Consultancy is a highly versatile field, just like the world of business itself. No one consultant is an expert at everything, so they always specialize in specific services made for a clearly defined target audience.

If you’re starting a consultancy business, you must find your niche depending on your background. The below consulting areas will give you an idea of what these specialties are.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a consultant, this article will help you find the right expert to help you meet your objectives.

What Consulting Is (and Isn’t)

Before we jump into niching down, let’s define consulting.

Consultants are experts in a particular area of business who advise their clients on subjects such as strategy, technology, or operations. They typically get hired to solve specific challenges and offer solutions or tools to their clients to help them improve their businesses.

Unlike coaches, they don’t focus on the individual as much but rather on an objective to reach or a problem to tackle in a business or project.

While coaches use coaching questions to help their clients reflect and gain insights, consultants ask questions to gather information about the present situation and propose possible solutions.

[ Read: The Coach’s Guide to Finding Your Niche]

They also differ from trainers and educators who simply transmit knowledge. While consultants can teach you tools and techniques, they primarily aim to give their clients solutions and action plans to solve issues as quickly as possible.

7 Types of Consulting Niches

You might notice that there’s often an overlap between different areas of expertise in consulting. This is because these professionals, by nature, look at the correlations between business functions. They bring a high-level perspective to their clients in a particular department.

Here are some sub-niches within seven key departments you can specialize in as a consultant.

Types of Strategy Consulting

Strategy consultants are some of the highest-paid consultants. They can give fresh perspectives on the bird’s-eye view of a business.

Consultants who work with strategy provide an overview of how decisions from the top down affect every facet of an organization. They also help align the company’s vision with its long-term and mid-term strategy and goals to ensure it’s headed in the right direction.

Here are a few distinctions between them:

• Some strategy consultants focus on a company’s highest level of strategy, while others specialize in key functions such as marketing or recruitment strategy.
• They either help improve an existing strategy or analyze new areas such as environment or CSR strategy.
• They step in as an outside expert with experience in a particular industry and may guide decision-makers in entering a new market. These professionals are called Market Entry Strategy Consultants.

Strategy consultants can come from all areas of consulting, and they help companies make their objectives more integrated, effective, and ethical.

Types of Management Consulting

A management consultant ensures that leaders and key decision-makers in a company use resources in the most efficient way to reach objectives. They evaluate current management strategies and offer tools and methodologies to improve them.

The most common types of management consultants are:

• Leadership Consultants who help managers and CXOs improve their leadership qualities and supervisory techniques.
• Project Management Consultants who advise project managers on achieving higher cost and time efficiency in their work.
• Consultants who help companies adapt particular management frameworks and systems, such as OKR (Objectives & Key Results) Consultants.

Management consultants may work personally with high-level leaders in the organization on specific issues or train the entire leadership team on the right use of management frameworks.

Types of Operations Consulting

These types of consultants look for ways companies can improve their daily operations based on key metrics such as cost, efficiency, or quality. They uncover underutilized resources, potential gaps in workflow, and new ways to optimize processes.

Their primary focus may be:

• Process management
• Outsourcing
• Procurement
• Supply chain management
• Risk management

Based on their area of expertise, they might work as general Operations Consultants or as the following:

• ROI Consultants who aim to increase the return on investment of projects.
• Risk and Compliance Consultants who make sure companies comply with regulations and avoid potential legal and financial risks.
• E-commerce Consultants who focus on the production and management of products sold online.

Operation consultants often work across functions to systemize processes or design team-specific workflows.

For example, an Outsourcing Consultant may have operations and human resources expertise. They can integrate the two to improve an organization’s remote hiring strategy.

Similarly, Data Privacy or Marketing Compliance Consultants responsible for managing customer consent often play a cross-functional role. They work closely with legal teams to ensure compliance with telecommunication laws, partner with marketing teams to align consent practices with campaign strategies, and collaborate with IT departments to implement and maintain effective consent-tracking systems.

Types of Human Resources Consulting

HR Consultants help human resource professionals improve talent recruitment, management, and development processes in the company. Their primary focus is the people working within the organization and the team culture that binds them.

HR Consultants might specialize in:

• Employee well-being and satisfaction, for example, company perks or relocation support via top-rated national moving services for international talent or tools like free employee monitoring software to ensure a balanced and productive work environment.
• Company culture, defining key values and principles that team members share and embody.
• Recruitment and its main areas, such as talent pipeline management, interview processes, staff augmentation, or remote talent management.
• Employer branding as a cross-functional area shared with marketing consultancy.

Some HR consultants work on introducing specific platforms to organizations and help teams bring the most out of them. An example might be Upwork Consultants, who help recruiters integrate the recruiting software platform into their recruitment strategy.

Additionally, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services can be used to streamline and enhance the hiring process by leveraging external expertise and resources. Read this article to learn more about Applicants Tracking Systems and discover additional insights into optimizing HR processes.

Types of IT Consulting

IT Consultants can bridge the gap between the practical applications of technology and the strategic objectives they were meant to solve. They can identify system issues and opportunities for optimization in the technology certain departments use and the company as a whole.

You might come across them as:

• Cyber Security Consultants who protect companies from the risk of data breach.
• System Admin Consultants who improve database management procedures.
• UX/UI Consultants who help companies improve the usability of their products.

IT Consultants have a very unique skill set. They blend strategic thinking with software engineering, a combination that’s particularly valuable in the rapidly evolving technology landscape.

They are often brought in-house or contracted for an extended period of time to oversee complex transitions and more nuanced tech challenges in an organization.

Types of Financial Consulting

Financial Consultants help companies and individuals make better financial decisions and improve their financial planning processes. It’s a versatile field that can range from advising individuals on their personal accounting, such as planning for retirement or even exploring the tax benefits of a trust, to working with multinational corporations on their capital efficiency.

Financial Consultants can specialize in:

• Investment advice, helping companies and individual investors optimize their portfolios.
• Insurance consultancy, helping their clients choose the best investment package based on their needs.
• Accounting, where they might focus on budget optimization, taxation, or improving the compensation strategy of a company.
• Corporate finance, in other words, raising capital, increasing shareholder value, or overseeing mergers and acquisitions.

A large part of this specialty is analyzing the financial health of an account and forecasting the risks and gains of potential financial decisions. Professionals in this field provide key information for decision-makers to rely on for long-term financial decisions.

Types of Marketing Consulting

Marketing consultants help companies improve their brand recognition and increase their revenue by optimizing their marketing strategy.

Solo professionals and marketing agencies advise clients to choose the right channels for their campaigns and make their marketing processes more cost-efficient.

It’s one of the most versatile consulting fields and can be narrowed down to:

• Brand consultancy, focusing on the public image and reputation of a brand or personal brand.
• PR consultancy, generating more media appearances for brands.
• SEO consultancy, helping businesses improve the ranking of their content in search engines.
• Conversion funnel consultancy, improving the multi-channel strategy of businesses to increase their revenue.
• Sales consultancy, optimizing the sales pipeline, product catalogs and ROI of sales departments.
• Social media consultancy, growing the following and engagement of brands on social platforms, and advising on their influencer strategy.

Some marketing consultants simply charge for giving advice, while others get involved to the point of fleshing out the company’s marketing plan, maybe even hiring contractors to execute it.

Their work must align with the business’s high-level strategy, so it often intertwines with strategy consulting.

[ Read: Steal This Template for Your Complete Brand Strategy]

Cross-Functional Consulting

Some consultants may work across various areas and strategically align two or more different departments. Some cross-functional consultancy niches are:

• Outsourcing: a bridge between HR and operations.
• Employer Branding: connecting marketing and HR.
• ROI Consultancy: covering finance and either operations or marketing.
• Leadership Consultancy: often involves both strategy and management consulting.
• Marketing Strategy: connecting strategy consultancy with marketing.

Usually, the smaller the business, the more key functions overlap. Speaking of which, consultants can also specialize according to the size of the business they are working with (i.e., they can work as Small Business, Corporate, or Startup Consultants).

Unconventional Consultancy Services

If you’re an expert in any specific area that people seek advice on, you can build a consultancy career out of it. Some consultants have become widely successful in unconventional areas, such as:

• Tidying Consultants like Marie Kondo.
• Style Consultants like Tan France.
• Feng Shui Consultants like Marie Diamond.

It’s important to note that knowing a lot about a subject is not the same as giving professional advice.

Being a consultant means developing effective frameworks and tools that consistently bring results to all clients in your niche. It requires vast experience and the ability to communicate your advice effectively.

No matter which niche you choose, we hope you’ll build a thriving consulting business. With Paperbell, your client management will be one less thing to worry about, from contracting to booking and payments. Try it for free with your first client.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2022 and has since been updated for accuracy.