[sheepmullet]

Most consulting engineers (in IT) work for body shops. The pay is poor, the work is boring, the hours long, the turnover high, and the output mediocre at best.

A well managed internal team could do the work at 1/3rd the cost but the work is rarely a core part of the business and no executive wants to deal with the internal headaches and risk associated with the work when it won't get them anywhere politically.

The "contracting" world is much more like what michaelochurch described. And to be fair there are a large number of individual contractors working at large firms for great daily rates (think $1000/day on the lower end) for which what he is saying is true.