The 2025 Commissioning Giants earned $993.4 million, an increase over last year.
Commissioning Giants insights
- Commissioning Giants firms reported a combined $993.4 million in revenue for 2025, reflecting an 8.7% increase from the previous year and highlighting the continued growth of the commissioning sector.
- The Commissioning Giants rankings also reveal shifting industry dynamics, with three firms newly entering or returning to the top 25 and data centers leading as the most significant revenue source among building types.
The Consulting-Specifying Engineer 2025 Commissioning Giants provides information on the top 25 firms based on self-reporting for this year’s rankings.
Total commissioning revenue for these firms was $993.4 million, an increase from $913.4 million last year, an 8.7% increase. Three new firms entered or returned to the list this year: Facility Dynamics Engineering, IMEG and CriticalArc.
Figure 1 shows a complete ranking for 2025, including the three new firms in the top 25.
On average, commissioning revenue represented 36.2% of a firm’s total gross revenue. This represents an average of $39.7 million, with the top three firms earning $70 million or more. While the percentage of commissioning revenue varied, 52% of firms reported it to be 20% or less of their total gross revenue for the last fiscal year.
The top building types for commissioning revenue included:
- Data centers: 34%
- Hospitals/health care facilities: 14%
- Government or military facilities: 7%
- Research laboratories: 5%
- Office buildings: 6%
- Colleges or universities: 8%
- Industrial or manufacturing facilities/warehouses: 8%
- Utilities, public works, transportation: 5%
- K-12 schools: 7%
- Sports or entertainment facilities, convention centers: 1%
- Hotels, motels or resorts: 1%
- Mission critical facilities, not including data centers or hospitals: 2%
- Engineered multi-dwelling buildings, retail complexes, restaurants: 2%
All of the 2025 Commissioning Giants provided commissioning services for projects in North America. Most companies (60%) also offered services in countries based in North America (Canada and Mexico). This data reflects commissioning at all levels: new buildings (49%), whole building (10%), emergency power systems (7%), existing buildings (6%), retro-commissioning (6%), monitoring based (6%), envelope (5%), recommissioning (4%), fire protection systems (3%) and communications systems (3%).
Commissioning Giants firms are predominantly consulting engineering firms (48%). California has the most firms on the list with four, followed by with two each from Georgia, Missouri, New York and Wisconsin. Roughly one-quarter (28%) of firms acquired another company in the last fiscal year. On average, 46% of these firms’ staff were 40 years old or younger and 11% of the staff were female.
Firms reported that the top reasons for commissioning requests were savings (92%), sustainability (88%), mandates (84%), resiliency (80%) and marketability (48%). In order of weighted percentage, anticipated future challenges with commissioning include not enough commissioning authorities or agents, lack of knowledge about commissioning’s worth, lack of funding or buy-in and changing codes and standards. Top corporate challenges included quality of younger staff (52%), the economic impact on the construction market (16%) and increasing costs in construction (8%).
Commissioning Giants firms reported an average of 34 certified commissioning authorities or agents or certified commissioning professionals on their staff. Prominent organizations these commissioning professionals belong to include ASHRAE, the Building Commissioning Association, the AABC Commissioning Group and the Association of Energy Engineers.
To read about the 2025 Commissioning Giants and the 2025 MEP Giants, visit www.csemag.com/giants.
