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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Structural, civil and design consultancies whose fees arrive project by project: valued on what a full cycle of work earns, not on whichever year happened to close last June.
An architecture or engineering consultancy in Melbourne is valued by capitalising maintainable earnings averaged across a full project cycle, usually five years, after the principals are paid a market salary. Because fees come project by project, the risk loading rests on how much of the pipeline is contracted, how reliably unbilled work converts to cash, and how much depends on one or two registered principals.
Ownership change is the usual reason. The founding principal of a Richmond architecture studio is stepping back and two associates want to buy in over several years. A structural engineering firm in Box Hill is weighing a merger with a larger multidisciplinary group. A principal's interest has to be valued for a property settlement in the Melbourne registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. A professional indemnity claim or a fee dispute needs its effect on the practice measured. Or a restructure needs a market value for the ATO.
Succession comes up more than anything else. Registration as an architect or a professional engineer belongs to the individual, not the practice, and many Melbourne consultancies still trade on the name and relationships of the people who founded them. The real question is how much of that value can pass to the next generation, and at a price they can finance from the practice's own earnings.
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 ability to keep winning and delivering commissions, so the valuation capitalises what the practice earns across a whole run of projects rather than in any one year.
Capitalisation of future maintainable earnings is the normal method, with one difference from most sectors: the earnings base is usually drawn from five years of results, so that a single large commission finishing early or late does not decide the outcome. Principals' drawings are first replaced with market salaries for the design, technical and management work they carry.
A discounted cash flow is used where the forward workload is genuinely committed, such as staged documentation on a funded development or a government panel appointment with a fixed term. Where the pipeline is mostly proposals and expressions of interest, we do not forecast from it, because doing so would present hope as evidence.
Sales of consultancies in the same discipline and of similar size help place the result. Transaction evidence is scarcer than for businesses that serve the public directly, so it guides the range rather than fixing a point, and the report records why the chosen point is where it is.
Unbilled work, debtors, equipment and design and modelling software licences are restated to what they would realise. That sets the floor, and in a practice with a large unbilled balance the floor can be substantial.
Normalisation causes more disagreement between valuers than any other step, so the report lists each adjustment and why it was made. For design and engineering practices the usual ones are:
Melbourne's design and engineering practices fall into a few recognisable groups. Large multidisciplinary consultancies tend to sit in the CBD, Southbank and Docklands, working on transport, health and education projects. Mid-sized structural, civil and building services engineers are spread through Richmond, Collingwood, Box Hill and the eastern suburbs. Architecture studios, mostly small and principal-led, are found through Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick and South Melbourne, with residential specialists across Bayside and the Mornington Peninsula.
In Victoria practitioners register as individuals. Architects are registered with the Architects Registration Board of Victoria, and engineers working in prescribed areas such as structural, civil, electrical, mechanical and fire safety engineering must be registered under the Professional Engineers Registration Act 2019 (Vic). That makes principal dependence a concrete risk: a structural practice that relies on one registered engineer can lose the ability to sign off its own work if that person leaves.
Work type matters more than suburb. A practice whose fees come from Victoria's major transport and public building programmes, hospital and university campuses in Parkville and Clayton, or standing government panels has income it can forecast with some confidence. A practice tied to private residential development is exposed to every turn in the building cycle. Nationally, the count of construction businesses rose 3.4 per cent and professional, scientific and technical services 3.6 per cent in 2025 to 2026 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Consultancy fees follow construction activity, so both series bear on how much work is out there to win.
We begin with the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and what was relied on, noting where information was incomplete. From there the report covers each approach considered and the method used under it, lists each normalisation adjustment with the reason for it, and reconciles the results into a range, explaining in sentences why each result carries the weight it does.
Consultancies meet scrutiny in a few settings: a dispute between principals in the Supreme Court of Victoria, a building or professional negligence matter before VCAT or the County Court of Victoria where lost earnings are claimed, or a property settlement in the Federal Circuit and Family Court. In each, an opposing expert will ask why five years were averaged, how unbilled work was treated and why a pipeline was or was not forecast. Our reports are prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a certified valuer prepared to answer those questions in person.
Which of your assumptions would an opposing expert target, and what would you say? A valuer who has finished the work answers that straight away.
An Indicative valuation lets a retiring principal see what a buy-in by associates could look like, and whether the practice's earnings could fund it, before any terms are discussed. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits an equity admission, a merger or a bank application. A Detailed report is the level for a family law settlement, a dispute between principals, or any matter where another expert will review the opinion.
Let the most demanding reader set the depth. Where a court, the ATO, a lender or a second expert may test the figure, the report has to carry the full reasoning.
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.