Utilisation Rates

ATTENDING THE BUILDING AWARDS A FEW WEEKS AGO was as enjoyable as ever.

The opportunity to celebrate the best of the industry is worth risking the repetitive strain injury that comes with applauding the full list of nominees. Our table naturally gravitated toward that perennial conversation: How do we deliver better outcomes for major investments in the built environment?

In recent years, a chorus of commentators has urged the industry to focus on outcomes, not outputs. We’ve been at the centre of this movement. Traditionally, such conversations single out what clients can and should do differently. Refreshingly, our conversation hit a little closer to home: the role of consultants in leading change. And specifically, whether the industry’s obsession with utilisation rates might be part of the problem.

Utilisation Rates

It’s easy to see why firms cling to utilisation as a core metric. Billable hours are oxygen for consultancies. Without them, firms suffocate. In a competitive landscape of thin margins, maximising staff utilisation appears irrefutable -a clear metric to track, a seemingly objective measure of productivity.

But as Peter Drucker observed: “The ultimate waste is doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

If consultancies are optimising for busy-ness, how can they genuinely deliver the shift toward transformative outcomes that clients, and policy, increasingly demand? Mariana Mazzucato, in The Big Con, would argue they cannot. The consulting model, she suggests, has become structurally misaligned with the outcomes it claims to pursue.

The Metrics Trap

The shifting sands of policy have remained consistent on one point: the need to deliver outcomes that drive long-term value. Outwardly, the advisory world is unified behind this ambition: mission statements overflow with promises to shape, deliver, and transform a better world. Yet an obsession with efficiency metrics creates inherent tensions.

• Innovation gets stifled: When the primary imperative is keeping employees billable, where is the space for exploration, experimentation, or challenging the status quo?
• Risk Aversion: Efficiency-driven metrics push people to stick to what’s predictable and expected rather than pursuing projects or solutions that might involve greater uncertainty but could yield transformative outcomes.
• Output over outcome: In a world predicated on keeping bums on seats for as long as possible, the need to justify value for money becomes focused on the volume of outputs rather than the value of outcomes.

And this doesn’t even touch the toll on staff wellbeing, the cost of relentlessly chasing ever-stretching utilisation targets in a profession already prone to burnout. The operational costs also just as real. Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertsen, writing in the Harvard Business Review, found that in variable processes like consultancy work, the relationship between utilisation and delay is non-linear: “Add 5% more work, and completing it may take 100% longer.” Push too hard, and delivery can suffer.

By cracking the efficiency whip, leaders of consultancy firms may be sending the wrong message to their teams. In a world that needs to minimise resource use, carbon, materials, time, surely the internal message should centre on delivering better, not more.

The Paradox of Effectiveness

It is overly simplistic to say that firms should shift entirely from efficiency to effectiveness. There are real-world constraints, and not every project requires a groundbreaking, outcome-driven approach. More often than not, clients need reliable, on-budget, on-time delivery: surety over free thinking and innovation. Being efficient is taken as a given.

The challenge is knowing when to prioritise effectiveness over efficiency. Being efficient where it matters. Being effective where it counts.

Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Utilisation rates are a near-perfect illustration. Designed to indicate productivity, they instead incentivise activity, regardless of whether that activity creates value.

In large organisations where clarity and control are prioritised, defaulting to an efficiency-driven approach is tempting. Attaching bonuses to utilisation metrics reinforces this mindset, but in doing so, firms risk commoditising their services. A focus more on keeping the wheel turning than delivering meaningful impact.

Reframing Success

If consultancy firms are to deliver on their mission statements, they must reframe what success looks like. Not through loftier language, the industry has plenty of that, but through changing what actually gets measured and rewarded.

This is harder than it sounds. Utilisation is concrete. Impact is slippery. But the alternative is consultancies that talk about long-term value while optimising for short-term billability.

Our clients are increasingly required to demonstrate outcomes — decarbonisation, social impact, resilience — because funding models and public sector frameworks demand it. This isn’t idealism; it’s how capital is now allocated. Consultancies that can genuinely help clients meet these requirements, rather than simply respond to briefs, will be better placed to win work. That means challenging the brief, not just fulfilling it. Helping clients see what they haven’t yet thought to ask for.

The honest position is that this kind of work has value, but it’s harder to invoice for. The utilisation model exists because it keeps firms solvent. It can also work against the outcomes we claim to care about. Both things are true.

The Honest Bit

We write this as people who track utilisation too. Who feel the gravitational pull of the billable hour. Who have, at times, prioritised keeping the machine running.

This isn’t a sermon. It’s a reminder to ourselves as much as anyone.

When we focus on the right goals, efficiency often follows as a byproduct. But being busy delivering projects that don’t align with broader objectives is ultimately wasteful. To borrow a line from Charlie Munger: if something’s not worth doing, it’s not worth doing well.

The construction industry stands at a pivotal moment. Major investments must address decarbonisation, inclusivity, and long-term value creation. Consultants are well-positioned to lead  but doing so requires examining whether our own internal incentives are fit for purpose.

In a world that increasingly values purpose, more is rarely the same as better.

A case in point – this article took four hours.