COMPARE YOUR CONSULTING FEES WITH THOSE OF OTHER CONSULTANTS
by Bob Gauger

Know the going rate before talking fees to a new client. Also take a second look at your fees before renewing your contract with an existing client. Do you have any idea what the going rate is? What are your competitors charging? You could search the internet or talk to all the consultants you know. How about conducting a survey of hundreds of other IEEE consultants? The IEEE has done just that for you. (more)

In late 2004, the AICN made their second nationwide survey of the fees charged by independent IEEE consultants. They sent an email questionnaire to more than 4000 IEEE consultants. Approximately 900 responded. Perhaps you were one of them. If so, thank you.

The preliminary results were published in January of 2005. The complete findings, including answers to the 23 questions, are now available on the IEEE-USA Consultants’ Services pages

Consultants’ Fees and Business Practices
The report includes tables of numerical data that you can use to compare your consulting fees with those of other consultants. Hopefully, this will give you the basic information you need in order to negotiate a fair, yet realistic rate for your next contract. For example, you will find that independent consultants with 21 to 30 years of engineering experience had an average fee of $124/hour and a median fee of $110/hour.

Plots of Consultants’ Fees and Annual Earnings is presented in six scatter plots which show the wide spread of the data and earnings trend as a function of engineering experience and consulting experience. These plots are particularly useful if you are looking for a quick visual overview of the data. What is particularly surprising is the wide range of fees that are being charged. For example, four consultants were billing at $400 per hour, yet at the lower level, several were charging less than $40 per hour.

If you want to justify a higher fee, take a look at the 7% of the independent consultants who charged fees of at least $250/hour or the 14% of the consultants who reported annual earnings exceeding $200,000 per year.

Profiles of IEEE Consultants is the most comprehensive report of all. It provides an in-depth treatment of the full survey results. It analyzes and graphs the consultants’ response to each of the 23 questions. These factors included education, experience, business practices, billing, location, and the field of consulting, making it the most comprehensive fee survey conducted by the IEEE or any of the other engineering organizations.

Of particular interest in this survey is the analysis of consulting fees for each of the major consulting fields and locations.

It is expected that the next survey will be conducted in 2006.

| Business & Consulting | IEEE-USA |