Across industries, businesses are increasingly outsourcing highly technical roles to specialists. From IT infrastructure to digital marketing, HR compliance to legal review, organizations are learning that it’s more efficient to let experts handle specialized work so their core teams can stay focused on what they do best.
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is no different. More design firms are outsourcing their Building Information Modeling (BIM) management needs to external experts like RevitGods, a trusted partner that has supported firms across the country. This growing trend isn’t just about saving time or cutting costs. It’s about working smarter.
Why This Role Is Difficult to Hire In-House
Hiring a BIM manager isn’t just difficult, it’s one of the most complex staffing challenges a design firm can face. The talent pool for this highly competitive role is small, and potential candidates often have vastly different backgrounds and levels of experience, making several of them not a direct fit for what firms actually need. There’s also no formal training pipeline for BIM management in the U.S., and no industry-wide standards to guide the role. As a result, most hiring managers often have no reliable way to evaluate a candidate’s capabilities, vet their experience, or assess how effectively they can implement BIM or advance the firm’s technical performance.
Even when you do find a promising candidate, keeping them engaged is another challenge entirely. Most firms lack the tools, team structure, and openness to innovation that BIM managers need to stay motivated and grow in their role. Without a clear career path or ongoing support, many eventually plateau or burn out and leave for higher-paying opportunities in tech, product development, or adjacent industries that offer greater impact and long-term growth.
In short, the talent is scarce, the expectations are high, and the long-term fit is hard to sustain. That’s why more firms are turning to outsourced BIM support. It offers a more practical, scalable solution to a complex and evolving need. In the next section, we’ll explore exactly why outsourcing this role makes sense and the key advantages it can bring to your firm.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Firm’s BIM Management
Gain Access to a Complete BIM Skillset Without Building a Team
Outsourcing connects you with teams who live and breathe BIM. Their experience brings proven methods, tested tools, and a larger perspective on what works—and what doesn’t.
Because hiring for this role is so competitive, it often takes firms months (or longer) to find a qualified candidate. Even then, most candidates only bring part of the puzzle. The truth is, BIM management isn’t one job, it’s actually a combination of several.
Outsourcing connects you with teams who live and breathe BIM. Their experience brings proven methods, tested tools, and a larger perspective on what works—and what doesn’t.
To fully support your team and projects, you typically need:
- A Revit specialist who can implement BIM workflows, troubleshoot Revit issues, maintain BIM standards, write standard operating procedures (SOPs), and deliver ongoing Revit training and coaching to staff.
- A workflow strategist who can develop a BIM implementation strategy for the office, align BIM workflows with office design standards, and enforce BIM standards amongst all design team members and external consultants.
- An application developer who can automate repetitive tasks, develop Dynamo scripts, and deploy custom tools firm-wide to increase efficiency and reduce human error.
Outsourcing gives you access to all of these skill sets without the overhead of hiring three different people. Firms like RevitGods combine these specialties into one coordinated team that can support your production, strategy, and long-term growth from day one.
Expand Your BIM Capabilities Without the High Cost of Hiring
Hiring a full-time BIM manager—or building an internal BIM team—is a significant investment. Beyond salaries, there are costs for benefits, BIM management software tools, and ongoing professional development (i.e. conference attendance at Autodesk University). For many firms, regardless of size, the workload or scope of needs may not justify the cost of hiring and maintaining a dedicated in-house team.
Outsourcing provides access to high-level support at a fraction of the cost, especially as BIM needs ebb and flow. Whether through a monthly retainer, hourly support, or a project-based engagement, you only pay for the services you need, when you need them.
Even when firms already have internal BIM managers, they are typically tied to project-specific responsibilities, and may not have the bandwidth and expertise to address firmwide initiatives. Outsourcing gives firms a way to advance their capabilities without stretching internal resources or adding long-term overhead.
Standardize Your Workflows Faster and Scale With Ease
BIM standards are not just about how things are modeled, they’re a direct reflection of your firm’s design standards and values. And that’s exactly what makes them so difficult to finalize internally. Developing a BIM standard means first getting everyone to agree on a design standard, and then translating those ideas into a Revit template, and content library. Building standards internally often can get delayed indefinitely due to a lack of non-billable time.
By outsourcing, you bring in a team with exposure to a wide range of design approaches, modeling strategies, and workflow solutions. An experienced partner like RevitGods can make clear, actionable recommendations on the best ways to execute your design philosophy in Revit, helping you reach alignment and build a complete standard in a fraction of the time it would take internally.
Outsourced BIM teams also stay ahead of evolving client requirements and platform updates, helping you roll out changes across your practice before they become a problem.
Strengthen Your Team by Supporting and Growing Technical Talent
When team members run into Revit issues and don’t have a clear path to support, valuable time is lost. They may sit stuck for hours, wait on help from a busy colleague, or apply a shortcut that creates more problems later. These moments quietly drain project momentum, increase rework, and distract senior staff from their own deliverables.
Outsourcing your BIM support solves that problem while also helping you develop the next generation of technical talent in your office. With immediate access to a knowledgeable support team, staff can get answers in the moment and continue moving forward without delays. At the same time, they’re learning better ways to approach tasks, modeling, and problem-solving.
By working with an outsourced partner, your team gains access to professionals who can coach them, train them, and help implement best practices across the board. As those skills develop internally, your workforce becomes more effective, your production becomes faster, and your project quality improves.
Keep Your Designers Focused on Billable Work
When BIM is managed externally, everyone in the office gains the freedom to focus on what they do best.
Design team members with strong Revit experience are no longer pulled away from billable work to answer questions or troubleshoot issues for others. Their time stays on high-value tasks, like design development and client delivery, rather than model maintenance.
Meanwhile, junior staff or team members still building their Revit skills don’t get stuck spinning their wheels. Instead of wasting hours on problems they don’t fully understand, or applying half-baked workarounds that could create bigger issues, they get real-time help from BIM experts who’ve seen it all before.
Final Thoughts
BIM management is becoming a critical function in every design firm. As more projects demand digital twins, and building owners expect clean, structured data at turnover, BIM is no longer optional, it’s essential. But for many firms, building and maintaining an in-house BIM operation is simply too difficult, too expensive, and too slow.
Outsourcing provides a practical, scalable solution to a complex and growing need. It gives you access to the tools, talent, and systems that would take years to develop internally and allows your team to stay focused on design, delivery, and client service.
If you’re looking to scale or simply run a more profitable, efficient practice, effective BIM management may be the missing key. The lifeblood of every firm is billable hours, and the building industry remains one of the least productive in the world. For firms that learn how to leverage BIM the right way, there is a massive opportunity to increase productivity, reduce waste, and improve margins.
At RevitGods, we help firms make that leap. Whether you’re just getting started or ready to evolve your standards and systems, we can provide the guidance, support, and execution to move your practice forward.
