Discover the state of resource management with insightful statistics. Explore current trends and challenges in optimizing organizational efficiency.
2026 marks a year of advancement for resource management. For the first time, dedicated RM software has overtaken spreadsheets. Strategic influence is growing, and respect is being earned. And AI is entering the conversation (cautiously, yes, but meaningfully).
But underneath that advancement, the foundations are still shaky in places. Only 9% of organizations fully trust their resource data. On-time project delivery has fallen to 73.4%. And teams are still struggling with aligning capacity and demand.
In this article, we're going over the latest resource management statistics to see what’s changed in the profession, what still needs work, and how you can raise your game – including data from Runn's own survey of 100+ resource management professionals.
These numbers tell a clear story: resource management is evolving fast, yet many organizations are still playing catch-up. Let's dive in!
In 2026, resource managers say aligning capacity with demand and improving operational efficiency are the joint top priorities for resource management, each cited by 58% of respondents. Increasing utilization follows closely at 46%.
These themes echo what we found in 2025, when capacity planning and improved utilization topped the agenda – the fundamentals haven't changed, but the urgency around them has grown.
In other words, while these problems aren't new, teams are feeling their impact more than ever.
When it comes to the challenges organizations are struggling with, struggles with data and visibility came out on top:
Put simply, teams lack a single, reliable view of their people, projects, and demand.
Struggling to balance capacity with demand isn't a new problem. The 2025 SPI Professional Services Maturity Benchmark, which surveyed 403 firms across consulting, IT, software, and professional services, found that limited insight into resource availability, project workload, and cost data is a leading contributor to misaligned staffing, rising bench time, and weaker decision-making.
On-time project delivery dropped to 73.4%, down from 80.2% in 2021, pointing to widespread resource execution challenges across the industry.
This is a huge contributing factor to why resource management still feels reactive in many organizations.
Resource management is shedding its perception as operational support as more orgs consider it a strategic function.
In 2026, RM data is shaping strategic decisions, workforce planning, and revenue forecasting in many organizations.
According to Runn's research, just shy of a quarter (23%) say resource management is seen as a strategic capability, while resource data influences strategic decisions in nearly 9 in 10 organizations:
When resource management only validates decisions, it’s often too late to change outcomes when risks do surface, meaning teams act reactively rather than plan proactively (more on this later).
When asked what limits their ability to operate more strategically, resource managers pointed to instability rather than a lack of intent. 58% cited unpredictable demand, and 48% pointed to short-term planning cycles, followed closely by data and tooling constraints.
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In 2026, 41% of teams are still held back by outdated tools or manual processes – virtually unchanged from 42% in 2025.
Yet, Runn's 2026 research tells an encouraging story about tooling.
For the first time, resource management software has overtaken spreadsheets. The tides are turning, and the shift away from manual planning is finally happening. When asked how they manage resources, just over half (54%) said they use RM software, a full ten-point lead on spreadsheets (44%).
Read more ➡️ 8 Reasons to Move From Spreadsheets to Resource Management Software
How organizations currently manage resources (2026 vs 2025):
Adoption of resource management tools has to come with clean, connected data to unlock their full benefits.
Case in point: improving data trust, which remains a challenge. A lack of trust in data is exactly what’s holding teams back from operating more strategically.
Only 9% of Runn's respondents wholly trust their resource data. That means most teams are planning with uncertainty baked in – leading to unreliable forecasts, allocations, and hiring decisions.
Extent to which teams trust their resource data:
As for what's preventing this trust, almost two-thirds (63%) blame inconsistent data inputs, while just under a half point to incomplete data sets.
What's preventing organizations from trusting their data:
Data challenges are often really operational challenges, and can only be overcome when clear ownership, proper processes, and adequate tooling are put in place.
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Increasing utilization remains a core objective in 2026, with 46% citing it among their top three priorities. 71% of organizations track utilization rate, and two-thirds monitor forecasted vs. actual utilization – making capacity performance a central focus for most businesses.
Metrics organizations currently track:
But caution should be taken. Good resource managers want to increase utilization, but great resource managers know balance is important. Overcommitted resources – those with a utilization rate of 125% – are proven to cause project delays. The recommended rate for successful project delivery? Around 80%. Push too far beyond that, and you'll quickly run into delays and burnout.
Encouragingly, respondents report an average utilization rate of 72%, suggesting most organizations are operating within a relatively sustainable performance range. Many professional services organizations aim for 80–85% overall, though benchmarks vary by industry. The SPI 2025 benchmark corroborates this challenge from a wider industry lens: billable utilization across professional services firms fell to 68.9% in 2024, its lowest point in five years – a warning sign that the sector as a whole is struggling to maximize productive capacity.
So, how do you ensure you find this all-important balance? The Resource Management Institute recommends measuring utilization weekly or monthly in order to spot and address negative trends early on.
However, the ability to do this accurately relies on access to reliable, real-time data for resource management – something our 2026 statistics suggest is still a challenge for many.
Resource management's ties to financial outcomes are getting stronger. Profit margin tops the list of priority KPIs, with over two-thirds of respondents (65%) naming it a metric they care about. "Utilization increases" follows at 54%.
Employee retention, a key indicator of workforce satisfaction, places dead last, with just a third (34%) naming it a KPI they care about.
Top KPIs organizations care most about:
Resource management is also increasingly tied to the most significant workforce decisions.
Four in ten organizations experienced layoffs in the past 12 months, and among those, 61% used resource data or forecasting to inform those decisions.
This shows RM's growing role not just in delivery, but in cost discipline and structural workforce planning.
Skills tracking is essential, but it isn’t the end goal in itself. What’s most valuable is the decisions you can make when you have access to robust skills data:
In fact, according to Skillsoft, 28% of HR and L&D professionals say skill gaps limit their ability to expand into new markets or opportunities.
A majority of organizations now track skills in some form: 60% do so, either via a dedicated tool (31%, up from 27% in 2025) or a spreadsheet (29%). However, 24% want to track skills but don't yet do so, and 16% have no plans to implement skills tracking at all.
Where skills data is tracked, it tends to be used tactically rather than strategically. Three-quarters use it to place the right people on the right work, while roughly half apply it to capacity and demand planning. Strategic applications like scenario planning (28%) and succession planning (24%) still lag behind – another instance of execution taking precedence over foresight.
Get started ➡️ The Beginner's Guide to Skills Tracking
Looking to the future, AI is everywhere in conversation – and resource management is no exception. But within the profession, adoption is moving cautiously.
AI tools offer huge opportunities for tracking, evaluating, and utilizing people's skills – with 43% of respondents saying they'd find AI-powered skills inference valuable. Yet, we're a long way off from this being a central part of most businesses' resource management processes.
Just 17% currently use AI to support their RM processes, though this is up from 11% in 2025, and a clear majority (65%) are considering it – compared to just 46% last year.
And AI in resource management is being held back by one thing: bad data. Until that’s fixed, AI risks amplifying poor decisions rather than improving them.
With only 9% of organizations fully trusting their resource data, many recognize that deploying AI on top of fragmented or inconsistent data risks amplifying the problem rather than solving it – as many in the industry say "garbage in, garbage out."
Where interest in AI is strongest, it centers on capabilities that sharpen foresight and planning rather than simply automating tasks:
AI capabilities organizations would find most valuable:
Resource managers aren't looking to AI to replace their judgment – they're looking to it to improve their visibility, accelerate planning cycles, and flag issues earlier. The SPI 2025 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark echoes this sentiment, finding a strong correlation between leadership support for AI adoption and the percentage of winning bids – showing the competitive advantage of AI is already beginning to materialize for early movers.
For most organizations, though, AI in resource management is still more anticipated than a reality. As data governance improves and purpose-built features mature, adoption is likely to accelerate.
Teams wanting to take full advantage of these trends need to get their data foundations right first.
Read more ➡️ Resource Managers, Here's How to Prep Your Data for AI
As this practice grows in importance, we can expect the RM role to evolve, too. Here are some interesting statistics from other research on the profession.
The good news? Our 2026 resource management statistics show the function continuing to grow. Just over half of RM functions have grown in the past 12 months (up from 49% in 2025), suggesting greater organizational recognition of the value RM brings. However, contraction has also risen, from 13% to 19%, reflecting the broader financial pressures many businesses are navigating.
The value of skilled resource managers cannot be overstated. They save business costs, make sure projects get delivered on time, and keep employees happy with their assignments.
Despite its growing importance, most don't intend to pursue a career in RM. Only 4% of respondents intentionally pursued a career in resource management. Most came to their positions via adjacent roles:
SHRM found that nearly 80% of organizations report difficulty finding candidates with resource management skills – perhaps we'll see more training in this area in years to come.
For the first time, just over half of respondents describe their approach as more proactive than reactive, a modest but meaningful shift from 2025, when reactive approaches held a slight majority (51%).
Reactivity often stems from deeper issues, such as outdated tools, untrusted data, and excessive time spent on manual processes.
In many businesses, resource management is looking for a dedicated home. Over a third (35%) of respondents say RM sits within Operations – up from 27% in 2025, overtaking Project, Program, or Portfolio Management (23%, down from 31%). Only 2% work within a dedicated Resource Management Office, reinforcing that centralized governance structures remain rare.
Where RM sits in the organization (2026 vs. 2025):
Most organizations cluster around mid-level maturity on the RMI’s Resource Management Maturity Model. According to Runn's findings, 40% operate at Level 3 (standardized, documented processes), while 37% sit at Level 2 (basic but inconsistent). Notably, Level 4 has dropped sharply (from 17% in 2025 to just 9%), suggesting that while foundational adoption is spreading, reaching true strategic maturity remains elusive for most.
SPI Research finds that only approximately 5% of organizations operate at Level 5 maturity – consistent with what we see in our own data.
The profession is growing.
The tools are improving.
The gap that remains is the data layer underneath.
The teams that close it are the ones that will pull ahead.
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