A Melbourne-based engineering and infrastructure consultancy improved delivery capacity, reduced hiring pressure, and freed up senior staff by building an offshore support team across drafting, engineering support, and finance.
Company
Melbourne Engineering Consultancy Australia
Services Provided
Drafting support
Engineering support
Finance support
Industry
Engineering & Construction
Locations
Australia
Philippines
Operating Model
A locally led engineering business supported by a dedicated offshore team integrated into day-to-day delivery.
Delivery Structure
The business started with one Philippines-based drafter and expanded to a 12-person offshore team covering drafting, engineering support, and finance. The model was structured as a dedicated team extension rather than ad hoc outsourcing.
Why This Approach
The firm was growing, but local hiring was slow and expensive. Senior leaders were spending too much time on documentation, reporting, mark-ups, and finance-related admin instead of focusing on clients, project leadership, and growth.
Success Snapshot
Performance Drivers
- Local talent shortages made it hard to hire quickly.
- Senior engineers were getting pulled into lower-value tasks.
- Project delivery pressure was rising.
- The business needed a practical way to add capacity without lowering quality.
Outcomes
- 63% cost savings compared with local hires
- 12 roles filled in 8 weeks
- 0% turnover in the first 180 days
- Faster delivery through a follow-the-sun workflow
- More leadership time freed up for strategy, client work, and growth
Company Background
This Melbourne-based engineering and infrastructure consultancy delivers technical project support across drafting, engineering coordination, documentation, and related financial workflows.
As a growing firm in a tight labour market, it was under pressure to keep up with project demand while local hiring remained slow and expensive. Senior engineers and leaders were increasingly tied up in documentation, reporting, and admin-heavy work, reducing the time they could spend on client delivery, strategy, and higher-value technical oversight.
Industry and Operating Context
Engineering firms in Australia are under constant pressure from labour shortages, rising employment costs, and faster project timelines.
Senior engineers end up spending too much time on support work that still matters but does not make the best use of their experience. Tasks like documentation, drawing mark-ups, reporting, and finance follow-up start eating into time that should be spent on design oversight, client management, and commercial decisions.
When that happens, delivery slows down, margins get tighter, and leadership teams have less room to focus on growth.
Outsourcing these roles has often been dismissed because engineering work is seen as too technical, too context-heavy, or too dependent on Australian standards and local coordination.
Core Problem
The firm’s main issue was the amount of time skilled local staff were spending on work that could be handled elsewhere with the right structure and support.
Leadership was getting bogged down by project documentation, mark-ups, reporting, and finance tasks on top of core client delivery. Hiring locally was not solving the problem fast enough, and the cost of waiting was growing.
Many engineering leaders also assume offshore support will create quality issues, communication delays, or workflow disruption. So even when the pressure is obvious, the move still feels risky.
Offshore Solution
Instead of trying to redesign everything at once.
In August 2024, it trialled one Philippines-based drafter through Staff X. The role was focused, measurable, and directly tied to live delivery needs.
The drafter was able to turn around mark-ups faster than the local benchmark and worked effectively within the firm’s BIM environment.
Because the first role worked, the business scaled the model quickly. By December 2024, the team had grown into a 12-person offshore function covering drafting, engineering support, and finance.
The offshore team was set up as a real extension of the business and was integrated into the company’s workflows, tools, and operating rhythm.
This gave the business extra capacity without taking core technical leadership away from the local team.
Results
The reported results show clear gains in both cost and operating capacity.
The business achieved 63% cost savings compared with local hiring. It filled 12 roles in 8 weeks, which significantly reduced the delay and pressure linked to local recruitment. The offshore team also recorded zero turnover in the first 180 days, giving the business early stability.
Delivery speed improved as well. With support working across time zones, the firm benefited from a follow-the-sun model that helped move work forward faster.
Most importantly, senior engineers and leaders got time back. Instead of being buried in drafting coordination, documentation, and finance administration, they could spend more time on higher-value work such as client relationships, decision-making, and growth planning.
Conclusion
This Melbourne engineering consultancy did not solve its growth pressure by asking local leaders to work harder. It solved it by changing how work was supported.
The real issue was too much delivery effort sitting with expensive, hard-to-replace senior staff. By building an offshore team across drafting, engineering support, and finance, the firm reduced cost, filled roles faster, improved delivery speed, and gave leadership space to focus on higher-value work.
Firms that want to scale without adding more pressure to local teams are increasingly looking at offshore support as a practical next step. Offshore 24/7 offers dedicated offshore staffing across areas including engineering and architecture design, customer support, accounting, IT, and admin, with a model built around cultural fit, workflow integration, and speed to hire. Businesses can use this approach to scale faster, reduce local cost pressure, and add capability without disrupting day-to-day delivery.
