Product Consultant

A Product Consultant helps customers get value out of a software product (or occasionally a physical product range) - configuring it to fit how the customer works, running demonstrations and training, and feeding problems back to the people who build it. The job sits between the commercial side (sales and account management) and the technical side (product and engineering), and most roles are in B2B software companies selling to other businesses rather than consumers. In practice you spend your time on calls and in workshops with customer teams, translating what they say they need into what the product can actually do.

Starting salary: £25k–£35k
Live graduate jobs: 1 open now
Main way in: Direct application to a graduate or junior Product Consultant…
They usually ask for: A degree is usually expected but the subject often doesn't…

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £25,000–£35,000 to start, though this varies widely by employer, sector and location - London and enterprise software tend to sit at the upper end, smaller regional software firms lower. Many roles add a bonus linked to client delivery, utilisation or sales support, and more technical pre-sales-leaning roles often pay more from the outset.

What you'd actually do

Running demos of the product for prospective or existing customers - usually tailored, so you spend time beforehand setting up a version with the customer's own data or a scenario that mirrors their business
Sitting in discovery or scoping sessions where a customer explains their current process, and writing up what they need the product to do (and flagging what it can't)
Configuring the product for a client - setting up workflows, user permissions, templates, report formats, data fields - which may be a few clicks or several weeks of work depending on the product
Delivering training sessions and writing how-to guides so the customer's staff actually use the system after go-live

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Answering escalated questions from customers that the support desk can't resolve, and working out whether the issue is a bug, a configuration mistake or a misunderstanding of how the product works
Passing recurring customer requests to the product management or engineering team, usually with context on how many clients want it and why
Supporting sales colleagues on bids, proposals and formal tender responses by writing the technical and functional sections

How graduates get in

Direct application to a graduate or junior Product Consultant vacancy at a software company - common, and many firms advertise these year-round rather than on a fixed graduate-scheme cycle
Internal move from a customer support, implementation or onboarding role at the same software company - very common, and often the easiest way in if your degree isn't an obvious fit
A structured graduate scheme at a larger software or technology business, where Product Consultant is one rotation or one of several placement tracks - less common, since many of the firms hiring for this title are mid-sized
Moving across from a sales development or inside sales role once you know the product well - a realistic route if you start in a more commercial job

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Industry-first entry: if the product serves a specific sector (legal software, NHS systems, logistics, accounting, construction), employers often hire people who worked in that sector and teach them the software rather than the other way round
Placement years and summer internships at software companies, particularly in implementation, support or pre-sales teams, which frequently convert into graduate offers

What employers ask for

A degree is usually expected but the subject often doesn't matter much - business, computer science, economics, sciences and social sciences all appear. Where the product is domain-specific (pharmaceutical, financial, engineering), a related degree can be a genuine advantage
Grade requirements vary a lot: some employers ask for a 2:1, plenty ask for a 2:2 or just a degree, and smaller software firms often care more about how you perform in a mock demo than your transcript
Evidence that you can explain technical things clearly - this might be tutoring, a society committee role, a customer-facing job, or a project where you presented to non-specialists
Comfort with data and systems rather than deep coding: basic SQL, spreadsheet skills and an understanding of how databases and integrations work are commonly asked for. Some roles want scripting or API familiarity, many don't

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Willingness to travel to client sites - requirements range from almost never (fully remote delivery) to several days a week, and this is worth asking about at interview
No formal professional qualification is required. Some employers fund vendor or product certifications, and in consulting-heavy environments you may pick up project management credentials later

Skills that matter

Translating between business language and product language

A customer will describe a problem in terms of their own processes and job titles, and your job is to work out which product feature (or workaround) actually solves it.

Live demonstration and presenting under pressure

You will regularly show software to a room of people who may be sceptical, interrupt with awkward questions, or watch something break on screen in front of them.

Process mapping and requirements gathering

Most implementations fail because nobody wrote down clearly how the customer currently works, so being able to draw out and document a process is core to the job.

Working data: spreadsheets, basic queries, data migration

Getting a customer's existing records into a new system cleanly is a recurring task, and messy data causes most go-live problems.

Saying no diplomatically

You will often be asked for things the product cannot do, and over-promising to keep a client happy creates problems that land on you months later.

Learning a product deeply and quickly

Credibility comes almost entirely from knowing the system better than the customer does, including the edge cases and the features nobody uses.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Start as a junior or associate consultant shadowing on demos and implementations, owning small configuration tasks and training sessions. This phase commonly lasts roughly a year to eighteen months but varies by employer size.
Move to running your own client implementations end to end, including scoping, build, training and handover - at this point you are usually the named contact for several accounts.
From here the path forks. Senior/lead consultant and then consulting or professional services manager is the delivery route, with responsibility for a team and for project profitability.
Alternatively, move sideways into product management (using your knowledge of what customers actually ask for), solutions architecture or pre-sales engineering (more technical, more sales-aligned and often better paid), or customer success and account management (more commercial).
Longer term, experienced consultants often move into independent contracting, partner-channel consultancies that implement a given vendor's software, or head-of-department roles. Timelines here vary enormously - growth is much faster at small expanding software firms than at established ones.

What people get wrong

“It's a management-consultancy job - strategy decks, big-name firms, structured graduate intake.”

Despite the word 'consultant', this is usually a role inside a software vendor, focused on one product you know intimately. The work is hands-on configuration, training and problem-solving rather than strategic advice, and the employers are often mid-sized tech companies rather than large consultancies.

“You need to be able to code.”

Most Product Consultant roles sit deliberately between technical and non-technical. You need to understand how systems, data and integrations fit together, and may use SQL or configuration scripting, but building the product is the engineering team's job. Some roles are more technical than others, so check the advert.

“It has nothing to do with sales.”

In many companies you are the technical half of the sales conversation - running the demo that wins the deal, or spotting upsell opportunities during delivery. You're rarely on commission for the whole deal, but some roles carry a bonus linked to sales or utilisation, and being allergic to commercial conversations will limit you.

“'Product' means you decide what gets built.”

That's product management, a different job. A Product Consultant influences the roadmap by relaying customer demand, but the decisions sit elsewhere - which is a common source of frustration, and also a common reason people move into product management later.

Where this varies

The title is used loosely and the job varies more than most. At some companies a Product Consultant is essentially a pre-sales engineer who only does demos and bid support and never touches delivery; at others it is an implementation role where you spend months configuring a system for one client; at others again it is closer to customer success, with ongoing account relationships. In non-software settings - medical devices, building products, manufacturing - the title can mean a technically-trained specialist who advises on product specification and sits much closer to sales. Travel expectations, how technical the work is, and whether you carry any revenue target are the three things that differ most, so read the job description carefully and ask directly at interview rather than assuming.

See all 1 live Product Consultant jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.