An attractive commission can become a delivery problem when its programme depends on specialists already committed elsewhere. For architecture and engineering leaders, resource planning needs to influence the fee and programme before either is agreed, according to Deltek’s latest white paper
Consider a design consultancy assessing a new commission. The fee meets its margin target, the programme looks achievable, and its staffing forecast shows spare capacity. Yet two existing projects require the same senior engineer during the weeks allocated for technical review.
The business has available hours. Whether it has the right expertise available at the right time is a different calculation.
That distinction has direct consequences for directors approving bids, recruitment and growth plans. A commission’s commercial viability depends partly on whether the proposed team can deliver it alongside commitments the practice has already made.
How much influence does a resource forecast have over actual work?
Deltek’s white paper on resource and people planning provides a useful starting point. Citing its seventh annual Clarity study, it reports that 63% of firms expected to increase their workforce in 2026, while 29% said difficulty attracting talent was harming their organisation.
The research covered 375 senior leaders across architecture, engineering and consulting firms in the UK, Germany and Australia; these are findings from a mixed international sample.
The software supplier advocates connecting information about skills, availability and project demand. For practice leaders, that raises a practical question: how much influence does the resource forecast actually have over the work the business agrees to undertake?
Download the Clarity study here.
Different sized businesses face different demand levels
Demand conditions make that question more complicated than simply deciding whether to recruit. In RIBA’s August 2026 Future Trends survey, practices reported workloads averaging 9% below their level a year earlier and staffing levels 5% lower. Smaller practices remained pessimistic about forthcoming workloads, while medium and large practices were more positive.
Those findings describe a profession facing uneven demand. A practice may have good reasons to pursue additional work while still needing to establish whether particular commissions would overload a small number of people.
An unusually clear example of the availability problem appears in the Competition and Markets Authority’s May 2026 civil engineering market study. National Highways told the CMA that it had substantial technical expertise, but specialists’ daily commitments made it difficult to allocate them to short-term assessments. The evidence concerns public procurement assessments yet illustrates a scheduling constraint relevant to resource planning: employing expertise does not ensure it is available for another assignment.
For a consultancy, an overall utilisation figure can conceal that constraint. Spare capacity in one discipline may offer little help when a project requires an experienced reviewer in another. A junior employee’s available hours also require different supervision than those of an experienced project leader.
Useful resource planning depends on particular skills
A useful resource plan should therefore show where delivery depends on particular skills, who can provide them and when their involvement is required. Review, coordination and supervision need explicit time allowances, with their costs reflected in the project’s commercial assumptions. Otherwise, a fee can appear adequate while omitting work essential to delivering the commission.
Uncertainty in the bid pipeline adds another difficulty. Consider two prospective projects, each assigned a 50% chance of proceeding, both requiring the same specialist during the same period. Weighting their hours may help estimate average future demand. It does not establish whether the practice could deliver both if they were awarded together.
Directors need to see that scenario alongside the central forecast. They also need to understand what happens when an existing project runs late and overlaps with a new start. The resulting decision might involve negotiating the programme, securing external support, changing the proposed team or revisiting the fee. Each option has a cost or delivery consequence that should be visible before commitment.
At practice level, a proportionate capacity check before approving a bid could establish:
- Critical expertise: which activities require specialist input, who is available and what cover exists.
- Timing: whether those activities conflict with committed work under plausible start and delay scenarios.
- Delivery cost: whether the fee assumptions allow for the proposed staffing mix, review, supervision and any external support.
- Decision ownership: who can resolve competing project demands and approve changes to the commercial offer.
This doesn’t need to become an elaborate approval process for every small commission. Scrutiny should reflect the project’s complexity, uncertainty, and dependence on scarce expertise. A familiar assignment with a flexible programme presents a different resource question from an unfamiliar technical brief with fixed milestones.
The check also needs to survive contract award. A client’s revised programme, additional design iteration or delayed instruction can invalidate the original staffing assumptions. Project leaders should have a clear route to escalate those changes and explain their effects on capacity, cost and other commitments.
Software can make competing commitments easier to identify. Its usefulness still depends on realistic estimates, current information and managers willing to act on the conflicts it reveals. A forecast that assumes every delayed project will finish next month offers little basis for accepting another deadline.
For senior teams, the most useful measures extend beyond how busy employees are. Comparing forecast and actual hours by project stage, tracking pressure on critical reviewers and identifying additional work whose cost has not been recovered can reveal where future bids need different assumptions.
Accepting a fee and programme commits the practice’s expertise. The capacity assessment should carry enough weight to change that commitment while the business still has room to negotiate.
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