The Best Consulting Firms in Asia-Pacific, 2018

I am delighted to announce the release of Vault's rankings of the Best Consulting Firms to Work for in Asia-Pacific in 2018.

As in our other regions, these rankings are based on our annual survey of leading employers within the consulting industry, and take into account everything from a firm's external reputation (its prestige score) to individual quality of life factors—all of which also have separate ranking categories, which you can find links to towards the end of this post.

Without further ado, however, here is this year's top 10:

The Best Consulting Firms to Work For in Asia-Pacific

1. McKinsey & Co.
2. Bain & Co.
3. Oliver Wyman
4. A.T. Kearney
5. Roland Berger
6. Strategy&
7. L.E.K. Consulting
8. Alvarez & Marsal
9. ZS
10. Arthur D. Little

It's no surprise to see McKinsey repeating its number one ranking in the region—the firm's strong prestige scores and increased focus in recent years on internal quality of life programs for its consultants indicate that it remains the gold standard in the industry.

Further down the list, meanwhile, strong showings for Roland Berger, Alvarez & Marsal and ZS indicate that it's not just the industry's gold-plated names that are getting recognition in Asia-Pacific. Each of those firms is, in their own way, a specialist with a deep focus in just a handful of industries—a description that is somewhat rarer for firms in APAC than in other regions of the world. As such, if you're in the market for a specialist firm, these may well be ones to consider.

How do we calculate the Asia-Pacific Consulting Rankings?

This year, more than 1,600 verified, practicing consultants in Asia-Pacific took the time to tell us about life at their firm through our survey, and to rate their jobs on everything from compensation and work-life balance to diversity, promotion policies and even exit opportunities. Those same consultants also rated peer firms on their prestige overall, and in a number of individual practice areas.*

Each of these ratings serves a different purpose:

Prestige and Practice Area Ratings

The overall prestige score is used to determine our ranking of the Most Prestigious Consulting Firms in Asia-Pacific.

The practice area scores are used to determine the Best Consulting Firms in Each Practice Area.

In Asia-Pacific, we cover 11 categories:

Quality of Life Ratings

Internal quality of life scores are used to determine our Best Consulting Firms in Asia-Pacific to Work For rankings across individual quality of life categories.

This year, we asked consultants in the region to rate firms across 22 separate categories:

The APAC Consulting 15

The last ranking—but definitely not the least of them—is the APAC Consulting 15. For that, we apply a weighted ranking that takes into account the factors that consultants have told us over the years are most important to them in both selecting a firm, and in determining their long-term happiness once inside the firm. This year, that weighting was as follows:

• 30 percent prestige
• 15 percent satisfaction
• 15 percent compensation
• 10 percent firm culture
• 10 percent work-life balance
• 10 percent overall business outlook
• 5 percent promotion policies
• 5 percent ability to challenge 

Now that you know what each of the rankings is, and how we compile them, I invite you to check them out in more detail—just follow any of the links above to get started. Who knows—you might find your next employer in one of those lists.