Delays are not conducive to progress. This is not a groundbreaking revelation. Neither is reminding you that delays drain budgets, burn out your team (including leaders and top performers), and stall innovation. There are countless valid, unavoidable causes for delays. Things happen. Not having access to qualified personnel is not one of those things. Not in 2025. Not in Engineering. Not when the solution of Contract Engineering is available.
Companies often hesitate to invest in contract engineers for a variety of reasons. They’re too expensive, they’re only a stopgap, they’re not committed to the long-term health of the company. Etc. Etc. Contract engineering can be pricey. It may only be a stopgap solution. Contractors may not have the same investment in a company as a full-time employee.
But what’s the cost of not hiring them? What’s the cost of losing a project or client due to inefficiency? What’s the cost of having to replace a stalwart employee because too much was expected of them? What’s the cost of one delay? What’s the cost of two? Of more?
The answer isn’t a positive one.
With that in mind, here are three critical and often overlooked costs companies incur when they experience delays, and how smart leaders are using contract talent to ensure success and stay a step ahead of the competition.
Losing Real Money While You Wait for Theoretical Help
Delaying engineering initiatives isn’t just a scheduling issue, it’s a financial sinkhole. Whether it’s launching a product, installing equipment, or completing a compliance redesign, the Cost of Delay represents lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, and missed opportunities. Every week a skill gap exists, it compounds inefficiency, slows decision-making, and stymies progress against critical milestones.
In industries where speed-to-market is paramount, delays can quickly escalate from internal frustration to full-on external crisis. Clients may pull future business, competitors may seize your market opportunity, and your supply chain is disrupted. A McKinsey report found that large projects across asset classes typically take 20% longer than scheduled and can go as high as 80% over budget when impacted by delays. Think about how that impacts ROI, especially in complex industrial environments.
And if your only solution is to hire a full-time engineer who checks all the boxes and has the niche skill set and experience you are looking for… you’re likely going to have a bad time.
Contract engineers can eliminate temporary bottlenecks that would otherwise cause long-term problems. Adding focused expertise exactly when needed allows your company or team to accelerate critical milestones, keep stakeholders happy, and ensure procurement remains on time. Flexibility and adaptability are tactical moves to close gaps fast. The result is a strategic buffer that shields product timelines and revenue projections from falling off track.
Companies that ignore this often find themselves caught in a compounding spiral of rushed fixes, expedited freight, and unhappy stakeholders.
Burnout Hurts, In More Ways Than One
What’s more costly; hiring a contract engineer to perform PLC work on a six-month contract or losing a valued controls engineer due to burnout, depleted morale, or a lack of trust in management? What’s the cost to replace that formerly committed engineer? What’s the cost if the other controls engineers are already spread too thin to fill the gap his absence creates? What’s the cost to train that new engineer and get them up to speed? How will losing that person affect the rest of the team?
According to a survey from the Upwork Research Institute, 71% of full-time employees feel burnt out, and 65% say their demands exceed capacity. But burnout impacts more than just turnover and morale. Burnout leads to mistakes, slower delivery, and less-safe work environments.
Adding contract engineers is a smart antidote. They relieve the load during high-demand phases. Not only will this reduce error rates, but it also communicates value in work-life balance and respect for employee well-being, which supports retention. Firms that consistently use contractors during peak times report a higher quality of output, have employees who support their corporate culture, and face fewer fires to fight when burn cycles hit permanent teams.
O’ Innovation, Where Art Thou?
When has innovation ever been unimportant in engineering? If you said “never” or “rarely,” you’d be correct. If your core team is drowning in execution, when do they have time to innovate? If you said “never” or “rarely,” again, you’d be correct.
Full-time staff members are typically focused on their day-to-day tasks or completing the long-term assignments for which they are responsible. They want to prove their merit, show value, and help the organization achieve its goals. I am fully in support of that type of reliability and dedication. I’m fully in support of rewarding and retaining those people.
But if they’re focused on those goals, when do they have time to think about what comes next? And where are new ideas coming from? Hiring only full-time staff limits experimentation. In contrast, contract engineers offer a fresh lens and bring a variety and depth in tactics. They allow your internal teams to advance your roadmap. And they’re often specialists who’ve navigated similar challenges and can provide solutions validated through real-world experience.
A flexible, blended workforce lets companies run design tracks for reliability and exploration in concert with one another. This strategy consistently drives first-to-market advantage or patent-worthy designs, especially in fast-moving fields like automation, IIoT, or EV systems.
Advice from the Experts
When you only evaluate contract engineers by their hourly rate, you miss the bigger picture. The true cost of not using them can be much higher, and much more painful. You face delayed or lost revenue, teams that are overextended, and stalled innovation. If the delay goes on long enough, you are also at risk of rushed hires and non-compliance fines.
The smartest engineering leaders use contract talent not just to fill a gap but to power their most important initiatives.
At Accelerate Professional Talent Solutions, we help you tap into that market with vetted professionals, fast onboarding, and deep industry knowledge. Ready to avoid hidden costs and build a more agile engineering team? Let’s talk.