One in Six Contractors Now Has a Data Center Job. That's a Record.

Roughly one in six Associated Builders and Contractors members now hold at least one data center contract, the highest share the trade group has recorded, according to survey results released Sept. 15. The same survey showed contractor backlog recovering from a July low, with the strength concentrated among firms already inside the data center pipeline.

ABC's Construction Backlog Indicator rose to 8.5 months in August from 8.0 months in July, matching the 8.5-month reading from August 2025. Chief Economist Anirban Basu said backlog "rebounded from July's cyclical low but remains below the prevailing level from the last several months." The survey was fielded Aug. 20 through Sept. 4. Only the largest contractors reported a backlog decline for the month, and the year-over-year gains were concentrated among firms with less than $30 million in annual revenue.

The split between contractors doing data center work and those not doing it is the number that matters for electrical crews. Firms with data center contracts reported 9.9 months of backlog in August. Firms without them reported 8.3. ABC's confidence readings for sales and profit margins both rose and stayed above 50, the line separating expected growth from expected contraction, but the staffing component fell. The share of contractors planning to cut headcount over the next six months reached 12.3%, the most in any month since December, and Basu said "labor scarcity is reemerging as a major headwind for the industry."

Backlog measured in months is a staffing signal before it is a revenue signal. A 9.9-month book means an electrical contractor is manning a schedule it can already see, and on data center work that schedule is loaded with medium-voltage feeders, switchgear lineups, UPS and battery rooms, generator paralleling, busway, and the commissioning sequence that has to follow all of it. Those are the scopes that take the longest to train a worker into. ABC also noted that the gap between data center contractors and everyone else narrowed from the prior month, so the advantage is real but no longer widening.

A separate survey puts a number on the hiring problem. The Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER, polling 1,830 firms in July and August, found electricians the hardest craft position to fill in the country: 81% of firms reported difficulty, ahead of mechanics at 79% and HVAC technicians at 77%. Among firms doing data center work, 58% said competition for skilled workers had increased, 49% reported added wage pressure, 36% said open positions got harder to fill, and 30% saw higher turnover. Seventy-three percent of AGC respondents expect to add employees over the next 12 months, and 8% expect to cut.

Federal payroll data points the same way. Nonresidential specialty trade contractors, the category that carries most commercial electrical employment, added 8,000 jobs in August against an average monthly gain of 6,000 over the prior 12 months, while construction overall added 22,000. The contracts are signed. The crews are the constraint.