OFFICE SELECTION
Two analyst offers can show similar salaries.
Your life after rent can look completely different.
That is the problem with comparing consulting compensation as a single number.
Salary is not spending power.
For an undergraduate moving from campus life into a first full-time job, the number on the offer letter is only the beginning. Housing, taxes, transportation, food, and the way the city is built determine what that number actually feels like.
Ten cities can give you ten different versions of the same offer
Imagine comparing offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, Singapore, and Sydney.
The wrong approach is to rank them from highest salary to lowest and declare the first one the winner.
A larger paycheck can meet larger fixed costs.
A lower headline salary can exist in a city where some costs work differently.
The comparison changes after the paycheck arrives.
So instead of asking, “Where do analysts earn the most?” build a personal equation:
Take-home pay minus fixed living costs minus recurring work-related costs equals usable income.
That is the number you can actually compare.
For a deeper look at how compensation can vary across offices, read Consulting Salary Differences by Office Location.
The city comparison gets useful only when you stop pretending everyone lives the same way
Here is what makes this personal.
One new analyst wants a studio close to the office.
Another is comfortable with roommates.
One wants to walk everywhere.
Another expects to own a car.
One flies home frequently.
Another has family in the same city.
Those choices can overwhelm small differences in headline compensation.
Use the ten-city question as a checklist, not a ranking:
| City | Cost question to investigate | Why it can change the offer |
|---|---|---|
| New York | Housing and commute | Rent can dominate the budget |
| Boston | Housing location | Campus-heavy neighborhoods can distort expectations |
| Chicago | Rent versus commute | Location choices can change costs sharply |
| San Francisco | Housing | The apartment decision matters early |
| Toronto | Rent and taxes | Gross pay is not take-home pay |
| London | Rent and transport | Commute choices affect both time and money |
| Paris | Housing and daily transport | Location shapes convenience |
| Dubai | Housing and relocation setup | Upfront costs can matter |
| Singapore | Housing and transport | Lifestyle assumptions change the budget |
| Sydney | Rent and commute | Geography can affect daily costs |
This is not a cost-of-living ranking.
It is the list of questions you need before making one.
Then consulting itself changes the calculation
Suppose your job involves periods of client travel.
Some meals or transportation may work differently during an engagement than they do in a normal office job.
Then the project ends.
Now your ordinary city budget matters again.
Do not build your life around reimbursed Tuesday dinners.
Your durable costs are the ones waiting when the engagement changes: rent, utilities, personal transportation, debt payments, subscriptions, savings goals, and whatever lifestyle you actually want.
That is also why comparing geographies matters beyond a single office. Consulting Salary by Geography: US vs Europe vs Asia can help you think about how compensation structures differ across broader markets.
The best spreadsheet has one column recruiters never show you
Add “life I want outside work.”
That sounds soft.
It is not.
If one city lets you live near friends, avoid a long commute, and save consistently, that has real value.
If another offers a larger headline number but forces trade-offs you already know you dislike, that matters too.
Your offer has a denominator.
The salary is the numerator.
The denominator is what the city asks from you in money, time, and inconvenience.
Compare both.
Only then does the bigger number start telling you something.