In 2020, business strategy consulting suffered tremendously as the Covid-19 pandemic forced many businesses to pivot and rethink their priorities. Fortunately, in the two years since, the industry has not only rebounded, it’s exploded.

This year in 2022, demand for demonstrated deep subject matter experts has taken off dramatically, and there are extremely lucrative opportunities available across the United States and around the world. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are investing heavily in the right expertise to help them tackle the challenge of digital transformation and the need to refine business strategy, enterprise technology stacks, and the implementation of far-reaching change initiatives across their organizational footprints.

As more and more industry leaders make the shift towards the high technologies of artificial intelligence and machine learning, seek to implement automation all along with their businesses, and move more of their core processes to cloud-powered IT systems, there has never been a greater need for consultants to guide the way.

Organizations everywhere are working aggressively to unlock new business value by segmenting their workflows, testing out multi-sourcing, and working on projects of continuous upskilling by offering more comprehensive professional development opportunities. All of these emerging trends mean there is a dramatic uptick in need for qualified consultants who can help organizations guide their increasingly remote workforces.

The consulting industry is changing rapidly with business travel remaining slower to return to pre-2020 levels. However, the vast shift towards digital transformation and remote work has created even more potential clients for top consultants because they are no longer limited by geography and can seamlessly link up using modern telecommunications and collaboration tools.

The future of the consulting industry is quite bright indeed, and now is the perfect time to get involved. In this article, learn about the most lucrative and in-demand consulting opportunities for 2022.

The Most In-Demand Consulting Opportunities of 2022

Cybersecurity and Digital Disaster Recovery

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, there has been a tremendous increase in digital crime. High-profile hacking scandals, ransomware attacks, and data breaches have become the norm and many insurance providers will only secure commercial businesses with demonstrated risk management processes in place to thwart the effects of cybercrime.

This means that professionals with cyber security and digital disaster recovery skills are in strong demand by customers in organizations far from the IT landscape, which has already elevated professionals with this skill set to extremely in-demand. If you are a professional with cybersecurity training and real-world experience securing valuable data from digital attacks, you should consider exploring the many lucrative consulting opportunities currently available.

Harvard cites the most in-demand cyber security skillsets at the moment as application development security and cloud security. Each of these makes sense, given how many organizations are focused on releasing mobile applications or releasing their APIs and looking to shift their businesses to cloud-powered storage services.

Disaster recovery has become a huge focus area in recent years due to the increasing threat of data breaches and the need to backup system resources not only using hardware but also cloud-based solutions.

Data Science

The vast digital transformation and shift to artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered business intelligence services have made data analytics and science a foundational skill set that all of the world’s most successful organizations are currently searching for. Top talent in this area of the business world can look forward to earning some of the highest consulting fees available and enjoy access to an ongoing stream of clients who are extremely desperate for even just a few moments of your time.

Over just the next eight years, the demand for data science consulting is expected to increase by more than 30-35%, according to the United States Department of Labor. Data science skills are today in demand by more types of businesses than ever before, and the need will only increase as we move forward.

Software Development

Everyone needs professionals with a development background to handle the complex coding tasks they have, but it’s tough to find people with the right backgrounds. That’s why some of 2022’s most in-demand consultants are software developers. Top businesses around the world need professionals with the expertise they need to develop software themselves.

Custom software development is on the rise, and professionals with skills in areas such as coding languages, cloud computing architecture, source control, database knowledge, testing procedures, and debugging knowledge can earn extremely lucrative contracts as consultants.

Risk Management

Over the last couple of years, ESG has become a front-of-mind concern for many businesses as lenders such as Blackrock have signaled their need to focus attention here. This has led many organizations to seek the expertise of talented risk management consultants to help look at their environmental, social, and governance processes to ensure they are not sustaining unnecessary risks by holding on to outdated practices.

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are using their data to improve business efficiency to reduce their risks. This is leading to far-reaching changes at every stage of their business and with each division in operation. Risk management consultants play a valuable role in helping businesses know when to allocate vital resources to reduce costs and unlock business value.

Change Management

With so many organizations making far-reaching changes across their operational footprints, it’s no surprise that change management consultants are some of the most in-demand professionals in 2022. Change managers help businesses to lean into tough challenges and move forward in alignment. If you are seeking a lucrative and rewarding new professional responsibility, consider completing certification to become a licensed change management consultant.

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