultants assume they can remain generalists well into mid-level roles.
In reality, that window closes earlier. By Manager level, the expectation changes. You are no longer there to learn how to do consulting. You are there to contribute something defined. You are expected to bring a point of view, to anchor discussions with clients, and to shape how work is sold and delivered.
That requires depth.
A pure generalist struggles here because there is no clear answer to a simple question: what do you actually do?
Without that clarity:
• You are harder to staff because teams need specific capability
• You are harder to sell because clients want relevance
• You are harder to promote because your trajectory is unclear
This is why Manager becomes a forcing point in many firms. It is where positioning becomes commercial.
All senior hiring is specialist hiring
From a search perspective, this is already clear.
Above Senior Consultant, hiring is almost always specialist hiring. Firms are not looking for “good consultants”. They are looking for people who can own a space.
That means:
• A defined industry (e.g. industrials, healthcare, financial services)
• A defined functional capability (e.g. pricing, operations, due diligence)
• Increasingly, a technical or AI-related angle
This is consistent with what we hear across MBB and the broader strategy consulting market. Even where firms maintain a generalist track, the expectation is that consultants build depth earlier.
At McKinsey & Company, for example, consultants are expected to develop a “T-shaped” profile. They build breadth early, but quickly anchor into one or more areas of expertise that define how they are staffed and how they contribute commercially.
Generalism is not the end state. It is the starting point.
The best consultants make the shift early
The consultants who progress fastest do not wait for Manager to figure this out. They start earlier, often without being explicitly told to.
At Analyst level, the signals are already there. Over time, patterns emerge in:
• The industries you are staffed on
• The types of problems you are exposed to
• The areas where you build confidence and credibility
The best consultants pay attention to those signals. They use them to make early decisions about where to focus. They also think longer term. A useful framing we often discuss with candidates is this: Where will the market be in 8–10 years when you present your partner case?
That question forces a different level of thinking. It shifts the focus from short-term staffing to long-term positioning.
By Consultant level, you do not need a formal specialism. But you should have direction. You should be able to articulate what you are building towards, even if it is still evolving. Without that, careers tend to drift. And drift is rarely visible early on. It shows up later, when promotion decisions become harder to justify.
AI raises the bar on relevance
AI is not removing the need for consultants. It is raising the bar on what is valuable.
Tasks that once absorbed large teams of generalists are now faster and more automated. Market scans, basic benchmarking, early drafts of analysis. These are no longer differentiators.
As that layer compresses, value shifts upwards.
Clients care more about:
• Framing the right problem
• Applying judgment in ambiguous situations
• Connecting analysis to real decisions
• Driving change within organisations
These are not generic skills. They are grounded in experience.
This is why we are seeing increased demand for consultants with clear domain expertise, particularly in areas like AI, data, supply chain, and sector-specific transformation. It is also why firms are placing more emphasis on revenue per head and outcome-based delivery.
The implication is simple. Broad capability is not enough. It needs to be anchored in something specific.
Manager is where it becomes visible
Manager is not where specialisation starts. It is where the lack of it becomes visible. At this level, you are part of how the firm generates revenue. Your profile needs to make sense to partners, to clients, and to the market.
If you cannot be clearly described, you are difficult to position. This is where many consultants plateau. Not because they are not capable, but because they have not built a clear lane.
By contrast, those who have invested early in a niche are easier to back. Their partner case is easier to understand. Their trajectory is more predictable.
What this means in practice
Generalism still has value. It builds range, adaptability, and exposure. It is an important phase in any consulting career. But it is not a strategy. The consultants who outperform treat it as a phase, not a destination. They use the early years to test different areas, but they make deliberate choices about where to focus.
They act early.
They build a lane.
They make themselves easy to understand and easy to sell.
That is what turns potential into a commercial proposition.
Takeaway
The market has already decided. Generalists are trained.
Specialists are hired, promoted, and paid.
The consultants who recognise that early shape their careers accordingly.
And over time, they become the ones the market turns to.
Ben Appleton is the founder of Strat-Bridge, a specialist executive search partner to the strategy consulting industry. He works with global consulting firms and senior leaders across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond — helping them build capability at the Partner and Director level.
