I've been working in consulting for the last 7 years and enjoy how challenging and varied the work is, despite the often very long hours.However - my husband and I are planning to start a family and I don't want to be a mum who barely sees their children Monday - Friday (or even - Thursday if I work 4 days which I know a lot of the firms offer)Would be interested to hear what other women with children have gone on to do or how they have continued to work in consulting with small children.I work in people/ HR consulting with the standard change and project management skills.

I've put mine two toddlers in the orphanage, will collect them when they're 14 and I'm a partner in the firm

mayb look at HR roles within IBs etc?More stable but still good pay...

Well there you go then. No female consultants able to offer practical advice on how to keep a career going in consultancy once you’ve had kids. An answer in itself really.

They're all off trying to learn the offside rule so they can feel legitimate in their offence taken to developments in current affairs.

regardless of whether you are male or female, the unpalatable fact is that a committed, successful career in consulting is fundamentally incompatible with maintaining a close family relationship. the hours are too long, there is significant travel and it is energy sapping. taking part-time or limited-travel options where available simply makes you less attractive when resourcing the most high profile, driven projects and your career will suffer. look at the people at the top of the tree - they might kid themselves that they have relationships with their children (becuase that's one of the trophies you are expected to display to the masses) but in reality they outsource them to nannies etc during the week and schedule them into their diaries for quality time at the weekend in the same way they would a client planning meeting - the whole thing becomes very superficial.you have to work out your priorities - time with the family or time spent on career...

Yes - I agree completely, and I know I want to prioritise family. One of the things I was considering was moving into an 'internal consulting' team.Anyone got any experience of making this type of move/ any recommendations for firms that have these kinds of teams and what the quality of work and work/life balance is like?

I work as an internal consultant and we have a newborn at home. For the days I don't travel I leave home at 7 and never back home by 7 to put our son to bed. Internal or external, you still need to travel and if not your days are too long to enjoy family life. I am working on leaving consulting, take a massive pay-cut but enjoy bringing up our son. It's your choice really!

I am a mum to two primary aged girls. I love my consulting job and get to see a lot of my girls, only missing school events when I'm abroad with work.How? I run my own niche consultancy and work 2-3 days per month at the very expensive end of the rate scale with multinationals. The rest of the time I work from home, writing books, preparing, marketing, running international virtual events, working on my skills and having sales conversations.Why work for anyone else? Too much stress. Women are very capable of being consultants and it's a great life (once you've learnt rainmaking)xx

that's certainly not a utilisation ratio you'd get away with in the Big 4, so if you can make the economics work (guess you'd want to be billing >2K a day) then it's a great model

Rather more than that...

What is rainmaking and how can I learn it?

You'll need a leather bikini and Wayne Rooney and Walsh Coles mobile numbers

Rather more than that...

Can I learn it if I find a job with an escort agency?

Another option is to move client side.Ever notice how all your customer interfaces are on flexi-time, have more holiday than you, a better pension and don't travel from their vase office?It really is the way ahead if you want to balance your work and family commitments.

I believe Berlusconi's multinational events were very niche and paid quite well, especially for those right at the beginning of their career.....