Engineering firms aren’t drowning in admin. But they’re not immune to it either.
The 2026 Engineering Industry Benchmark Report found that 94% of respondents spend the majority of their working hours on billable client work: a healthy headline number. However, a familiar pattern emerges when looking at where the remaining time goes.
The Non-Billable Drain
Client communication and approvals is the single biggest non-billable time sink in engineering, cited by more than half of all respondents. Close behind it are invoicing and billing, project management tasks, and resourcing and planning. These are the operational glue that holds project delivery together, pulling consistently at the hours firms need to generate revenue.
The challenge isn’t eliminating these tasks. It’s reducing the friction involved in completing them. When approvals live in inboxes, invoicing requires manual reconciliation, and resourcing is managed via spreadsheet, each task takes longer than it needs to.
Project management software like Total Synergy brings approvals, communications, time tracking, and billing into a single connected workflow, reducing the coordination overhead that pulls your team away from billable work.
Utilisation Is Up, But Visibility Gaps Remain
On the utilisation front, the 2026 data shows signs of improvement. The number of firms operating at 71–80% utilisation has grown from 39% in 2025 to 56%, a meaningful shift in the right direction. The number of firms unsure of their utilisation rate has also halved year-on-year.
Despite these improvements, only 49% of firms track utilisation consistently as a firm-wide metric. That means for roughly half the engineering sector, utilisation is either measured occasionally or not at all. If firms can’t see their utilisation in real time, they can’t respond to capacity changes before they become problems.
Improving operational efficiency in an engineering firms doesn’t need a dramatic overhaul. It usually comes down to bringing the right information into a single place, so that approvals, invoicing, time tracking, and resourcing aren’t each being managed in a separate system.
How Does Your Firm Compare?
The 2026 Engineering Industry Benchmark Report draws on responses from engineering practices across the globe to give the sector a clear picture of how firms are operating right now, covering opportunities and challenges spanning everything from profitability, staffing, technology and growth.
For more insights, and to discover how your margins, utilisation and business development efforts compare to firms like yours, download the report here to see the full picture.
About Total Synergy (Australia)
Total Synergy is an Australian software company based in North Sydney, NSW, helping architecture and engineering practices across Australia improve project visibility, resourcing, and profitability with project management and practice management software. Try Total Synergy for free today and discover how the platform can transform your firm.
