MEP Giants revenue increased 5% over last year

The 2020 MEP Giants generated approximately $67.8 billion in gross annual revenue during the previous fiscal year, an increase of about $7.99 billion over last year’s numbers, in which firms generated $59 billion. This year, the 2020 MEP Giants earned $8.8 billion in mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection engineering design revenue, an increase over 2019 MEP Giants’ revenue of $8.4 billion.

While no major shake-ups occurred within the top 20 firms on the MEP Giants list, there were some newcomers. Several companies either joined the list for the first time or returned after time away from reporting data (in order of ranking on the list): Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers LLC; AMA Group; EwingCole; Johnson, Mirmiran and Thompson Inc.; Ballinger; Optimation Technology Inc.; Rushing; Apogee Consulting Group PA; VBFA; Integrated Design Solutions LLC; Rist-Frost-Shumway Engineering P.C.; and Barton Associates Inc.

Other companies also moved up more than 10 slots, frequently due to mergers and acquisitions (in order of appearance on the list): Stanley Consultants, CRB, AlfaTech Consulting Engineers Inc., kW Mission Critical Engineering, Arora Engineers Inc., Newcomb & Boyd, Bernhard, H2M architects + engineers, Wiley|Wilson, RTM Engineering Consultants LLC, Spectrum Engineers, Osborn Engineering and Bridgers & Paxton Consulting Engineers Inc.

Table 1: Top 10 firms are listed by MEP design revenue. Jacobs topped the list yet again — as it has since 2013 — with 15% of its gross revenue dedicated to MEP design. Courtesy: Consulting-Specifying Engineer

The list this year comprises 63% private companies (up from 59% in 2019), 24% employee-owned companies (a slight decrease), 7% limited-liability companies and 6% public companies. The 2020 MEP Giants are made up of consulting engineering firms (59%, down from 64% last year) and architectural engineering firms (32%).

Another large jump in mergers and acquisitions occurred in the past year; 28% of the firms reporting acquired another company (see “MEP Giants mergers and acquisitions are steady, but future remains uncertain” linked below).

Table 1 shows the top firms based on MEP design revenue, which is how the MEP Giants are ranked. EXP joined the top 10 firms this year.

The complete rankings of all 100 firms and a full report is provided in a downloadable eBook.

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