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McKinsey vs BCG vs BainManagement Consulting Competitive Benchmarking

An independent, data-driven examination of the observable differences in scale, talent signals, geographic footprint, and public-sector exposure across McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.

The study covers US hiring filings from FY2015 to FY2025, US federal and UK, Canadian and Australian public contracts, firm-published scale figures, and public web footprints, drawn from 11 public sources. Where a figure is an estimate or a proxy, it is labelled as one.

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Independent analysis using publicly available data. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or based on confidential information from McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group or Bain & Company.

Analysis coverage

3
firms compared
92,422
source records processed
11
public data sources
FY2015–2025
US filing years covered
63
defined metrics
278
automated validation checks passing

Counts are generated from the pipeline outputs. Records are rows in the clean source tables; derived tables are not double counted.

The analysis

Report · 8 analysis dimensions

McKinsey, BCG and Bain: what public data can and cannot show

US hiring, public-sector contracts, firm scale, technical emphasis and workforce signals, each with its question, definition, evidence and limits.

Read the report

Featured visualizations

Certified H-1B filings by firm

Filings per fiscal year · FY2015–FY2025

McKinsey and BCG filings rise through the period, with a McKinsey jump around FY2021. Bain stays an order of magnitude smaller.

Source: US DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data (S1) · Metrics: HIRE-001, HIRE-002

Technical share of certified filings

% of certified filings · FY2015–FY2025

Share of each firm's certified filings in technical occupations.

Source: US DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data (S1) · Metrics: CAP-001, CAP-002, CAP-003

Global revenue data points

USD billion · 2017–2025

  • McKinsey
  • BCG
  • Bain
  • filled = reported
  • hollow = estimate

BCG's points are reported by the firm. McKinsey and Bain points are estimates and are shown hollow.

Limitation: Estimates are not as reliable as reported figures; most McKinsey and Bain points have not been verified against the original source.

Source: Firm releases and secondary sources (S3); see Data & Sources · Metrics: SCALE-005, SCALE-007, SCALE-008

All charts and findings

Methodology and reproducibility

  • Where the data comes from: government registries (US Labor, USAspending, SEC, UK, Canada, Australia), firm releases and public sitemaps, OpenAlex, Wikipedia and Wikidata.
  • How it is cleaned: raw extracts are never edited; one strict name matcher attributes records to firms.
  • How metrics are calculated: every metric has a stated numerator, denominator, filters and missing-data rule.
  • How quality is checked: 278 validation checks and 26 registered claims are tested on every run.
  • How to reproduce it: one command regenerates every table, chart and number on this site.

Methodology Reproducibility

Downloads and source code

Not yet available: a PDF report, a presentation and a Power BI dashboard. They will be linked here only when they exist.