Service line forecasts for 2026: Where are clients set to spend?
Consultants welcomed in 2026 with gathering optimism. Yes, the macroeconomic outlook was still gloomy at the start of the year, but clients, no longer content to wait and see what would happen, were beginning to act—and to spend on external support to help them do so. With this early impetus to invest in mind, what can Source’s data tell us about where firms’ services will be in demand?
Since the start of the year, conflict in the Middle East has complicated the picture significantly. With some commentators saying we are headed towards World War Three, and some saying it’s already begun, what does the future hold for the global consulting market? It’s impossible to answer this question with any real certainty, let alone unfettered optimism.
At Source, we regularly update our forecasts as global developments play out. Certainly, since the word “polycrisis” entered our vocabulary following the Covid pandemic, we’ve had to become rather good at it. All this to say that the growth rates quoted in this article will likely be subject to some change. However, they are unlikely to be radically altered, and they still provide useful direction for firms.
With all this in mind, our current forecasts place growth in the global consulting market at 6% in 2026, bringing it to a total of around $315bn. We recently broke down what this means for consultants in each sector. But which service lines are clients set to spend on this year?
Cybersecurity: the star performer
From 2023 to 2025, the cybersecurity consulting service line grew roughly twice as fast as the market average, and 2026 is no different. Revenues are set to rise by around 12%, making this the breakout star of the services we cover, although it’s growing from a relatively small base.
One need only look at the headlines to see why. High-profile cyber attacks pepper the news, and this has kept cybersecurity firmly on the agenda for clients. At the same time, technology is playing a bigger and bigger role in organisations, and as clients press on with their priorities in AI and data & analytics, the need for security advice will only grow.
The bulk of cybersecurity spending is coming from the public sector, as governments look to protect themselves from hostilities, and from financial services, where breaches can cost dearly in dollars and trust. Meanwhile, the most dizzying growth is seen in healthcare, where data is particularly sensitive, pharma, and energy & resources, as clients seek to protect critical infrastructure.
Technology & innovation and risk & financial management: the stalwarts
It’ll come as no surprise to readers of our Market Trends reports that technology & innovation will remain the largest consulting service line in 2026, as it has been for over a decade. The majority of clients in every region we survey say they need to update their technology within the next three years in order to survive.
Growth dipped slightly to 3.9% in 2025—a reflection of budgets being stretched, putting pressure on the more traditional elements of technology work, like ERP solutions, in favour of support with advanced technologies and data & analytics—but is set to rebound to 6% in 2026. The lines of business particularly driving this re-energised growth are, once again, AI advice & implementation and data & analytics, which are projected to grow by 15% and 10% respectively.
Meanwhile, risk & financial management is another big and important service line that is expected to continue to grow strongly. Revenues are forecast to rise by 6% in 2026, in line with the market average, as clients explore ways to shore up their organisations in an operating environment that isn’t likely to stabilise any time soon.
Within risk, responding to regulation is a valuable offering for firms. It’s more than twice the size of any other capability in this service line and is growing at a healthy 8% as clients face new and stringent regulations, from ESG to AI governance.
Strategy and operations: less designing, more doing
The fortunes of the strategy and operations service lines are somewhat interlinked. The signs point to 2026 being a year of execution, meaning that, while strategy is still growing, it’s doing so more slowly than its more practical counterparts.
That’s not to say strategy spend will disappear: In dollar terms, it was the second-largest service in 2025 and is set to be the third largest in 2026 (with risk & financial management looking likely to overtake it). However, growth continues to hover below the market average, at 2.3% in 2025 and with a forecast of 4% in 2026.
Meanwhile, the operations service line is set to grow just above the market average in 2026, at 7%, driven largely by a huge focus on productivity in client organisations. Indeed, cost-cutting, operational review, and operating model change are the fastest-growing capabilities within the operations space. From a sector perspective, demand is projected to grow fastest in the energy & resources sector, where complex supply chains and infrastructure logistics require expert support.
It’s important to note, though, that the growth gap between operations and strategy currently looks set to narrow in 2027 and beyond. Indeed, our latest Quarterly Client Survey indicated early signs of rising demand for strategy work around technology, business models, and growth, so watch this space.
People, HR & change: ripe for a rethink
Ever the straggler in our forecasts, the people, HR & change service line is projected to return to growth in 2026—albeit just by 1%—after three years of contraction. Even acknowledging, as we do often in our research, that demand for this kind of work is likely embedded in other projects with a broader or more technological focus, it’s an unimpressive figure, and not one that’s likely to improve much.
We dedicated a whole Future Trends report to the “problem” of people, HR & change consulting in the spring of 2025, and it seems that the challenge persists: Why, if clients continue to name internal working arrangements as a top barrier to achieving their goals, is the consulting spend to overcome this issue not following? We found that the whole service line is ripe for a rethink. Firms that can uncover and entice the hidden buyers for this kind of work may be able to tap into a source of latent demand.
What should firms do next?
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