Professional services leaders are chasing growth in one of the most unpredictable markets in years. Private equity investment and consolidation are reshaping firm strategy and structure. Competition is intensifying, and technology is redrawing how work gets done. But while these external forces dominate the headlines, our upcoming study reveals that many firms are losing ground from within – missing out on growth opportunities that are far more within reach.
Set to be published in early November, ‘Inside the leadership growth agenda’ draws on independent research conducted in 2025 with 400 senior leaders across mid- to large-sized firms, evenly split throughout the US and UK. The report’s findings reveal how growth is being lost from within – and where leaders see their greatest opportunities to capture it.
The cracks behind missed targets
Almost half of the leaders we surveyed confirmed that their firms missed revenue goals last year. Difficult economic conditions played a part, but our findings suggest that far more controllable factors were quietly undermining performance.
Gaps in demand forecasting, resource visibility, and profitability insight are persistent challenges, even among firms that consider themselves data-driven. The data suggests many firm leaders are still struggling to connect the dots between resourcing, project profitability, and capacity planning – the foundations of delivery, performance, and ultimately, growth.
A lack of clarity across resource, performance, and planning data stalls momentum where it matters most. When crucial staffing decisions are built on partial information, even the strongest strategies can drift. The full report explores just how deep that confidence gap runs, revealing what leaders are prioritizing as well as overlooking, and highlighting why these blind spots should now be a boardroom priority.
When busy doesn’t mean productive
If there’s one metric most professional services leaders focus on, it’s utilization. Long used as shorthand for efficiency, utilization numbers don’t always tell the full story.
More than 8 in 10 leaders told us they believe their people are being used to their full potential, yet almost a third admit they don’t have clear visibility into team-level capacity.
The data points to what many firms already sense anecdotally, which is that long hours and full schedules don’t necessarily equal high performance. In fact, without a connected view of capacity and workload, high utilization rates often coexist with project overruns, uneven workloads, and burnout.
Leaders who can see these dynamics in real time are better equipped to plan sustainably, protect margins, and rebalance workloads before pressure becomes attrition.
The fairness factor in retaining talent
Retention remains one of the most persistent challenges for professional services firms, but our data shows it’s not just about pay or poaching. In many firms, it’s about fairness.
In the largest organizations we surveyed, burnout was named the top retention challenge, while US leaders pointed to a lack of autonomy and poor management as equally damaging. What keeps people engaged isn’t just reward, but a sense that workloads and opportunities are proportionately shared.
Uneven distribution of work can drain morale and margins long before people leave. That’s why forward-thinking firms are now using data to expose those imbalances early – and act before they spread.
Tech ambition outpacing progress
Unsurprisingly, tech now sits firmly at the top of the leadership agenda. More than half of the leaders we surveyed named it as their number one priority for the year ahead, with AI moving quickly from experiment to expectation.
But Inside the Leadership Growth Agenda suggests a widening gap between ambition and execution. Many firms are investing in analytics, forecasting, and automation, yet far fewer have the data quality or integration to make those tools deliver valuable foresight.
Where progress is happening, it’s being driven by firms that have built stronger data foundations, connecting insight across planning, delivery, and profitability to act on information in real time. Others remain stuck, constrained by fragmented systems and inconsistent data – a divide the report examines in detail, revealing how firms are balancing bold technology goals with the realities of adoption, and what’s standing in the way of real progress.
Seeing the whole picture
Across the research, data confidence and the visibility it provides is the clear thread that connects every theme, from growth and utilization to retention and tech.
Firms have more data than ever before, but it often comes at the cost of clarity. Potentially valuable information is scattered across tools, teams, and time zones, making it difficult for leaders to see how choices in one area affect outcomes in another. Forecasting might look solid, but without a connected view of capacity or profitability, confidence quickly erodes. More than a third of leaders say uncertainty in their data prevents them from making strategic, long-term workforce planning decisions.
It’s evident that linking people, projects, and performance into a single view enables faster, more confident action. Inside the Leadership Growth Agenda shows how visibility is shifting from an operational concern to a core item on the leadership agenda, and why it’s now a decisive differentiator in firm performance.
Be first to get the full report. Sign up using the form to receive Inside the Leadership Growth Agenda and discover how 400 leaders across the US and UK are turning visibility into performance – and performance into growth.
