- 01An internal comparison must include salary, employment costs, software, hardware, recruitment, training, management, leave cover, and idle capacity.
- 02A partner comparison must state the named capacity, inclusions, QA, management, software, leave cover, mobilisation, change terms, taxes, and exclusions.
- 03In-house capacity becomes more attractive as demand becomes consistently high, predictable, repeatable, and strategically important to retain.
- 04Most mid-size firms land on a hybrid: a small in-house core for standards and client-facing coordination, with production capacity outsourced.
A headline hourly rate and a salary are not comparable figures. One can omit management, review, employment costs, tools, idle time, tax, contractual risk, and excluded work. This worksheet shows the inputs needed for an honest comparison using current quotes and your own records.
What an in-house BIM seat really costs
Salary is only one input. Add employment costs, software, hardware, recruitment, training, leave cover, management, office or remote-work support, and idle time between projects using the figures that apply to your company and location.
| Cost line | Input from your records |
|---|---|
| Base salary for the equivalent role | Current local salary or payroll record |
| Benefits, payroll taxes, insurance | Employer-specific annual total |
| Software and collaboration seats | Current vendor quote or invoice |
| Workstation, IT, office or remote support | Annualised internal cost |
| Recruitment, onboarding and training | Actual or budgeted annualised cost |
| Management, leave cover and idle capacity | Hours and cost from the review period |
What the outsourced equivalent costs
Obtain a current written quote for the equivalent role or work package. Confirm whether it includes software, hardware, QA, management, leave cover, infrastructure, meetings, revisions, taxes, currency risk, and mobilisation. Two structural differences can matter more than the headline rate:
- Elasticity — record the notice, minimum term, available disciplines, scale limits, and demobilisation terms in the proposal.
- Mobilisation — compare the partner’s written mobilisation plan with your recent recruitment and onboarding records.
When in-house genuinely wins
Outsourcing is not always the answer, and a partner who claims otherwise is selling, not advising. Keep BIM in-house — at least the core — when:
- Your pipeline is reliable and utilisation stays consistently high across the review period.
- Your project types repeat, so proprietary templates and content libraries compound in value.
- The role is client-facing coordination where physical presence in OAC meetings matters.
- You are building standards and a BIM culture that you want owned internally.
The hybrid model most firms land on
A hybrid can keep standards, design judgement, statutory responsibility, and client-facing coordination in-house while assigning defined production packages to external capacity. Spetia can be evaluated for that role through a bounded pilot inside the required templates and CDE, using agreed quality, communication, turnaround, and total-cost measures.
