What's behind the rise of the development consultant?

Since the start of the year, more than 2,000 postings for consultants of various types have been listed on Devex’s jobs board. And when the list is expanded to include short-term contracts of all sorts in the development sector, that list grows to reach tens of thousands. So what’s behind this rise in the ranks of consultants? And is the trend likely to continue? Who’s hiring development consultants? Consultants, according to the United Nations, are individuals engaged in an advisory or consultative capacity as an “authority or specialist in a specific field.” Such work is typically short-term and results-oriented. In the context of the U.N. system, roles usually involve “analysing problems, directing seminars or training courses, preparing documents for conferences and meetings, or writing reports on matters within their area of expertise.” Devex has been tracking consultancy posts in international development via a jobs board for the last decade, and the data shows a consistent rise in the number of postings, from just over 100 in 2013 to more than 2,500 in the last 12 months. During that time, the number of jobs on the Devex jobs board has risen by a factor of four. However, even taking that into account, consultancy roles have risen from one in 200 postings in 2013, to one in 35 in 2023. Most recently, the likes of the U.S. Agency for International Development, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization have sought professionals who can offer short-term support in communications, project management, and analytics. But the biggest employers of consultants are the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. Other organizations are currently seeking, according to Devex’s job board, consultants for public health in Egypt, procurement in Kenya, and green finance in Mongolia. Hiring organizations include Chemonics, Plan International, and the African Development Bank as well as government and U.N. agencies. While there is limited data on the number of consultants in the global development sector, Sarah Steller, director of KeyLime — a marketplace that matches international development organizations with consultants — said organizations across the world regularly hire consultants. Those Devex spoke to believe that’s a growing trend. “Specialty-type consulting roles, I'm seeing more of an increase or demand for that,” said Danielle Ballantyne, a food and nutrition communications consultant who has been in the space for 12 years. “That's what I've observed just in recent years.” The development sector is not unique; many sectors are seeing a rise in the use of consultants. Data shows that in 2023, in the United Kingdom alone, the number of people working in this capacity will increase by 13%. In the United States, the amount of management consulting firms has increased by 2.6% annually for the last five years. And across the African continent, the consulting industry is estimated to grow at between 5% to 7% per year. What’s driving the change? Experts identified three main trends: “projectized” funding, organizational reticence to provide staff contracts, and shifts in the way we work, driven by digital technology and post-pandemic working patterns. “COVID-19 changed everything in our lives including the way we work.” --— Carmen Demeter, Uganda-based project management consultant There is an ongoing trend, said Loksan Harley, a migration consultant who has worked with organizations such as the International Organization for Migration, the UN Network on Migration, and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, of moving away from having large permanent staff bodies to contracting out work. It’s difficult to put years and timelines on it, he said, but NGOs and agencies used to receive grants for unrestricted funding that would allow for larger numbers of staff. “As donor funding has moved toward a more projectized model … they now have a skeleton staff that applies for funding and then when they get the funding, they need to find the people to implement them. Those people are consultants,” said Harley, who is also co-founder of the Impact Consulting Hub. That means that a lot of the roles advertised today are roles that would have previously been in-house and less specialized, Harley said. He described the stereotypical consultant as “gray-haired” with years of organizational experience or an academic in a specific discipline. But he said that today, that profile has shifted and broadened out. Others agreed. “A misconception I see is that you need to be a senior expert [to be a consultant] … but there's really demand at all levels of expertise and experience, so even folks with only a few years of experience can be a consultant,” said Steller. There is also, however, some back-and-forth over what the term actually means. The U.N., in particular, has pushed the growth in consultancy by using the term widely. U.N. agencies have relatively strict hiring rules which can sometimes prevent agencies from hiring people they really want to recruit. For example, when a U.N. organization is unable to hire an individual after their internship, they might offer them a consultancy, allowing them to stay on but eliminating the need for a permanent employee contract. This trend, too, is visible in Devex recruitment data. Since the start of the year, more than 35,000 short-term roles have been advertised on Devex’s site, and almost all of the top employers have been U.N. agencies or other multilateral agencies, such as development banks. The way we work is changing Carmen Demeter, a Uganda-based project management consultant who is currently working on creating a localization hub for Ugandan organizations to advance equal partnerships for bidding on USAID funding, believes the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shift in the way people work has meant many individuals who may not have considered working as a consultant before are now doing so. Of the consultants Devex spoke to, many didn’t actively seek to work this way but circumstances pushed them into consultancies. Perhaps a relocation meant their previous job was no longer viable, while redundancies or transitions during the pandemic have also meant many are seeking new forms of employment. According to research from McKinsey & Company, over 100 million workers will likely need to find a different occupation by 2030. “COVID-19 changed everything in our lives including the way we work,” Demeter said, adding that the home working and self-discipline required showed many that they had the ability to consult. Demeter herself transitioned from in-house project management roles with the likes of International Resources Group and RTI International to consulting when she moved from the U.S. to Uganda because of her husband’s job. This flexible model of working allowed her to still work whilst being located elsewhere. “People are increasingly looking at freelancing as a way to have flexibility, work with different clients, earn a bit more money, and have a bit more agency,” Harley said. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report, 51% of currently employed people are seeking new jobs. As more people pursue that via consultancy work, the “supply” of consultants is increasing and this is also impacting the space, he added. But Steller believes the idea that more people are opting to work as consultants is only a perception. “Some people move to consulting, people go back to full-time positions, maybe people leave the industry, or leave the workforce, or they come back; there's always that churn … So generally speaking, it's been fairly consistent in terms of the type of demand and the pool of folks who are consulting,” she said. The thinking otherwise may derive, she suggested, from the “great resignation” that followed COVID-19. The idea that many were leaving their jobs “was true in the numbers,” said Steller. “A lot of people were quitting their jobs, but what I think was happening is people were just looking to find the right match … What some people do if they decide that the job that they have isn't working for them [is] to move to consulting on a short-term basis,” she said, adding that this is likely an interim situation until they find a longer-term position. Harley is concerned that if there is a continual increase of consultants though, there could be negative repercussions for the sector. “We still should have organizations that manage relationships and that also have some sort of institutional memory,” he said, adding that he’s experienced instances where staff at a U.N. agency haven’t had knowledge about a specific project because it would lie with a former consultant. In other circumstances, he’s worked on projects that require the building of relationships that organizations have failed to maintain once a consultant moves on. Ballantyne believes that rather than there being too many consultants overall, it’s likely that there are a lot of generalist consultants and not specialists. For example, in the food and nutrition space, she’s experienced “a pretty consistent need. … That tells me that there's not too many of us yet, but I think in certain areas there could be maybe too many,” she said. Looking ahead, Ballantyne suspects this likely won’t change as more people consider transitioning to consultancy work. “With what the work environment looks like right now, especially post-COVID, I could see people shifting to this model again for more flexibility and being able to provide a certain service,” she said. Ultimately, there will always be a market for consultants though, she added. “It’s an important part of the overall workforce we have in this space.” Check out the wide range of consulting opportunities posted on the Devex job board on a daily basis or post your own consultancy offer directly.