Industry Benchmarks

Utilization Rate Benchmarks for Consulting Firms: What the Data Shows

"Is our utilization rate good or bad?" Every ops director asks this question - but the answer depends entirely on context. Your industry, role mix, and firm size all shift what "good" looks like. This page provides utilization rate benchmarks for consulting firms so you can make that comparison with real data, not guesswork. Without benchmarks, you're managing blind.

By Morten Fabrin, CEO of SUNAGO Matrix Published 2 April 2026 Updated 17 August 2026

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The Industry-Wide Picture: Professional Services Utilization in 2025

Billable utilization across professional services fell to 66.4% in 2025, down from 68.9% in 2024 and 73.2% in 2021 - the lowest level SPI Research has recorded (Deltek, 2026 PSO Benchmarks, reporting SPI's 2026 study; SPI Research 2025 Benchmark, 403 firms, 73.9% North America, fiscal 2024 data - the 403 figure: printed p. 25; the 73.9% North America share: Table 19, printed p. 35). The five-year series runs 71.4% (2020), 73.2% (2021), 70.7% (2022), 69.3% (2023), 68.9% (2024).

So the direction is down, not up - and the more useful question is not what the average is, but what the average is for a firm your size.

This is where most benchmark advice goes wrong. SPI segments by headcount, and the pattern is the opposite of the one vendors usually imply: bigger firms bill more of their time, not less.

Firm size	Billable utilization	Share of survey
Under 10 employees	64.3%	17.6%
10-30 employees	65.4%	17.6%
31-100 employees	69.2%	31.0%
101-300 employees	72.4%	20.8%
301-700 employees	73.7%	4.7%
701-1,500 employees	69.4%	4.0%
1,501-5,000 employees	73.0%	1.7%
Over 5,000 employees	78.3%	2.5%
All firms	68.9%	100%

Source: SPI Research, 2025 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark, Table 17 "Key KPIs by Organization Size", printed p. 34, fiscal 2024 data. Read the ends of the table with their sample sizes in view: the 78.3% for firms over 5,000 people rests on 2.5% of respondents, and the top four bands together on under 9%, while the 65.4% for 10-30 people rests on 17.6%. SPI's own conclusion: "the larger PSOs had much higher billable utilization than the smaller, supposedly more nimble consulting firms." (2025 benchmark, printed p. 148)

If you run a 25-person firm, your benchmark is 65.4%, not 75%. A firm at 66% is not underperforming - it is exactly on benchmark for its size. That single distinction changes what you should do about the number.

SPI does give a floor rather than a ceiling: "Ideally, billable utilization is over 75%." Treat that as the ambition, and the size band as the starting line.

Average Billable Utilization - Professional Services

2021

~73%

2022

~71%

2023

~69%

2024

~69%

SPI Research, 2025 benchmark, five-year trend, printed p. 149 (2024 = 68.9%); 2021-2023 from the 2024 benchmark, printed p. 6.

Utilization Rate Benchmarks by Industry

Billable utilization by industry, from SPI Research Table 169 (fiscal 2024). The differences are structural, not a sign that one industry "works harder" than another - each sector has different proportions of non-billable but essential work built into the business model.

Engineering & Architecture

Billable utilization 70.3%

SPI Table 169, printed p. 148, fiscal 2024. Deltek Clarity's A&E study (US and Canada architecture and engineering firms) reports a median of 61% for 2023, but measures cost of labor charged to projects over total firm labor cost - it includes administrative staff and is not comparable with SPI's figure.

Management Consulting

Billable utilization 67.4%

SPI Table 169, printed p. 148, fiscal 2024. Measurably lower than the figures that circulate in vendor guides. Firm-wide numbers are lower because partners and directors spend significant time on business development and practice management.

IT Consulting & Services

Billable utilization 71.0%

SPI Table 169, printed p. 148, fiscal 2024 - the highest of the segments SPI reports. Retainer and managed services contracts help smooth utilization compared with pure project work.

Accounting & Audit

Billable utilization Not in SPI's segments

SPI's benchmark does not report accounting and audit as a market, and we found no primary source for a figure - so we do not quote one. The structural point still holds: utilization swings hard with the tax and audit calendar, so an annual average hides the monthly peaks and troughs that drive capacity planning.

Marketing & Creative Agencies

Billable utilization 64.4%

SPI Table 169, printed p. 148, fiscal 2024 - the lowest of the segments SPI reports alongside software PS. A higher proportion of creative, pitch and speculative work sits outside billable time.

Legal Services

Billable utilization Not in SPI's segments

Legal is not a market in SPI's benchmark and we found no primary source, so no figure is quoted here. Structurally, case research, court preparation and pro bono work sit outside billable time, and billable-hour expectations differ sharply between practice areas.

What a benchmark gap is worth. Take a 30-person engineering firm, 1,800 available hours each, billing at an assumed $225/hour (an illustrative blended rate, not a benchmark - published US A/E rate cards put $225 at principal level) - 54,000 available hours a year. Sitting at 72% against an 80% target leaves 4,320 hours unbilled, or $972,000 a year. That is the number to hold the benchmark against; the percentage on its own tells you nothing about the money.

These are averages, and the spread within each sector is wide - we have no primary source for how far the best firms sit above it, so we do not put a number on it. The question isn't whether your firm matches the benchmark, but whether you're trending toward or away from it. For definitions and calculation methods, see our comprehensive guide on utilization rate in consulting.

Utilization by Role: What Can and Cannot Be Benchmarked

The per-role utilization targets you have seen elsewhere have no primary source. The category is familiar: a tidy descending ladder of percentage bands, one per grade, from the most junior consultant down to partner, presented as an industry standard. We traced them. They appear in software vendors' blog posts and agency guides, each citing another vendor or agency guide, and the chain ends there - no benchmark study, no survey, no published population behind any of them. Neither SPI Research's benchmark nor Deltek's A&E study reports utilization by grade at all, so there is nothing to check the ladder against.

We are not reprinting the bands here, even to knock them down: a number on this page can be quoted back as ours whatever the sentence around it says. What we can tell you is that if you are about to set per-grade targets from a table you found online, the table is not measuring anything.

What is documented is the shape, not the percentages. SPI Research puts it this way (2025 benchmark, printed p. 145): "While senior consultants may bill 500 hours or less annually, it is made up for junior-level consultants, who are both greater in number and many bill over 2,000 hours annually."

That is the useful version. Set targets in hours, per grade, from your own delivery history - a senior at 500 billable hours and a junior at 2,000 can both be performing exactly as intended. A single firm-wide percentage applied across grades penalises the partners for doing business development and sets the bar too low for the people doing the delivery.

For the tactics that follow from this, see our guide on utilization rate in consulting.

Firm Size Matters: How Benchmarks Shift with Scale

Firm size significantly affects achievable utilization. Smaller firms have more volatile utilization because their pipeline is thinner and a single project transition can swing the numbers. Larger firms benefit from portfolio diversification but face different challenges around process and coordination overhead. The bands below are SPI's own, with SPI's own measured figures (2025 benchmark, Table 17, printed p. 34, fiscal 2024) rather than target ranges:

Under 10 employees

64.3%

The lowest band in SPI's data. A thin pipeline means gaps between projects show up immediately in the numbers: one project ending without a replacement moves the firm-wide figure on its own.

10-30 employees

65.4%

Still below the all-firm average of 68.9%. There is enough project volume to smooth some gaps, but resource allocation is the main lever - and this is the size at which informal staffing conversations stop being enough.

31-100 employees

69.2%

The largest group in the survey (31% of respondents) and the first band above the all-firm average. The challenge shifts from finding work to allocating it across a portfolio of concurrent projects.

101-300 employees

72.4%

Scale enough for a dedicated resource-management function, and it shows: SPI attributes the higher figure at larger firms to standardised delivery methodology rather than to harder work.

SUNAGO Matrix is built for firms in the 10-50 range, where utilization improvement has the most direct impact on profitability and where operational tooling makes the biggest difference. At this size, you have enough people that spreadsheet-based planning breaks down, but not so many that you need enterprise-grade complexity. See our guide on ERP for consulting firms for what to look for in a platform.

Utilization by Geography: Why Region Barely Moves the Number

Firm size swings utilization by 14 points. Geography barely moves it. That is the opposite of what most readers expect, and it is the second axis no competing benchmark shows.

For fiscal 2024, SPI reports billable utilization by headquarters region. The three regions that make up roughly 95% of the survey sit within a single point of each other:

Headquarters region (fiscal 2024)	Billable utilization	Share of survey
North America	69.4%	73.9%
Western Europe	68.5%	15.6%
Australia / New Zealand	68.6%	5.7%
Total / average	69.0%	100%

Source: SPI Research, 2025 PS Maturity Benchmark, Table 19 "Key KPIs by Headquarters Location," printed p. 35 (fiscal 2024 data). The metric is billable utilization, the same one used in the size and industry tables above. Smaller-sample regions swing far more - Central Asia 81.7%, South/Central America 54.3% - but each is under 2% of respondents, so those figures rest on thin data.

Set the second metric beside it. The same Table 19 reports annual revenue per billable consultant by region - and here the small-sample regions swing hard, which is exactly why the share-of-survey column matters:

Headquarters region (fiscal 2024)	Revenue per consultant (k)	Share of survey
North America	$205	73.9%
Western Europe	$171	15.6%
Australia / New Zealand	$218	5.7%
Central Asia (India, Pakistan)	$231	1.2%
East Asia (China, Japan)	$158	0.7%
South / Central America	$90	1.7%
Total / average	$198	100%

Source: SPI Research, 2025 PS Maturity Benchmark, Table 19 "Key KPIs by Headquarters Location," printed p. 35 (fiscal 2024 data); metric annual revenue per billable consultant. Read the outliers with the survey share in view: Central Asia's $231 sits on just 1.2% of respondents - a handful of firms, not a benchmark - and Eastern Europe ($50) and the Middle East ($125) rest on 0.5% and 0.2%. Only North America, Western Europe and Australia/NZ carry enough firms to lean on.

SPI also reports the same metric on a coarser three-region split, which is the one most readers will have seen quoted:

Region (fiscal 2024)	Revenue per billable consultant
Americas	$203k
EMEA	$169k
APac	$213k
All firms	$199k (down from $207k in 2023)

Source: SPI Research, 2025 PS Maturity Benchmark, Table 240 "Finance & Operations Pillar Results by Organization Type and Geographic Region", printed p. 196 (fiscal 2024). The same table puts revenue per employee - all staff, not just billable consultants - at $158k. Note that the two regional cuts are not interchangeable: Table 19's "Western Europe" is $171k, while Table 240's "EMEA" is $169k over a wider set of countries.

The year before tells the same story with coarser regions. For fiscal 2023, SPI's Americas / EMEA / APac split runs just 3.8 points wide:

Region (fiscal 2023)	Employee billable utilization
Americas	70.0%
EMEA	66.4%
APac	70.2%

Source: SPI Research, 2024 PS Maturity Benchmark, Table 103 "Talent Pillar Results by Organization Type and Geographic Region," printed p. 117 (fiscal 2023 data). That EMEA 66.4% happens to equal Deltek's global 2025 figure of the same value - they are unrelated numbers that coincide.

Put the two axes side by side: firm size spans 14 points (64.3% to 78.3%), geography spans under 4. If you are calibrating your own target, your headcount tells you far more than your location does.

Read this benchmark for what it is. The survey is 73.9% North American firms (fiscal 2024; over 71% in fiscal 2023 - SPI notes that "firms headquartered outside of North America ... represented over 29% of the survey"). It predominantly reflects North American professional services firms; it is not a global average. A firm in Germany or Denmark should read the regional rows above, not the headline number.

The Trap in Every Benchmark: Two Different Denominators

Here is the distinction that decides whether a benchmark comparison means anything - and the one no competing page makes. Two firms can both report "utilization" and be measuring different things, because they divide by different denominators.

The publicly listed consultancies report high numbers:

Huron Consulting (US-listed; global operations, US financial reporting): Consulting 75.7% (2025), 73.6% (2024), 76.6% (2023); Digital 78.2% / 76.0% / 75.3%. Its 10-K defines the denominator explicitly: "Available working hours exclude local country holidays and vacation days." (Huron 10-K)
CRA International (US-listed): "Utilization was 77%, 75%, and 70% for fiscal 2025, fiscal 2024, and fiscal 2023, respectively." CRA divides hours worked by the hours consultants were available to work. (CRA 10-K)

SPI reports low - 66-69% - because its denominator is different:

SPI Research: "SPI Research defines employee utilization on a 2,000 hour per year basis. Employee billable utilization is calculated by dividing the total annual billable hours by 2,000." That fixed 2,000-hour denominator includes holidays and vacation.

So the listed houses land at 76-78% and SPI at 66-69% not because their people work harder, but because Huron and CRA strip holidays and vacation out of the denominator while SPI leaves them in. Two denominators, not two realities. A firm that compares its own number against the wrong one draws the wrong conclusion about its own operation.

What to check in your own system. Before comparing your utilization to any benchmark, find out what your denominator is. If your tool divides billable hours by a fixed annual figure (2,080 or 2,000), you are on the SPI basis - compare against 66-69%. If it divides by available hours after holidays and vacation are removed, you are on the Huron/CRA basis - compare against the high-70s. Comparing an available-hours number to SPI's fixed-year benchmark makes a healthy firm look under-utilised; comparing the other way makes a struggling one look fine.

How to Use Benchmarks Without Gaming the System

Benchmarks are diagnostic tools, not goals in themselves. Firms that optimize purely for utilization often see quality drop, attrition rise, and client satisfaction fall. A team running at 92% utilization isn't high-performing - it's a team with no slack for unexpected work, no time for innovation, and no capacity to absorb a sick day without missing a deadline.

The real question is not "what's our utilization?" but "is our utilization trending in the right direction given our firm's context?" A 68% utilization that's been climbing 2 points per quarter is a better story than a 78% that's been flat while profitability drops.

Track utilization alongside profitability, client satisfaction, and employee retention - the numbers only mean something together. For the full picture of which metrics to track alongside utilization, see our guides on consulting firm KPIs and project profitability tracking.

How SUNAGO Matrix Helps You Benchmark and Track

The Reports module in SUNAGO Matrix shows utilization by person, team, department, and firm-wide with trend lines over time. You can compare any individual or team against their role-based target and see instantly whether they're tracking above or below benchmark. Weekly, monthly, and quarterly views give you both tactical and strategic visibility.

The Resources module shows forward allocation so you can predict next month's utilization before it happens. If your forecast shows a team dropping to 55% utilization in six weeks, you have time to act - pull in pipeline, redistribute work, or plan internal projects that build capability.

Combined with automatic billable/non-billable classification from time entries, you get accurate utilization data without relying on manual categorization. The data updates in real time as hours are logged - no waiting for month-end reports to discover problems. For more on how the resource planning tools work, see our guide on resource planning for engineering firms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about utilization rate benchmarks for consulting and engineering firms.

What is the average utilization rate for consulting firms?

66.4% in 2025, down from 68.9% in 2024 (SPI Research, reported by Deltek). But the average hides more than it shows, because it varies by firm size and sector: architecture and engineering 70.3%, management consulting 67.4%, IT consulting 71.0% (SPI Table 169, printed p. 148, fiscal 2024). Firm size matters more than sector: 65.4% for firms of 10-30 people against 72.4% for firms of 101-300.

What utilization rate should I target for senior consultants vs. junior staff?

There is no primary source for the per-role percentage bands that circulate online, so we do not publish them. What SPI Research does document is the shape: senior consultants may bill 500 hours or less a year while junior staff often bill over 2,000. Set per-grade targets in hours from your own delivery history rather than applying one firm-wide percentage across all grades.

Is 90% utilization too high?

We could find no primary source for any specific burnout threshold, so we do not quote one - the numbers that circulate online trace back to vendor guides citing each other. What is documented is the floor, not the ceiling: SPI Research frames 75% as the ambition - *"Ideally, billable utilization is over 75%"* (2025 benchmark, printed p. 145). What is clear without a threshold is the mechanism: very high sustained utilization leaves no slack for unexpected work, professional development or recovery, and a team with no slack absorbs no surprises.

How often should I review utilization benchmarks?

Weekly at the team level for operational decisions - who needs more work, who's overloaded. Monthly at the firm level for trend analysis - are we moving toward or away from our targets? Quarterly for strategic review - do our targets still make sense given market conditions and firm strategy? Real-time dashboards make weekly reviews a 15-minute exercise.

Why has average utilization been declining across the industry?

Several factors: firms are investing more in non-billable activities like training and innovation; remote work has changed how time is allocated; there's growing recognition that 80%+ targets aren't sustainable long-term; and economic uncertainty has softened project pipelines in some sectors. The decline isn't necessarily bad - firms that maintain profitability at lower utilization are often more resilient.

Related Resources

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Project Profitability Tracking

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Know Where You Stand - Track Utilization Against Real Benchmarks

Compare your firm's performance against industry standards in real time. SUNAGO Matrix shows you utilization by person, team, and firm-wide - updated as hours are logged.

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