The article reveals the features of continuing professional education as an important element of the organizational structure of the existing education system in Russia. Continuing professional education as an object that has its own organizational structure appears as a carrier of the need for effective management, in the rationalization of the process of forming various management decisions. In general, the management of the system of continuing professional education in our country should be considered successful, but some management problems remain unresolved. One of them is the problem of increasing the level of validity of management decisions: strategic, tactical, operational, improving the quality, reliability and degree of their compliance with the real conditions of the system of continuing professional education. As part of the solution to these problems, the necessity of introducing management consulting tools into the management of continuing professional education organizations is substantiated. The features of management consulting, its methodology and methods are considered. The concept of "combined consulting" in the field of continuing professional education is introduced. It is shown that consulting, as professional assistance in solving key problems and achieving sustainable success in the activities of organizations of the system of continuing professional education, is a management reserve, the rational use of which will ensure the formation of an innovative process, which is the most important factor in the strategic adaptation of the system of continuing professional education in a dynamically developing external environment.