How much travel is expected for a consultant? If you would prefer not to travel every week, can you still enter into consulting?

If you go into consulting, you should expect to travel at most firms, but the level of travel will vary by firm and by project.

The amount of travel tends to be drive by the firm’s staffing model. Some firms have more local/home staffing models which tends to mean less travel and some have regional or global staffing models which tends to mean more travel.

Typically, travel is Monday – Thursday at most of the major firms, with Friday being back in your home office. That said, some firms travel five days a week as a norm, but most travel three to four days when you are on a non-local project.

For a large firm with a global model, typically, you are spending around 80% of the time travelling, and the other 20% of the time you are in your office, “on the beach” or “on the bench”, where you are doing knowledge development or helping with business development.

For a firm with a more local model, travel could range but on average would be closer to 50%.

If you don’t want to travel every week for personal reasons or if there is a time in your life when you need to be local, once you’ve established that you’re a good performer, you can request cases that don’t require travel (or as much travel) that are closer to your home office, and they will certainly try to work in those preferences.