21 August 2025 – As artificial intelligence (AI) starts to automate more and more tasks in the consulting engineering realm, the spotlight shifts to what technology can’t replicate: human insight, strategic decision-making, innovation management, and stakeholder engagement. This makes the cultivation of non-technical, critical skills not just valuable, but vital, for engineers navigating the future of the business of consulting engineering.

Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) through its School of Consulting Engineering (SCE), this week celebrated the graduation of the Business of Consulting Engineering Management Development Programme’s (BCE MDP’s) Class of 2024 – yet another cohort after more than ten years since its inception.

The BCE MDP is uniquely equipped to meet the industry’s future challenges, through a blend of management and leadership training, coupled with essential critical thinking skills.

“The modern consulting engineering industry extends well beyond technical expertise. The reality is that automation and AI can rapidly transform, and in some instances, commoditise technical processes that were once the exclusive domain of highly trained engineers. Though we would at all times encourage that such processes never be totally left to such pursuits in the absence of experienced human technical oversight. The pressure to be more and more efficient with the demands for cost effective professional services, however, does risk reducing the perceived value of the human element in engineering and challenges firms to demonstrate its use of technology as a means to achieve these objectives,” says CESA CEO, Chris Campbell.

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