Ironically, the freelance consulting world is largely on fire due to the lowered barrier of entry and flood of new consultants using AI to perform at higher levels, driving prices down simply through increased supply.

I wouldn't be surprised if AI was also eating consultants from the demand side as well, enabling would-be employers to do a higher % of tasks themselves that they would have previously needed to hire for.

> billed

That's what they are billed at, what they take home from that is probably much lower. At my org we bill folks out for ~$150/hr and their take home is ~$80/hr