In some industries and areas of the US 'consulting' can mean temporary employment of various kinds. In other, IT consultants might be employees of a large firm

In some industries and areas of the US 'consulting' can mean temporary employment of various kinds. In other, IT consultants might be employees of a large firm like IBM who show businesses how to modernize their IT. This would typically be architectural work, very similar in nature to normal business consulting. There is a middle grey area where a business outsources development or IT work to a specialist company. Here in the UK, we tend to say contracting instead of consulting in the first context.