<p>Don't engineering consultants work on engineering projects too? Is there a real difference between working in 'regular' engineering companies? Thanks.</p>
<p>In what context are you talking about? In civil engineering, pretty much all design firms are considered consultants. They provide professional services (in this case, design) to clients for a fee, which is pretty much the definition of a consultant. In other fields, the engineers typically work for the same company that owns the product so they aren't considered consultants.</p>