New research: engineering leaders spend 61% of their budgets keeping systems running

TORONTO, August 27, 2026: Engineering leaders spend, on average, 61% of their budgets keeping existing systems running, according to The maintenance dividend, a report published today by KIASA. The top fifth of organizations spend 31%, half the average, and release changes 2.6 times as often as everyone else.

KIASA interviewed and surveyed 140 engineering leaders at organizations of 500 to 15,000 people, in eight industries and nine countries, between April and June 2026. Where leaders shared budget documents, 58 of the 140, their answers were checked against them.

Key findings

• 61% of the average engineering budget goes on keeping existing systems running. The bottom fifth spend 78%, leaving little for anything new.
• Age explains less than a tenth of the difference in running cost. Systems with no clear owner cost 1.9 times as much to run as owned systems of the same size and age.
• Of the organizations that completed a full rewrite in the last five years, 41% now spend more on maintenance than before.
• The top fifth reinvest 72% of what they free up in new product work.
• Only one leader in five said the split had improved in the last two years.

“Upkeep is not waste. Some of it is the cost of having systems that work. But most organizations cannot say which part is necessary and which part is habit, and the ones that can are the ones moving fastest.”

What leaders can do now

The report closes with five steps: measure the split by system using budget data, give every system a named owner, automate the regression tests on the five most-changed systems, shrink releases until a bad one can be rolled back in minutes, and agree in advance where the freed budget will go.

“Every organization we spoke to wanted to spend more on new work. The ones that managed it stopped treating maintenance as a fixed cost and started managing it like any other investment.”

Methodology

The study combined a survey and interviews, conducted between April and June 2026. Respondents held the most senior engineering or technology role in their organization or business unit. Self-reported figures were, on average, four points more optimistic than budget documents. The full method is published in the report.

About KIASA

KIASA is an independent technology consultancy. We design, build and run digital systems alongside the people who will own them, for clients in insurance, energy, healthcare, logistics, the public sector and other industries. Founded in London in 2012 and owned by the people who work in it through its partners and an employee ownership trust, KIASA has 420 people in eight studios across Europe and Africa, North America and Asia Pacific. Visit kiasa.tech to learn more.