How to retain talent & clients in your management consultancy
29 October 2025
In his article, ‘Management Consulting firms: staff retention is a key challenge’, published in March 2025, Chris Sale of Prism Executive Recruitment talks of the “looming staff retention crisis.” The most recent attrition data for the management consulting industry is from 2023, which puts employee turnover at 12%. It’s an improvement on 2021 figures and falls into the ‘good’ category. Still, with the Financial Times predicting a turnaround, with ‘hiring back on’, your top talent is going to have more options. What does this mean for client retention? Read on to explore the link between employee and talent retention in your management consultancy.
In a hurry? Here are the three main takeaways on how to retain talent and clients in your management consultancy.
1. Staff retention directly impacts client retention and revenue: Losing consultants isn’t just expensive (up to £135,000 per top consultant to replace), it can also cause client losses of 10–20% due to disrupted relationships and lost trust. Many clients are loyal to individual consultants, not firms—so high turnover threatens both income and reputation. Improving employee retention strengthens client satisfaction, continuity, and long-term profitability.
2. The top reasons consultants leave are predictable — and addressable: The main drivers of attrition are better offers, poor work–life balance, lack of progression, limited recognition, and weak culture or values fit. HR should focus on strategies that tackle these pain points: clear career pathways, flexible working, recognition and wellbeing programmes, and authentic leadership alignment with company values.
3. Aligning talent and client strategies delivers measurable ROI: Retention and growth hinge on integrating people strategy with business objectives: mapping current talent to future skills, developing internal capability, and managing knowledge transfer. Investing in retention yields multiple returns — higher productivity, stronger client loyalty, and reduced acquisition costs.
Got time to stick around? Let's dive a little deeper.
If you’re already fully versed on why employee retention matters and how it links to client retention and business growth, click here to move down to the ‘solution’ part of the blog. We’ll present a high-value retention strategy that aligns with your people and business goals.
Why retention matters: the business case
Employee retention matters in every business because replacing employees can cost up to 150% of an employee’s annual salary (Institute for Government). In a management consultancy, where your top consultants could be earning up to £90,000 (Accent Professional Services), the price of replacing a top consultant up to £135,000.
Read our blog, ‘How to Calculate Employee Turnover’, to get to grips with your turnover rate and risk.
Why is retaining talent critical in a management consultancy?
It’s vital to retain employees in a consulting firm for several reasons. Aside from the expense of replacing top talent, anecdotal evidence suggests that some clients would follow their consultant if they moved to another firm. Potential client losses, delays, and reduced productivity during onboarding could cut revenue by an additional 10 to 20%.
How much does consultant turnover cost?
If replacing one top consultant could cost £135,000, then losing three would cost over £400,000. That’s close to half a million pounds for replacing just three employees. That doesn’t even touch on the potential revenue loss in an industry estimated to be worth over £20 billion.
It’s an astronomical figure, and a heftier expense than any of the consulting talent management strategies we’ll suggest you implement to reduce employee turnover.
What are the biggest reasons people leave consultancies?
We’ve discussed the impact; now we need to explore the main reasons people leave consultancies. Top reasons include receiving a higher-paying offer (sitting at number one), lack of work-life balance, seeking career progression, the need for recognition of their ideas, company culture, and values (MConsulting Prep).
How do you link talent strategy to business objectives?
People power your business objectives. Even when the business objective is efficiency. Having the right skills to implement changes and maintain the standards clients expect during transformation or restructuring is vital to the stability of the organisation.
It’s a good point to click through to our blog, ‘Unlocking Business Growth: The 10 Benefits of Employee Retention’, to understand the impact talent retention has on business objectives, including enhanced client satisfaction and the ability to win new business.
Your talent is a business asset. It’s a somewhat inhuman phrase. Perhaps it’s best to say that an investment in your talent strategy is an investment in your business, not just an overhead.
AI may drive efficiencies, but people create trust and growth with your clients. Without them, there is no business.
The link between retaining skills and clients
Clients may not always build a relationship with your business, but they will have a connection, trust and respect for the consultant who they credit with helping theirs. That’s why there’s a risk that a client may leave if their preferred consultant moves on.
Why is retaining clients crucial in consultancy?
No matter the industry you’re in, it’s cheaper to retain clients than it is to acquire new ones. According to Forbes:
Statistics show that an increase in customer retention by 5% can lead to a company’s profits growing by 25% to around 95% over a period of time.
The numbers don’t lie. Attracting new clients involves marketing spend, plus any costs associated with bidding for new business. One of our Pluxeers recalls their time working at a meetings and events space in London, where a management consultancy would book space for two days, costing more than £1,000, so they could bring the bidding team together offsite and have the space needed to prepare a winning proposal.
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) formula recommends an ideal 3:1 ratio: for every £1 spent acquiring new clients, you should expect a £3 return. It’s a promising figure on paper, but you'll only realise it if you win the business.
What strategies increase client loyalty?
We’ve established that it’s more cost-effective to retain your clients, so how can you earn their loyalty, even if their preferred consultant leaves?
1. Demonstrate value
It’s natural for the client to form a relationship with their consultant, so it’s vital to ensure they see the value in what the rest of the team delivers. From analysts to consultants, project managers to admin support, ensure clients understand the role the team plays in helping them achieve their goals, not just the individual.
It’s also an opportunity to ensure you communicate your organisation’s overall value-add, and why remaining with you is in their best interest.
2. Communicate
So simple and yet often overlooked. Communication and transparency build trust–even if delivering news about delays or setbacks. From wider business updates to your latest tips and ‘must-knows’, create a communications plan that ensures your clients experience your culture and values—and, most importantly, feel appreciated.
3. Client-success mindset
A client-success mindset is a shift in attitude. It's a move from the position where you want to sell something to a client for the sake of your business, reframing the narrative so you’re communicating how the service you’re offering helps them achieve their goals. As Forbes explains:
To truly shift to a client-success mindset, B2B companies must take the lead in explaining to clients why additional services are necessary and worth the money.
4. Relationship management
It goes without saying that good relationships are vital for client retention. You could tick all the boxes, meet all the KPIs, but if the client dreads receiving your call, you’re not going to nurture their loyalty. Every client will have different needs, and it’s not all about wining and dining. It takes a skilled human to manage a variety of people, understand boundaries, and build meaningful connections.
All four examples listed above involve having the right people in the right roles, highlighting the strength of the connection between retaining talent and clients.
Why does high staff turnover put client relationships at risk?
High employee turnover often indicates a problem—something within or part of business practices is causing employees to walk away, which can ring alarm bells with clients. High staff turnover can also lead to the loss of knowledge, inconsistent service, costly mistakes or delays, and a lack of client trust. When the trust goes, so do the clients, as they have to protect their own interests.
Data suggests that high employee turnover isn’t an industry-wide issue, but if it his higher than 20% in your business, your client relationships could be at risk.
What is the ROI of improving talent retention?
You can measure the ROI in multiple ways, including higher productivity, better client outcomes, increased client retention, and even stronger referrals from client and employee advocates.
If you haven’t done so already, dip into our blog, ‘Unlocking Business Growth: The 10 Benefits of Employee Retention’, to learn more about the ROI of talent retention.
An integrated approach: talent & client retention together
It’s clear that talent and client retention are integrated, so what is the answer to maximising both?
How to align your talent strategy and client strategy
Start with your client strategy, plotting business ambitions in the short and long term. Overlay it with the talent you need to bring it to life today and in ten years, and this will help define the future skill set required.
Next, look at the people already in your business—not just what they do now, but also how you could develop and train them to meet your future needs. Lack of progression is one of the reasons your consultants would leave, so demonstrating where they fit in plans and mapping out the development plan that will get them there will help you create the workforce you need today, tomorrow, and beyond.
Attrition is natural, so it’s vital to identify colleagues who are likely to leave, whether for personal reasons that you can’t change, retirement, or even restructuring. Include knowledge management in your plans–how you retain the wealth of experience long-serving and top talent has, as well as succession planning.
Retaining talent: key strategies
We’ve set the scene, so if you didn’t already understand the connection between talent and client retention, you will now.
What strategies work for retaining high-performing consultants?
We’ve identified the most significant reasons people leave consultancies: a better offer, work-life balance, career progression, recognition, culture and values. Now it’s time to present you with an employee retention strategy that will deliver results for your talent and clients.
This is the moment we bring our product offering into the conversation, because the Pluxee Employee Experience demonstrates the client-success mindset we’ve embraced.
1. Employee benefits & compensation
The current business landscape makes it challenging to offer higher salaries, making financial wellbeing benefits vital for plugging the gap. As we reveal in our guide to strengthening your Employee Value Proposition (EVP), effective use of employee discounts and cashback can deliver more value than a 4% pay increase.
As part of an all-in-one mobile-first solution, our Employee Discounts help your workforce make significant savings in all areas of their lives--dining out, holidays, entertainment, clothes, even the weekly shop and kitting out their family with the tech and gear they need.
Our Pluxee Card is the market differentiator, offering up to 15% cashback whenever your employees use it with one of our over 80 retail partners. We built it to reflect how they spend–in the moment, on impulse, often unplanned–while delivering cashback on daily essentials.
We have a suite of financial, mental, and physical wellbeing solutions, including an electric car scheme and Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). We won’t list them all, as you can read about the Pluxee Employee Experience Platform here. However, we will point out that we designed it to suit all budgets, for simplicity and flexibility, and to strategically align with your business goals.
2. Work-life balance
It’s no longer a nice-to-have. Across generations, especially among emerging Gen Z, work-life balance is non-negotiable for today’s workforce.
Balance looks different for everyone, and financial wellbeing plays a part, enabling employees to afford to make the most of their time away from the office. Other benefits that support work-life balance include an Annual Leave Purchase scheme, which allows employees to buy extra holidays. This scheme saves your business money and enhances wellbeing.
Gym and fitness discounts are another great benefit for balance, making a healthier lifestyle more affordable.
Both these solutions are part of the Pluxee Employee Experience, but wellbeing goes beyond tangible benefits. Flexible, hybrid and remote working opportunities massively improve work-life balance.
3. Career progression
Another reason we flagged that employees would leave your consultancy is that they don’t see how they can progress within your business. Build career progression into your long-term business and skills strategy to set out a clear path for top and emerging talent.
When progression or promotion opportunities are limited, mentoring programmes provide a valuable opportunity for those seeking to learn from more experienced colleagues. You can also direct employees’ learning towards more niche skills needed in the future, showing how they can continue to develop across and up.
4. Recognition
Recognising the value and contribution of a colleague is vital to retaining them, but recognition and appreciation go deeper than that. Our blog, ‘Employee recognition: The ultimate guide for employers’, tackles all you need to know about getting employee recognition right.
The recognition features of our Pluxee Employee Experience Platform bring peer-to-peer recognition to life within a values-based reward model, cementing appreciation into your culture.
5. Culture
Speaking of culture. Toxic environments will send your top talent running to your competitors. We’ve mentioned recognition, but a culture of wellbeing is also vital for retaining essential skills. Once again, authenticity is critical.
We’ve dedicated an entire blog to the topic—Transform Your Workplace Culture: A Practical Guide to Change—which is full of top tips on workplace culture, including why it matters and how to transform it.
6. Values
Culture and values are connected, but aren’t the same thing.
Your values will likely define your culture. It’s how you bring them to life every day, and your leadership team must practise them so that the rest of your workforce follows. Your values don’t just reflect how you treat your employees, but also how you treat your clients, and both will look to partner with a consultancy that aligns with theirs.
Your values also feed into your recognition strategy, moving recognition from being strictly about results to behaviours. Another feature of the Pluxee Employee Experience recognition module is that you can define your values and the behaviours that deserve recognition and reward.
Retain talent and clients with Pluxee UK
We’ve covered a lot. Why employee retention matters, why client retention is cheaper than acquisition, and, importantly, the link between a happy workforce and loyal clients. We went from theory to practice, exploring how you can reduce employee turnover by providing a budget-conscious, ROI-focused benefits strategy that delivers what your people want at a fraction of the cost of your employee acquisition overheads.
You’re looking for simplicity, flexibility, and strategic alignment. A partner that puts your success, pain points and ambitions first, just like you do with your clients. As an all-in-one platform that consolidates a range of solutions, reduces HR admin, and provides real-time reports, that’s precisely what you get with the Pluxee Employee Experience.
FAQs
How can I retain top consultants in my management consultancy?
Offering a comprehensive benefits package, career progression, a positive workplace culture, and support for work-life balance will help you retain top talent in your management consultancy.
Why do consultants leave management consulting firms?
Higher compensation is the top reason consultants may leave your firm, but balance, development and culture also play a part.
How does staff turnover affect client retention in consulting?
Some clients may move on when their preferred consultant does. Staff turnover also impacts continuity and service delivery, and can lead to revenue loss.
What is the link between employee satisfaction and client satisfaction in professional services?
When an employee has a high level of job satisfaction, they’ll demonstrate this to your clients. They’re likely to go above and beyond, building successful relationships and enhancing client satisfaction.
How does retaining great consultants and support staff improve client outcomes?
The four points listed above show ways to nurture client loyalty, and different people within your business will deliver them. New recruits can always learn, but outcomes are greater when employees with knowledge of your business and clients perform them.
