What will 2026 bring for the consulting profession and CMCE?

Although we are now well into 2026, I thought it worthwhile reflecting on what the year ahead may hold for the management consultancy profession, and how we in CMCE plan to help our members deal with the potential developments.

When we launched the Future of Management Consultancy report in October of last year, we highlighted the potential for AI to be used to provide solutions to business problems and the impact that this could have on the demand and delivery of management consulting services. Clients should be able to minimise their use of management consultants to define solutions to straightforward business problems. Management consultants should be able to reduce the time spent defining solutions to the more difficult business problems. The increased availability and capability of AI technology should only accelerate this trend over the coming year.

In our report of the Future of Management Consultancy Launch Event, we identified the impacts of this trend in terms of Services, Accreditation, Payment Methods, Consulting Marketplaces and Competition. We also announced the Future of Management Consultancy Series of events to look into each area in more detail during 2026. We held the first of these update events, on Consulting Marketplaces, at the end of January, and the Future of Management Consultancy Update: Consulting Marketplaces report is now available.

Although we anticipate that AI will continue to impact demand for consulting services to provide solutions to business problems it is likely to have far less impact on the demand for services to support the adoption of the solutions, where experience-based judgement and effective leadership are the keys to success. To recognise this we have launched, in conjunction with the British Academy of Management (BAM), the Voices on Leadership Series of events. The first event in this series was also held in January and a recording of the Leadership and Wicked Problems event is now available.

I look forward to you joining us at events in each of these series as we explore the future of management consultancy and the role of leaders in managing an ever more complex business environment.

 

Jim Foster, CMCE Director