Where Do You Really Stand? What Deltek Clarity Reveals About the State of Project-Based Businesses

The best-run project-based businesses in the world share one thing in common: they don’t guess where they stand. They benchmark. They measure reality honestly—and they use that insight to move forward with confidence. 

Each year, Deltek Clarity brings together proprietary data, benchmarks, and expert insight from thousands of project-based businesses spanning government contracting (GovCon), architecture and engineering (A&E), and professional services across North America, Europe, and Australia. It’s where customer insights and industry expertise converge to give leaders a clear, honest picture of where the market stands—and what it takes to lead.

What the Data Is Telling Us

Across this year’s GovCon, A&E and Consulting industry reports, four themes emerged with striking consistency. They do not belong to any single industry or geography. They are the defining signals of where project-based business stands right now and what separates the firms moving forward with confidence from those that are not.

AI Adoption Is Nearly Universal. Governance Is the Next Frontier

The question of whether to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) has been settled. Across every market surveyed, adoption is near-universal—and accelerating. What the data reveals now is a far more consequential gap: the distance between how widely AI is being used and how well it is being governed.

In government contracting, 90% of firms are now using AI in some capacity—yet only 5% describe their AI maturity as fully developed, and nearly three quarters are still in early or exploratory stages of governance. That exposure is real and growing, particularly as the government increasingly uses AI tools to audit the very contractors deploying them.

In architecture and engineering, adoption has surged, but only 38% of firms report measurable, positive returns on their AI investments. Across Europe and Australia, the shift from experimentation to operationalization is accelerating—91% of organizations now view AI as critical to success, 68% plan to increase investment, and early adopters are beginning to realize measurable return on investment (ROI). 

What this means for you: The firms pulling ahead are not asking whether to use AI—they are embedding it into auditable, governed workflows and treating that discipline as a competitive asset. Use the Clarity findings to benchmark your governance maturity and identify where to close the gap.

Compliance Has Become the Price of Admission

For a long time, compliance was the cost of doing business—a necessary obligation that lived in the back office. This year, Clarity data tells a different story. Compliance has moved to the front of the competitive landscape. It no longer just determines how efficiently you operate. It determines whether you can compete at all.

In government contracting, cybersecurity, CMMC readiness, cost allocation accuracy, and AI oversight have become qualification thresholds, not administrative functions. Nearly all A&E firms (93%) across North America have experienced a cyberattack attempt in the past three years. In Europe and Australia, the business impact is clear—45% of attacked firms report financial losses, 38% have lost clients, and 31% have experienced reputational damage among peers. 

What this means for you: Assess where your compliance posture stands relative to the thresholds the data describes. The Clarity findings make a clear case for elevating cybersecurity, CMMC readiness, and AI governance into your strategic planning, not just your operational checklist.

Talent Is the Binding Constraint on Growth

Demand for project-based work remains strong across most markets. The constraint is not pipeline. It is the workforce to deliver against it. And that constraint is tightening everywhere we look.

In North America, government contracting talent shortages rank as the single greatest potential risk to firms, with roles taking an average of 46 days to fill and candidates increasingly declining offers over compensation and flexibility. For A&E firms, staff growth slowed to just 1% while turnover remained steady at 13.8%, leaving many firms carrying backlog they lack the capacity to execute.

While, in Europe and Australia, the conversation has shifted from hiring to upskilling, with AI literacy emerging as the top capability that much of the current workforce still needs to develop.

What this means for you: The workforce data in Clarity gives you the evidence to make the case for investment in career development, utilization discipline, and workforce planning. The firms outperforming peers are not just hiring more aggressively; they are managing the talent they have with greater precision and visibility.

Integrated Systems Separate Leaders from Laggards

In GovCon, 85% of firms rely on two to five tools to manage a single project and only 5% operate within a fully integrated system. In A&E, 43% of firms remain heavily reliant on spreadsheets for accounting and invoicing, a foundational gap that quietly undermines the ROI of every technology investment built on top of it.

In Europe and Australia, the connection between integration and financial performance is explicit in the Clarity data: firms with fully integrated systems report the highest gross profit margins. Speed, visibility, and execution confidence are not the result of any single tool. They are what integration makes possible.

What this means for you: Compare your current systems’ environment to how top-performing firms operate. Clarity gives you the evidence, the benchmarks, and the narratives to build toward integration and drive meaningful change.

Your Industry Is Moving. Know Where You Stand.

The firms at the top of their industries are not guessing. They are benchmarking, acting on what they learn, and pulling further ahead every year. Deltek Clarity gives every project-based business access to the same intelligence—the customer insights and expert perspectives that show not just where the industry is, but where it is going and what it takes to lead.

Insight is only valuable if you know how to act on it. Access the in-depth research for your industry and benchmark your firm’s performance against real data from thousands of peers.