Part of WCBC’s Compensation Insights for Consulting Engineering Firms Series

This blog is part of WCBC’s Compensation Insights for Consulting Engineering Firms series, featuring findings from our 2026 Consulting Engineers Compensation Report. Explore additional insights on compensation in the following blog: Your Employees Received an Increase but Did Your Salary Structure Keep Pace

When employees leave, compensation is often assumed to be the primary reason. Competitive pay is unquestionably important, particularly in a specialized labour market. However, findings from the 2026 WCBC Consulting Engineers Compensation Report suggest that another issue deserves equal attention: whether employees can see how their careers can progress within the firm.

Virtually all participating organizations experienced employee turnover in 2025. Voluntary departures represented 52% of reported turnover. When organizations ranked the reasons employees choose to leave, career growth, development and advancement was the most frequently selected primary reason, cited first by 46% of respondents. Compensation was the primary reason for 20%.

These findings do not diminish the importance of pay. Instead, they show that retention is influenced by both what employees earn today and what they believe will be possible tomorrow.

Career structures exist but may not always be visible

A strong majority of participating firms, 71%, reported having a formal job architecture framework. Among those organizations, 93% use the framework for career progression planning, 81% for pay equity analysis and 65% for workforce planning.

These frameworks commonly include career levels, job titles, pay grades and job families. In principle, those elements can help employees understand how positions relate to one another and what is required to advance. In practice, the framework may not be equally visible to everyone. Only 47% of organizations with job architecture share the documentation with all employees. A further 40% share it with managers only.

Employee understanding was also the most frequently identified challenge among organizations that had encountered difficulty implementing or maintaining their job architecture. It was selected by 77% of that group. This points to a potential disconnect. An organization may have carefully defined levels and pay grades, but employees cannot use a career framework they do not understand.

A promotion should not be the only form of progress

Career progression is sometimes treated as synonymous with promotion into management. That approach can be particularly limiting in consulting engineering, where experienced professionals may want to deepen their technical expertise, lead increasingly complex work or mentor others without assuming responsibility for managing employees. A well-designed career structure can recognize different forms of contribution. It can distinguish early-career, fully qualified and senior professional work; clarify the difference between technical leadership and people management; and show how responsibility, judgment, client impact and project complexity change between levels.

The compensation structure should reinforce those distinctions. If career levels are described differently but paid similarly, employees may not view progression as meaningful. Conversely, large or inconsistent pay differences between levels can create internal equity concerns and make career movement difficult to administer.

Retention requires both opportunity and clarity

Participating organizations are already responding. Providing opportunities for advancement was the most commonly reported action taken to reduce turnover, at 45%. Increasing compensation levels or ranges and encouraging employee work-life balance were each reported by 39%.

The next step is to ensure that advancement opportunities are credible and understood. Employees should be able to see the possible paths available to them, the capabilities and contributions associated with each level and how compensation progresses as work becomes more complex.

Industry-specific compensation information supports that process by helping firms establish realistic levels and market-informed pay relationships. The objective is not to promise every employee a promotion. It is to provide a clearer understanding of how careers can develop and how increasing contribution will be recognized.

Competitive pay may attract an employee to a firm. A visible and credible future can give that employee a reason to stay.