FIDIC-EFCA Survey

The FIDIC-EFCA Consulting Engineering Industry Survey uses investment data given in National Accounts to estimate the demand for the services that are typically supplied by consulting engineering firms.

These services meet the demand from investments in construction, equipment and defense systems, research and development, and some specialised areas of professional services.

The demand is benchmarked using National Account's Supply-Use Tables (SUTs) that detail that supply and use of the various services supplied by the consulting engineering industry, including architecture and engineering activities, special design activities, scientific research and development, and mining support services.

The results include demand and revenue forecasts by market sector,  fee levels and indicators that summarise the importance of the industry in today's knowledge-based economies.

EFCA Member Associations are asked to confirm that estimated revenues and fee levels are correct.

The various survey reports, usually biennial, are made available under our "FIDIC-EFCA Survey" activity. Developments are briefly summarised in our Blog.

FIDIC-EFCA Survey necessarily ineracts with the three other areas of activity. These are summarised below.

While demand forecasts have been made by FIDIC since 2001, it was only possible to benchmark the demand when standardised SUTs started to become available for a significant number of countries in 2008. A 2012 report (PDF) covering the European Union developed the survey methodology and reported on data that was available until 2010.

Certain aspects of the survey methodology have evolved with time following a considerable amount of effort by the development banks and European Union programmes to fully exploit SNA 2008 compatible national accounts.

The FIDIC-EFCA Survey monitors and contributes to these developments under our "Survey methodology" activity . Some developments that demand special attention in relation to construction, industrial and intellectual property investments are briefly summaries in our Blog. They are generally discussed in more detail using specialised reports.

The consulting engineering industry supplies a broad range of knowledge-based professional services to meet the demand for services accross several industry sectors stemming from investment in several asset classes, including construction, plant and equipment and intellectual property.

These services fall under sereral different classification classes for both products and economic activity upon which national accounts are based. In order to make full use of national accounts it is therefore necessary to monitor and report on developments in industry classifications, mainly at the international level (the UN System of National Accounts) and at the level of its regional equivalents (the European Union's European System of Accounts, for example).

The FIDIC-EFCA Survey monitors and contributes to the development of industry classification under our "Industry classification" activity, via our Blog.

The consulting engineering industry interacts closely with several industry sectors and asset classes. The FIDIC-EFCA Survey is asked from time-to-time to contribute to or comment on general developments such as the investment in housing worldwide and the demand for services in specialised areas such as environmental engineering. This work is reported under our "Related surveys" activity, via both our Blog.