Awards and Recognition

consultingheads holds awards from three publishers. They measure different things: brand eins and Statista survey the consulting market itself, the F.A.Z. Institut evaluates recommendations and reputation data, and kununu rates us as an employer. This page records what each award actually says — with its source and how it was compiled.

brand eins and Statista: Best Consulting Networks

The „Berater 2026“ edition of brand eins lists 275 companies and seven consulting networks. consultingheads is one of those seven networks — and appears on the list for the sixth time since 2019 (2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, 2025, 2026). The previous edition listed eight networks, and consultingheads was among them as well. This is the 13th consecutive edition.

The survey runs in two stages. For the peer survey, Statista contacted 14,248 partners, principals and project managers at consulting firms; 2,191 questionnaires could be evaluated. Nominations are open, with no pre-selected list, and self-recommendations are excluded. For the client survey, 1,100 executives were recruited through an online panel, plus 597 executives approached directly at DAX, MDAX, SDAX and TecDAX companies; they grade only firms they have worked with in the previous four years.

The ranking is recommendation-based, and companies cannot apply — that is the point that matters. Firms with too few recommendations, or with client ratings significantly below average, do not appear on the lists.

Source: brand eins, Die besten Unternehmensberater 2026 · our announcement.

F.A.Z. Institut: TOP-Berater 2026 in the Expert Network Category

The F.A.Z. Institut lists consultingheads as a TOP-Berater 2026 in the expert network category. The award was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 20 May 2026, and the profile is available at topberater.faz.net. It was compiled in cooperation with the market research firm QUANTIQUEST from more than 750,000 recommendations and around five million text fragments covering over 80,000 consulting firms, supplemented by a client survey and self-reported company data.

What matters here is the frame. The assessment used four criteria — client satisfaction, subject-matter expertise, advisory competence and willingness to recommend — the same criteria applied to management consultancies, IT consultancies and law firms in the same study.

Source: our TOP Berater 2026 profile · our announcement.

kununu: Top Company 2023 to 2026

The kununu „Top Company“ seal rates consultingheads as an employer rather than as a service provider. It is based on reviews from employees and applicants on kununu and is awarded annually. consultingheads holds it for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.

As of 2 September 2026 the kununu score stands at 4.8 out of 5 from 16 rated reviews, with a 100 per cent recommendation rate over the past two years. The highest-rated factor is working atmosphere at 5.0, the lowest salary and benefits at 4.0. Source: our kununu profile.

What These Awards Do and Do Not Prove

The differences matter. The brand eins ranking is the most thoroughly documented of the three: sample sizes, response rates, field periods and exclusion criteria are published, and the listing itself cannot be bought. The F.A.Z. Institut works from a large data base, but its methodological figures are not published to the same extent. And kununu is an employer rating: the seal says something about what it is like to work here, but nothing about the quality of our placement work.

None of these awards replaces due diligence in the individual case. What an expert network is worth is decided by the profiles it delivers for a specific project — not by a seal. We list the awards here so it is clear who assessed us, and how. To discuss what this means for your project: scope your project.