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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Structural, civil, geotechnical, building services and architecture firms that live on one commission after another: worth what an ordinary run of projects earns, not what a single large job did in one year.
A Wollongong architecture or engineering practice is valued by paying each principal a market salary and capitalising the profit earned across a full run of commissions, normally five years of results. Because fees come project by project, the rate reflects how much work is actually signed, how reliably unbilled fees turn into cash, and how heavily the practice leans on one or two senior people.
Nearly every enquiry follows a change, or a planned change, in ownership. The founder of an architecture studio in North Wollongong wants to step back and two senior associates hope to buy in over several years. A civil and structural engineering firm serving Port Kembla and Unanderra clients has been approached by a larger multidisciplinary group. A separating principal needs a share valued at a set date for the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. A professional indemnity claim or fee dispute needs its effect on earnings measured. Or the firm is restructuring and needs a market value for the ATO.
Succession sits beneath most of these. A lot of Illawarra consultancies were founded by principals now well into their careers whose names still bring in the work. What buyers and associates want to know is how much of that value can be passed on, and at a price the practice's own profits are able to fund.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. A buyer of a consultancy is paying for its capacity to keep winning and delivering commissions. For that reason the valuation looks at what the practice earns across a series of projects, not at one twelve-month window.
Our usual tool is capitalised future maintainable earnings, with a difference from most sectors: the earnings figure normally comes from five years of results so that one large job finishing early or overrunning does not decide the answer. Before capitalising, each principal's drawings are replaced with a market salary for the design, technical and management work they carry.
A discounted cash flow is reserved for forward work that is firmly committed, such as funded stages of a hospital, school or industrial project, or a fixed term on a panel. Where the pipeline is mostly bids and expressions of interest we do not forecast from it, since projecting income from work not yet won would overstate what the practice can rely on.
Sales of consultancies in the same discipline and of similar scale help place the result. These practices change hands less often than consumer businesses, so the evidence points to a band, and the report explains where in that band this practice sits and why.
Debtors, unbilled fees, equipment and the licences for design, modelling and analysis software are restated at what they would realise. The total sets a minimum, and in a practice with a large unbilled balance that minimum can be considerable.
When two valuers reach different figures for the same practice, the difference usually appears at normalisation, so each adjustment is written into the report with its reason. The ones that come up most in Wollongong design and engineering firms are:
The Illawarra's design and engineering practices cluster around the work that is local. Structural, civil and geotechnical engineers serve the heavy industry and port activity at Port Kembla, where the BlueScope steelworks is operating and terminals handle grain and motor vehicle imports, along with the fabrication shops and trades in the Unanderra and Dapto industrial areas. Building services and civil firms follow the housing and construction growth in the western Illawarra, around Albion Park Rail and Shellharbour. Architecture studios are mostly small and run by their principals, working from the CBD and North Wollongong on residential, commercial and hospitality projects and on health and education buildings.
The work behind the fees counts for more than the postcode. A practice that draws on steady industrial, port and public-sector programmes has a pipeline it can forecast with reasonable confidence. One tied to private housing and apartment development moves with every turn of the building cycle. Registration for architects attaches to the individual, and engineering clients tend to follow the engineer they trust, so reliance on a principal is a practical risk: a structural or civil firm built around one senior engineer may struggle to hold its clients if that person leaves.
The wider economy these firms serve is still growing. Nationally, construction businesses rose 3.4 per cent and professional, scientific and technical services businesses 3.6 per cent over 2025 to 2026 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Consultancy fees track building and infrastructure activity, so these series bear on how much work there is to win.
Each report opens with why it was prepared, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records relied on, and says plainly where any of them were incomplete. It goes on to the approaches considered and the method used under each, lists every normalisation adjustment with its reason, and brings the results into a range, explaining in plain sentences how each was weighted.
Consultancy valuations are tested in a few settings: a falling out between principals that reaches the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, a professional negligence or fee claim in the District Court, which sits at Wollongong, where lost earnings are in issue, or a property settlement in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Under the Expert Witness Code of Conduct in the court rules, the valuer's first duty is to the court, and an opposing expert will ask why five years were averaged, how unbilled work was handled and why the pipeline was or was not forecast. Our reports are prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and the certified valuer who signs each one answers those questions in person.
Which assumption would an opposing expert go after first, and what is your answer? A valuer who has completed the analysis can respond immediately.
Choose an Indicative valuation if a retiring principal wants to see what an associate buy-in could look like, and whether the practice could fund it from profits, before terms are discussed. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits the admission of a new equity principal, a merger or a bank application. A Detailed report is the right level for a family law settlement, a dispute between principals or any matter in which a second expert will review the work.
Pitch the report at the most demanding reader. If a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert may test the number, the complete chain of reasoning needs to be on the page.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.