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Scope Creep & Late Payment Statistics 2026

32 verified statistics on scope creep, project overruns, late invoices, unpaid freelancers and wage theft. Every number links to its original source, and we checked each source in November 2026.

Scope creep

  1. 52% of projects completed in the previous 12 months experienced scope creep or uncontrolled changes to scope, up from 43% five years earlier. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018
  2. High-performing "champion" organisations saw scope creep on 33% of projects, versus 69% for underperformers. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018
  3. The share of projects rated highly complex rose from 35% in 2013 to 41% in 2018, which PMI links to scope creep. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018 (summary)
  4. In PMI's 2023 global survey, the average reported scope creep rate was 30% of projects; the lowest-performing quartile reported 37%. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2024
  5. Organisations that prioritise power skills saw only 28% of projects experience scope creep. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2023 press release

Project overruns

  1. Large IT projects run 45% over budget and 7% over time on average, while delivering 56% less value than predicted. Source: McKinsey & University of Oxford
  2. Every additional year a project is scheduled to last increases cost overruns by 15%. Source: McKinsey & University of Oxford
  3. 17% of IT projects go so badly they can threaten the very existence of the company. Source: McKinsey & University of Oxford
  4. 71% of large IT projects face cost overruns. Source: McKinsey

Construction disputes

  1. The average value of a North American construction dispute rose by about 40% to $60.1 million in 2024, and disputes took an average of 12.5 months to resolve. Owner-directed changes ranked among the top three causes. Source: Arcadis, 2025 Construction Disputes Report

Late payments (US)

  1. 56% of US small businesses are owed money from unpaid invoices, averaging $17.5K per business. Source: Intuit QuickBooks, 2025 US Small Business Late Payments Report
  2. 47% of US small businesses have invoices overdue by more than 30 days; on average nearly 1 in 10 invoices falls into this category. Source: Intuit QuickBooks, 2025
  3. 60% of small businesses with longer payment terms report cash-flow problems, versus 40% of those with immediate terms. Source: Intuit QuickBooks, 2025

Late payments (UK)

  1. 62% of UK small businesses are owed money from unpaid invoices, owed £21.4K each on average. Source: Intuit QuickBooks, 2025 UK Late Payments Report
  2. 44% of UK small-business invoices were paid late, based on 1.2 million invoices; £112 billion is locked up in late payments. Source: Sage / CEBR, May 2025
  3. The UK's smallest businesses are owed an average of £42,000 in overdue invoices, a figure that has risen three years in a row. Source: Sage / CEBR, May 2025
  4. 45% of small businesses are seeing more late payments than 12 months earlier, and 52% write off late payments up to 10 times a year rather than chase them. Source: FSB / GoCardless Late Payments Report 2025
  5. 28% of small businesses have had to use short-term financing such as loans or credit lines because of late payments. Source: FSB / GoCardless 2025

Chasing invoices

  1. 81% of businesses typically chase a customer between one and four times to get a single overdue invoice paid. Source: Creditsafe via CFO Dive
  2. 86% of businesses struggle to get on-time payment for up to 30% of their monthly invoiced sales. Source: Creditsafe via CFO Dive

Freelancers

  1. 85% of freelancers have their invoices paid late at least some of the time; only 15% say they are always paid on time. Source: Remote, State of Freelance Work 2025
  2. Just over 21% of freelancers are paid late or not at all more than half the time. Source: Remote, Contractor Management Report 2025
  3. 31% of UK freelancers have completed work and not been paid for it. Source: IPSE
  4. The average amount owed to UK freelancers in late payments is £5,230, and 18% wait more than three months past the deadline. Source: IPSE
  5. One in five freelancers (20%) have been left without money for basic living costs because of late payments. Source: IPSE
  6. 68% of freelancers faced late payments for completed work, and 26% said they had not been paid for projects. Source: Design Week (2025 freelancer report)
  7. 27% of freelancers said they had been ghosted by a client after a project was underway. Source: Design Week (2025 freelancer report)
  8. 64 million Americans – 38% of the US workforce – freelanced in 2023, earning about $1.27 trillion. Source: Upwork, Freelance Forward 2023

Wages & overtime

  1. Minimum-wage violations alone cost US workers more than $15 billion a year, not counting overtime and other wage theft. Source: Economic Policy Institute
  2. The US Department of Labor recovered $659.8 million in back wages for 510,534 workers in fiscal 2021–2023, an average of $1,292 per worker. Source: Economic Policy Institute
  3. Almost a quarter (24%) of temporary workers report wage theft, such as unpaid overtime or being paid for fewer hours than they worked. Source: Economic Policy Institute (citing NELP 2022)
  4. Over $1.5 billion in stolen wages was recovered for US workers between 2021 and 2023. Source: Economic Policy Institute

What these numbers mean

The pattern is consistent across countries and industries: work changes after the deal is made, and money gets stuck when nobody wrote the change down. Half of projects see scope creep, close to half of small-business invoices are paid late, and around a third of freelancers have done work they were never paid for.

A note on accuracy: you will often see "72% of projects experience scope creep" attributed to PMI. We could not find that number in PMI's research; PMI's own published figure is 52% (2018). We only list figures we could trace to the original publisher or a reputable report summary.

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Frequently asked questions

What percentage of projects experience scope creep?

PMI's Pulse of the Profession 2018 found 52% of projects completed in the prior 12 months experienced scope creep, up from 43% five years earlier.

How many invoices are paid late?

Sage and CEBR's analysis of 1.2 million UK small-business invoices found 44% were paid late (2025).

How many freelancers don't get paid?

IPSE found 31% of UK freelancers have completed work and not been paid for it.

Can I use these statistics?

Yes. Please cite the original source and link to this page.