The Genesis of Consulting Engineering: For Context

Happy Friday,

To understand where the $250 billion consulting engineering industry might be headed, it's helpful to look at where it’s been.

Before consulting engineers, large infrastructure projects like Roman aqueducts and medieval bridges were led by master builders, skilled masons, or carpenters trained through guilds. Employed directly by rulers, churches, or cities, they relied on practical experience and trial and error. Projects often faced delays or failures because of misaligned goals between landowners (clients) and builders (contractors).

The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century brought more changes. The canal boom in Britain required complex designs, and self-taught engineers like James Brindley and Thomas Telford became independent project advisors. Their unbiased expertise in technical and economic planning gave birth to consulting engineering.

In the 19th century, railways and urban growth demanded more specialized expertise. Arthur Dehon Little established the first modern consulting firm in Boston, charging fixed fees for chemical analyses and industrial solutions, marking a shift from hourly wages to results-based expertise. Engineers earned a piece of the value they created.

The 20th century saw consultants drive mega-projects like dams, military bases, and supply chains. Hoover Dam (1930s), largely designed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, relied on consultants with specialized expertise. Engineers like John L. Savage produced over 1,000 drawings, specifying concrete mixes, cooling systems, and structural tolerances. Contractors executed the plans under tight oversight, with little room to improvise due to the project’s scale and safety demands. This client-engineer-contractor model solidified consultants as vital intermediaries, bridging project goals and construction.

During the mid-20th century, consultants shifted from outcome-based pricing to hourly billing, driven by increasingly complex, difficult-to-quantify projects and client demands for cost transparency. Because the engineering process is inherently creative and dynamic, accurately predicting the final scope can be difficult. As such, hour-based proposals were understood by both parties to be informed ‘estimates’.

By the 1990s, globalization expanded the role of consultants, with firms designing urban systems worldwide, fueling a boom in consolidations and the emergence of mega-firms.

The 2010s saw the normalization of low-bid fixed fee engineering, a common sense-defying, CYA-driven affront to responsible public stewardship that rewards mediocrity, compromises quality, and inflates downstream project risks and costs. The industry’s swift capitulation has fueled a loss of dignity and its own commoditization, igniting a race to the bottom in engineers’ compensation. Once Michelin-rated master chefs, engineers acquiesced and agreed to prepare fast food, trading their culinary crowns for paper hats.

In 2025, digital intelligence stands squarely in the path of the consulting engineering profession. AI today is the worst AI we'll experience in our lifetimes. It presents both a challenge and a catalyst to boldly perfect the role of consulting engineers as the indispensable architects of civilization.

Here's to the bold!

Dave

Feedback and blowback are always welcome: dave@goodnewsfriday.com

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