Is there any difference between........

....a Senior Programmer, a software/programming consultant and a software engineer?

Seriously? Don't they usually overlap? And don't you still need to spend years as a programmer before?

>>2
Define "industry". I wrote code for internal use for several years, and got paid, so yes, I have had experience.

Look up the terms "consultant" and "senior", and you'll pretty much have the answer to your question.