Bench time

Bench time is the part of a person's available capacity that is not assigned to a project. In a capacity report, it shows up as the difference between someone's available hours for the period and their allocated hours. A senior developer with 160 available hours in the month but only 120 hours of project work has 40 hours of bench time.

Some bench time is healthy and expected, since it absorbs project gaps, internal work and short-notice client requests. Persistent bench time on senior or high-cost roles is the signal worth watching. Surfacing it by person and by trade lets resource managers redirect the time toward training, internal initiatives or new pitches before the period closes.

Related: utilization rate, capacity gap, executive horizon.