I ' m an MS not PhD , but I ' ve worked across a few industries in consulting I would basically summarize them as marketing , financial services , and healthcare . Marketing basically encompasses most Fortune 500 type statistics and data science jobs . Most of their data science investment is around marketing , though hopefully more will start to go to operations though at some point it goes from stats to OR or IE . The plus side of these gigs is that you generally have a lot more leeway to try new methodologies and technologies . For example , building machine learning models or using a big data platform like Hadoop . However , it gets old pretty quick as there is no real substance there . You can also get ridiculous business requirements not at all rooted in good analysis net promoter score and will often have a very unsophisticated audience except maybe some of your colleagues . I will also note that the pay to hardnessofthejob ratio is highest in this sector it ' s good money for what you do . Financial services to me is the most mindnumbing of all . This is stuff like using credit bureau data to predict credit defaults . I do not have as much experience here , but I find it to be extremely repetitive and very constraining . Models for financial institutions are documented ad nauseum , so you better enjoy writing if you go this route . However , I ' ve generally found the caliber of statisticians working in this field higher than in marketing . They tend to be more serious minded and less into the trendiness of the data science folks . Health care is a big field with many different types of stats jobs . Payers and providers have their own analysts and then there ' s the classical clinical trials route which I haven ' t done . I find working here to be the most satisfying , as their is a more tangible and consequential connection to reality . You also learn a lot about health care along the way , which is valuable knowledge for life . Consulting gives you the option of working across multiple industries . I do think at some point at most firms though you do best to specialize in one .