Statistics Canada’s most recent survey of Canadian engineering services reveals that revenues dropped for the fourth consecutive year in 2018—to a combined total of $28 billion.

The report shows revenues hitting a high of $33.1 billion in 2014, before declining steadily through to 2018, which is the last complete year for which the national agency has collected data. The trend means overall industry operating revenues have dropped by 15.4 percent in the four-year period.

The good news for the industry is that operating expenses have also been on a similar downward trend. In 2014, costs reached a peak of $28.9 billion and dropped by 14.1 percent over the study period to a new low of $24.8 billion. Included in those costs are salaries, wages, commissions and benefits paid to employees. These reached a high of $12.25 billion in 2016, and were recorded at $11.98 billion in 2018.

Over the same period, engineers’ average operating profit margins have fluctuated. They hit a high of 12.7 percent in 2014, while dropping to as low as 7.7 percent in 2016. The latest data from shows an average profit margin of 11.3 percent for 2018.

The national downward trend in revenues and profit margins is skewed somewhat by poor performances in Alberta. Investments in oil and gas extraction in that province fell from a high of $50.1 billion in 2014 to $23.7 billion in 2018. For the rest of Canada, operating revenues for the engineering services industry grew 6.3 percent in 2018. One of the reasons for this increase was public investments, which rose 7.6 percent in 2018.

Ontario engineers have shown steady increases in operating revenues. Between 2014 ($7.3 billion) and 2018 ($9.5 billion), revenues increased nearly 30 percent. Operating expenses over the same period rose from $6.5 billion to $8.5 billion—also about 30 percent. As a result, Ontario engineers’ operating profit margins have held comparatively steady over the survey period—reaching a high of 10.7 percent in 2014 and a low of 9.2 percent in 2017. In 2018, profit margins were reported at 10.4 percent.

From 2014 to 2018, Ontario companies’ contributions to total industry revenue rose from 22.2 percent to 34.1 percent, while the share of Alberta companies providing the same services was nearly halved, dropping from 43.2 percent to 22.5 percent over the same period.

Those engineering services in the greatest demand across Canada, as measured by the percentages of companies’ total sales, were those for commercial, public and institutional building engineering projects (17 percent of total sales in 2018, compared with 13.3 percent in 2014). Transportation engineering projects—which have been bolstered in recent years by federal-government investment programs—accounted for 14.3 percent of sales in 2018, up from 8.7 percent in 2014.

Unsurprisingly, demand for petroleum and petrochemical plant and processing engineering projects has steadily declined. These projects accounted for 9.7 percent of sales in 2018, down from 15.1 percent in 2014. Furthermore, the share related to mining and metallurgical plant and processing projects decreased to 9 percent in 2018 from 19.8 percent in 2014.

The lion’s share of the industry revenue (64.7 percent) came from private-sector clients in 2018; sales to governments and public institutions accounted for 21.4 percent.