The Philippines is likewise an investment site of choice among foreign companies outsourcing engineering design requirements in a variety of sectors. Like the software sector, the engineering & design sector is composed of shared services facilities and independent design houses. Shared services facilities currently dominate the sector, but independent design and architectural services firms are on the rise.

Share services firms include approximately 10 U.S. firms such as Fluor and Bechtel, and 29 Japanese firms, such as JGC and Weserv. The scope of projects undertaken by these firms varies widely, from bridges to refineries to skyscrapers in the civil engineering sub-sector. In the technology sub-sector, there are firms specializing in chip design, the wireless devices, and display technology.

These firms cite a number of advantages in working in the Philippines. They include strong education infrastructure that produces knowledgeable graduates, a natural proclivity for languages — young engineers learn and work in Japanese in as little as six weeks, for example — and time zones that fit well with work practices in home offices. In Japan's case, there is a one-hour time difference. The U.S. is at least 12-hours earlier than the Philippines, but this provides ease in coordinating at the beginning and end of each working day.

Among the services offered by the Philippines in the offshore engineering sector are:

•  Civil engineering design
•  Architectural drawings
•  Printed circuit design
•  Wireless devices
•  Display technology
•  Electronic components
•  Printers
•  CAD/CAM