IT professionals who are looking to make a job change might be wondering if it is better to be an IT consultant with an IT services company or to be an In-house IT analyst in an organization.
As someone who has been both in her career, I have to say that this decision is dependent on many factors.
Some of the factors that might influence your decision are:
Income: while being an IT consultant can be very lucrative and it may even pay more than an in house IT role, it is also generally linked to performance and bonuses.
So if the IT services company has a bad financial year, it might impact your salary while with an in-house role you are an employee that is paid based on agreed upon salary.
Job security: in-house IT roles are generally more secure than an IT consultant role mostly because as an IT consultant your job is tied to the success of the IT company.
If the IT company fails or is affected by external factors such as a recession, then you will be directly affected by that too.
Stability: in-house IT roles tend to become subject matter expert of the organization’s business processes and it’s applications over time while with an IT Consultancy role you needs to quickly learn the different clients business processes and provide solutions to their problems.
And just when you are finally starting to understand the organizations business processes, you might be moved to another project.
IT acumen: due to the variety of their work, IT consultants tend to be more knowledgeable and experienced than in-house IT analysts.
This also makes them more valuable in the job market.
Exposure to the latest technology: IT consultants tend to be exposed to newer technologies more than in-house IT analysis mostly because internal IT jobs are about maintaining the organizations current systems which might be outdated but still functional.
This exposure to newer technologies also tend to increase the IT consultants market value.
Travel: IT consultants tend to travel a lot to various locations to meet up with the clients which means that they are always on the go.
This might be great and interesting while you are younger but it can quickly get old and exhausting over time.
It can really become a problem when you start having kids and you want to be around to watch them grow up.
So while IT consultancy can be interesting and lucrative, it can also be quite volatile and stressful.
So if you are someone who likes predictability and stability, this might not be the job for you.