FIRM PRESTIGE RANKING (NORTH AMERICA)
Reach. Resources. Results.
That’s how many companies choose consulting partners. They seek outside perspectives and established expertise they lack in their own organizations. At best, consulting firms supply the credibility to push fence-sitters to adopt change – and deliver the map and support to make it happen.
When it comes to prestige, McKinsey continues to set the bar for peers to reach.
That’s reflected in Vault’s Prestige ranking, which accounts for 30% of the ranking weight. In North America, McKinsey consistently outpoints its peers. When Vault asked Consulting 50 survey-takers to score their peers on Prestige, McKinsey scored an 8.906 on a 10-point scale. In the process, McKinsey edged out both Bain (8.882) and BCG (8.854). It further reinforced McKinsey’s reputation as the most prestigious firm in consulting, a trend that extends back to 2018 when P&Q first started archiving Vault’s historical Prestige scores.
GETTING THE “A-TEAM” EVERY TIME
McKinsey’s New York office in 3 World Trade Center overlooks the Hudson River
What’s McKinsey’s secret? Start with an aura that extends 100 years. The firm has done everything from organizing NASA to inventing the bar code. It helped to launch the careers of alumni like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, not to mention introduce the world to innovations like the 7S Framework and the Pyramid Principle. In terms of scale, McKinsey boasts 40,000 employees spanning 130 offices in 70 countries. That doesn’t count another 65,000 alumni that the firm can tap into for further guidance and connections.
McKinsey is big. It’s decorated. It’s connected. Most of all, it offers expertise in almost every field imaginable, says Alexia Kyriakopoulous, who joined the firm in 2024. “I’m constantly collaborating with colleagues and experts from all over the world,” she told P&Q in a 2025 interview. “On one project, for example, we brought in a specialist from Germany because they were the leading expert in that particular industry. That global reach and spirit of “one firm” is incredibly unique and energizing.”
By one firm, she means that an office’s culture and approach remain in lock-step with McKinsey’s outposts. At the same time, the firm emphasizes individual development, so much so that clients receive McKinsey’s “A-Team” in every engagement, says Tunde Olanrewaju, McKinsey’s managing partner for Europe. Being surrounded by that level of talent daily gives the McKinsey team something unexpected: humility.
“With new hires coming in, I’ve been thinking a lot about how risky it is to start believing you’re an expert,” explains Chase Byington, a consultant in the Pittsburgh office. “Inevitably, that’s when you stop learning. It’s that curve where you think you’ve learned a lot but then realize how much you don’t know. Having brand-new people on the team makes you reconsider assumptions you had set in place and realize those “rules” aren’t as fixed as you thought.”
MCKINSEY LEADS THE PACK IN EUROPE AND ASIA TOO
That humility may come in handy when leaders review the firm’s Prestige score. After all, 8.906 was McKinsey’s lowest score since 2020. Even more, it represents just a .024 of a point advantage over Bain & Company, the smallest margin in nine years (with the gap between McKinsey and Bain being .426 of a point in 2018).
Bain itself leapfrogged BCG to land 2nd place in the 2026 Prestige Ranking. And a change like that is rare when it comes to Prestige. In fact, the Top 10 firms for North American prestige remained the same in 2026. The biggest difference came with Booz Allen Hamilton, which dipped from 7th to 9th. By the same token, Oliver Wyman and Accenture each moved up a spot. At the same time, BCG, Deloitte, and EY-Parthenon round out the Top 5 in that order, no different than the three years previous.
Among the headliners, the Analysis Group, which climbed to 3rd overall in North America, improved four spots to 16th in Prestige, with Cornerstone Research and Mercer each gaining three spots in the Top 20. At the same time, Gartner and Charles River Associates each lost four spots to tumble out of the Top 20. Just four firms debuted in Vault’s 2026 Prestige Ranking, with the highest-ranking belonging to WTW at 45th. Among the Top 20 firms, there was an even 10-10 split between firms that scored higher and lower than the previous year.
Outside the United States, McKinsey continued to carry the most cache among rival consultants. The firm scored a 9.002 in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) theater, where it bested BCG (8.963) and Bain (8.590). Overall, there was just one change in ranking among the EMEA Top 10, as Mercer rose from 13th to 10th.
In the Asia-Pacific region, McKinsey further cemented its reputation as the world’s most prestigious consulting firm. It outpaced BCG by an 8.900-to-8.778 margin. Here, Kearney inserted itself into the conversation with a 7.037 score, good for 4th behind BCG. EY-Parthenon, Deloitte, and Accenture each climbed two spots to rank 6th, 7th, and 9th respectively. Ernst & Young made the boldest move in Asia by going from 18th to 12th. In contrast, L.E.K. Consulting plummeted from 6th to 14th.
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