Monograph, a project management platform for architects and designers, has released a report chock full of business data sourced from its clients about statistics like net revenue per full-time employee, net cost per full-time employee, utilization rate, realization rate, time to payment, and salary. Seen with other financial information, like the AIAs Architecture Billings Index, the report is another way for a firm to see how its financial metrics stack up to industry averages. The Architecture & Engineering Salary and Business Benchmarks Report 2025 builds off the data and analysis of past reports from Monograph. This year, the report also includes insights on salaries. Robert Yuen, founder of Monograph and a former juror for ANs Best of Practice Awards, created the company to make tracking project progress more streamlined. Earlier this month, the company announced that it had raised a $20 million in a Series B funding round led by Base10 Partners.Throughout the report simple calculations allow firms to see how they stack up to industry averages and offer insights on what the calculations signify in the industry landscape. (Courtesy Monograph)Most A&E firms dont actually know their own numbers, Yuen said. If it takes you more than five minutes to see where you stand, youre flying blind.Profitability Over Salary GrowthTwo major findings emerge from the report, which is based on data from Monographs clients: Principals only earn 68 percent more than Designers in salaries on average, suggesting that profitabilitynot salarydrives career income growth, and top firms make over $100,000 more per employee than low performers, work +35 percent more billable hours, and bill over +100 percent of their billable fees. Data on salary growth shows that from designer position to principal salary growth is surprisingly low. According to the report, data shows that rather it is profit that leads to bigger paychecks, often leaving those without a head for business earning less.Yuen observed: If youre looking ahead in your career as an architect or engineer, heres the reality: salary growth wont take you as far as you think. What actually drives real career earnings is learning how to influence profitability. The sooner you start building those skills as a future firm owner, the sooner you create opportunities to take part in the profit structure and drive significant income.New data in the report presents salary information across the industry. (Courtesy Monograph)A checklist of 30 items that concludes the report organizes the actions and practices firms can take to see how they measure up to industry averages and where improvements can be made from a business perspective. The tips include: assigning workloads based on budget, planning future hires, hiring administrative staff, and others.Some Advice From ExpertsJacob Reidel, assistant professor in practice at Harvard Graduate School of Design and a juror for this years Best of Practice Awards, commented on role of benchmarking data when making business decisions: I am always surprisedthough for many reasons I know I shouldnt beby how heavily siloed information is in the architecture industry, especially when it comes to anything regarding money. The result is countless practices relying on passed-down rules-of-thumb, small sharing networks of firm owners, a limited number of professional association reports, and paid consultancies. These are not the conditions for a healthy and stable spatial design industry, let alone one that encourages responsible risk-taking and innovation. Hence, the need for up-to-date operational benchmarking data is real. Such data not only empowers designers at all levels (not only firm leadership) and across the entire spectrum from small/new to large/established practices to make informed decisions on a daily basis, but alsowhen shared, which it should be gives clients and architects myriad collaborators and consultants an important view behind the curtain, fostering a more transparent and trusting project and practice environment. Reidel also has advice for small to midsize firms: 1) dont only rely on received wisdom and 2) err on the side of sharing more financial performance data with your staff. This is easier said than done, as most architects were never actually trained to be managers, let alone business owners, and Im pretty certain firm operations is not why anyone went to architecture school. However, so many supposed best practices that firm leaders and managers rely on have been inherited from a pre-2008 practice context that in many respects no longer exists, so we have to begin from a position of questioning everything. Rigorously tracking financial performance data on a regular basis and using it to make regular decisions is low hanging fruit. And sharing this (sometimes admittedly sensitive) data with multiple levels of staffnot only top leadership and managementbuilds trust and empowerment within your teams, and can be a useful check on the tendency to slide back into old ways of working.Rena Klein, senior partner at CVG, offered the follow guidance: Pay attention to Realization Rate, which reflects both operational productivity and pricing of services. Project management tools like Monograph can provide valuable data on project time and cost, as well as real-time tracking of project progress. However, the effective use of this data depends on developing a culture of time sheet discipline and awareness of project budgets and schedules. This will help prevent overdelivery and scope creep while fostering excellence in project delivery.A full copy of the Architecture & Engineering Salary and Business Benchmarks Report 2025 can be accessed here.