Key Highlights

  • Stantec (STN) reports second-quarter results after Wednesday's close, with analysts modeling Revenue of about $1.30 billion, up 12.75% year over year, and Earnings Per Share up 17.35%.
  • The company ended March with a record Backlog of C$8,979.7 million, up 13.2% year over year, though a large share of that growth came from a recent Acquisition rather than organic demand.
  • U.S. organic growth of just 2.8% in the first quarter lagged the company's overall guided growth rate of 8.5% to 11.5%, with acquisitions filling the gap.
  • Shares have fallen roughly a third over the past year despite consistent earnings beats, a de-rating shared across engineering consultancy peers amid concerns about execution risk on large projects.

Two Currencies, One Set of Expectations

The consensus circulating ahead of Wednesday's release is for revenue of about $1.30 billion, up 12.75% year over year, and earnings of $1.15 a share, up 17.35%. Those are U.S.-dollar figures, compiled off Stantec's (NYSE:STN) New York listing. Stantec itself reports in Canadian dollars, so they are translated numbers and cannot be laid directly against anything in the company's own disclosure, a distinction worth holding onto, because the Canadian dollar has moved enough over the past year to flatter or flatten reported growth on its own.

The Canadian-dollar yardsticks are these. In the first quarter of 2026 Stantec produced gross revenue of C$2,067.7 million and net revenue of C$1,694.3 million, the latter up 9.1%, with adjusted diluted earnings of C$1.33 a share, up 14.7%. A year ago, in the second quarter of 2025, gross revenue was C$1,964 million and reported diluted earnings were C$1.19 a share; that quarter's headline boasted adjusted earnings per share growth above 20% and an increase to the full-year outlook. Results are due after markets close on 12 August, with the call the following morning at 9am Eastern, hosted by chief executive Gord Johnston and finance chief Vito Culmone.

Backlog Is the Number That Actually Matters

For a consultancy, quarterly revenue is largely a function of work already won. Stantec ended March with a record backlog of C$8,979.7 million, 13.2% higher than a year earlier, of which 5.4 percentage points was organic, the rest came from the acquisition of an American architecture firm. That is roughly 13 months of forward work, split C$5.38 billion in the United States, C$1.86 billion in Canada and C$1.74 billion internationally.

The order flow since has been solid rather than spectacular. A Stantec joint venture won a $150 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract at the end of July for coastal storm-risk work on Charleston's peninsula; a separate joint venture picked up an $85 million Army Corps task order in June; and in May the firm was chosen alongside Jacobs to deliver a major water utility's infrastructure programme in Melbourne. Further back, in January, Scottish Water named Stantec preferred bidder on a multibillion-pound overhaul of its water and wastewater network. Another record backlog print would go a long way toward steadying the story.

Water Is Carrying the Company; the United States Is Not

The regional split is the uncomfortable part of the first quarter. Organic net revenue growth was 3.6% overall, but that broke down as 7.9% in the Global segment, 2.8% in the United States and just 1.1% in Canada. For 2025 as a whole the pattern was different again, Canada up 7.8% organically, the U.S. up 3.4% and Global up 5.8%, so the quarterly numbers are noisy. What is consistent is that the largest market, where more than half the backlog sits, has been growing organically at low single digits while the company as a whole guides to 8.5% to 11.5% net revenue growth. Acquisitions, not American organic demand, have been filling that gap: the recent architecture firm acquisition contributed 7.2 percentage points of first-quarter net revenue growth.

By Business line the picture is healthier. Water grew 14.3% organically in the first quarter, Energy and Resources 8.6% and Buildings close to 10%. Stantec's own sustainability report put sustainability-driven work at C$5.5 billion, or 68% of revenue, in 2025. Given that a large slice of U.S. infrastructure spending flows through federal agencies, the Army Corps contracts being the obvious example, any commentary on the pace of federal awards will be listened to closely.

A Chief Executive Handover and a Plan Already Met

Johnston will lead his final full earnings season before handing over. In June, Stantec said he would move to vice chair of the board on 1 October, with Susan Reisbord, currently chief operating officer of the North American business, taking over as president and chief executive. Reisbord joined through a 2021 acquisition, where she had been chief executive, and ran Stantec's Environmental Services line before her 2025 promotion. Chair Doug Ammerman called her a proven leader with a strong track record of delivering results; Johnston said she was the right leader for Stantec's next chapter.

She inherits a company that has already ticked off its last strategic plan. The 2024-2026 targets included an adjusted EBITDA Margin of 17% to 18%; Stantec hit 17.6% in 2025, a year early, on net revenue of C$6.5 billion and adjusted earnings of C$5.30 a share, up 19.9%. Guidance for 2026 asks for 15% to 18% adjusted earnings growth, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.6% to 18.2%, and return on invested Capital above 13%. The first quarter came in at a 16.9% margin, seasonally the weakest, so the full-year range still requires the second half to do work.

The Shares Have De-Rated While the Numbers Have Not

Stantec traded around C$112 in Toronto on Tuesday, well below a 52-week high near C$160; the New York line has swung between $66.26 and $114.52 over the same period. Across the past year the stock has shed roughly a third of its value. Brokers have trimmed price targets accordingly without abandoning their ratings, keeping outperform recommendations even as they lower target prices.

The de-rating is not Stantec-specific. Rival WSP Global has slid to a lower valuation and now trades on roughly 15 times forward earnings, against Stantec's mid-teens multiple and around 18 times for Jacobs Solutions. AECOM makes the point most vividly: it reported on Tuesday, took a $337 million charge on a delayed construction management project, and fell 7.4% even after adjusted earnings of $1.49 a share beat consensus and management reaffirmed full-year guidance. Analysts cut price targets on AECOM following the report. Investors are marking down engineering consultancies for execution risk on large projects, not for lack of demand.

Conclusion

That is the frame for Wednesday. Stantec has beaten and raised repeatedly, and consensus assumes it does so again. The more revealing test is whether U.S. organic growth reaccelerates toward the group average, because as long as the biggest market grows at 3% and the guidance depends on acquisitions to reach double digits, a cheaper multiple is a judgment rather than a mistake.