What a public body is actually buying when it buys consulting
A management consulting contract is unusual in public procurement because the thing being bought does not exist when it is priced. The buyer is purchasing a method and a named team, and the evaluation reflects that: technical scores in this category lean heavily on the proposed approach and on the curricula vitae of the individuals who will do the work, with price often weighted lower than it is for goods. That makes the key personnel clause the sharpest term in the contract. Bidders who win on the strength of named partners and then substitute juniors are the reason most of these contracts now bind the supplier to the individuals who were scored, and make replacement subject to the buyer's consent.
The commercial shape is usually a framework or a multi-supplier panel rather than a single award. The tender establishes rate cards by grade and a set of service areas, and individual assignments are then called off against it, sometimes competitively between the panel members. A bidder who reads only the headline notice and not the call-off mechanism can win a place on a panel worth nothing, because being admitted to a framework guarantees the right to compete and not a single day of work.
Two requirements catch first-time bidders. The first is conflict of interest: a firm that advises on a strategy is frequently barred from bidding for the implementation it recommends, and the declaration is made at bid stage, not at award. The second is deliverable-based payment. Public buyers increasingly refuse open-ended time and materials, tying payment to accepted reports, decision points or measured benefits, which moves the risk of an overrunning study onto the consultant. Reading the payment schedule before the scope is the faster way to understand what a given assignment will really cost to deliver.
This section describes how this category is bought generally, across the public buyers that publish it. The figures elsewhere on this page are measured for this market alone.
Who buys management consulting in United States?
GlobalGov holds 2,154 management consulting records from 784 distinct buying organisations in United States. The most frequent publishers are Ibc Acq Svcs Directorate (53 records); NSWC Philadelphia DIV (27 records); NAVSUP FLT Log CTR Norfolk (24 records); Naval Air Warfare Center (21 records); PCAC (36C776) (21 records); Army Contracting Command (20 records). Between them the 6 largest account for 7.7% of everything published, so buying here is spread across many separate authorities.
| Buying organisation | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Ibc Acq Svcs Directorate | 53 | 2.5% |
| NSWC Philadelphia DIV | 27 | 1.3% |
| NAVSUP FLT Log CTR Norfolk | 24 | 1.1% |
| Naval Air Warfare Center | 21 | 1.0% |
| PCAC (36C776) | 21 | 1.0% |
| Army Contracting Command | 20 | 0.9% |
What are management consulting contracts worth in United States?
224 of the 2,154 records publish a contract value. The median is $1.4M and the largest single published value is $45.0B. By size, 40 under $100k, 65 between $100k and $1M, 43 between $1M and $10M, 76 above $10M. The remaining 1,930 publish no value at all, so every figure here describes the priced subset only, and values are as stated by the buyer rather than as finally awarded.
| Contract size | Records | Share of priced |
|---|---|---|
| under $100k | 40 | 18% |
| between $100k and $1M | 65 | 29% |
| between $1M and $10M | 43 | 19% |
| above $10M | 76 | 34% |
How long do bidders get to respond to management consulting tenders in United States?
Across the 1,980 United States management consulting notices that publish both a publication date and a closing date, the median response window is 15 days. A quarter of them allowed 8 days or fewer and a quarter stayed open for more than 25. 892 of them (45%) closed within a fortnight of being published, so on this market a bidder who reviews notices once a week can lose most of the response window before reading one.
How often are management consulting tenders published in United States?
United States publishes about 168 notices a month in this category, 2,016 in the last twelve months. That is 2624% more than the 74 published in the twelve months before that. Over the last three years there were 2,103, spread across 64 separate months of activity since 2 March 2016. April is historically the busiest month. The most recent was published 30 September 2026.
How does United States compare with other management consulting markets?
Among the 66 countries where GlobalGov holds a comparable management consulting market, United States ranks 10th by number of records. The largest is France (14,828 records against 2,154 here). Within United States itself, management consulting is the 21st largest of the 85 procurement categories tracked here.
Where do the United States management consulting records on this page come from?
These 2,154 records are collected from 6 official sources: SAM.gov (2,068), USAspending (49), Simpler.Grants.gov (18), Grants.gov (16) and 2 smaller sources. GlobalGov is an independent aggregator and is not affiliated with any of them; each record links back to the notice on its issuing portal. The set is rebuilt nightly, and the counts on this page were taken on 2026-10-01.
Open Management Consulting tenders in United States
No individual notice in this category currently has a public record page. The market figures above are computed over all 2,154 records GlobalGov holds for it.
Other procurement categories in United States
Management Consulting procurement in other markets
Never Miss a United States Government Contract
Finding United States tenders usually means a local portal, a local registration and someone who reads the language. Get an alert you can read when a new management consulting opportunity is published there.
Start Free Trial