Commercial Construction Research and Data
Original analysis of public data on commercial construction spending, prices, contractors, federal contracts and local markets. Every figure links to its source, every table can be downloaded as CSV, and the data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Also see: All research posts · Owner guides · Services · Locations

Prompt payment act construction by state: public works payment deadlines, interest and retainage caps
A statute-by-statute registry of how fast state and local governments must pay contractors, how fast primes must pay subcontractors, what interest a late public owner owes and how much retainage…

Florida Hurricane Risk by County: Declarations, Modeled Losses and Design Wind Speeds
A county-by-county reading of the storm record, federal disaster declarations, FEMA’s modeled losses and the 2023 Florida Building Code, with what each means for commercial construction.

AI in Construction Statistics 2026: Adoption, Growth and Uses
How many U.S. construction businesses use artificial intelligence, how fast that share is rising, how construction compares with 18 other sectors and what firms use AI for, from Census Bureau…

Heat illness rules by state: which states protect construction workers in 2026
A registry of enforceable state heat rules, preemption laws and the federal OSHA proposal, with triggers, required protections and the share of construction jobs each covers.

Construction Job Growth by City: The 2026 CB&C Construction Momentum Index
A four-part index of BLS employment data ranks the 56 largest US metros on where construction jobs are being added and where commercial building is growing.

Largest Construction Companies Market Share: Commercial Building Concentration vs Small Firms, 2022
Construction industry concentration measured four ways: Census concentration ratios, firm-size shares of jobs, payroll and receipts, receipts-size tiers and the self-employed, for commercial and institutional building (NAICS 236220) against other…

Construction Productivity Tracker: US Labor Productivity Since 1987, With 2025 Data
Annual tracker of output per hour in US construction, built from BLS and BEA data, comparing nonresidential and residential builders with manufacturing and the private economy.

Prevailing wage rates vs market wages: the 2026 CB&C Prevailing Wage Gap Index for 20 US metros
How current federal Davis-Bacon building rates for six trades compare with BLS May 2025 market wages in the principal county of 20 large metros, and why survey-based rates sit furthest…

Tariffs on Construction Materials in 2026: What Applies and How Prices Moved
A dated register of the 2025 to 2026 tariff actions that reach building inputs, matched month by month to BLS producer and import price data.

Electrician Shortage by State, 2026: Electricians per 1,000 Jobs, Contractor Growth and Pay
A 50-state atlas built from BLS OEWS May 2025, QCEW 2020 to 2026, BLS Employment Projections 2025 to 2035, DOL apprenticeship records and Census construction spending.

Commercial energy code by state: which ASHRAE 90.1 and IECC editions apply in 2026
A state-by-state registry of the commercial building energy code in force on 2026-10-07, checked against official state sources and the U.S. Department of Energy’s September 2026 status data.

Construction Apprenticeship Statistics: Apprentices by Trade, State and Completion, FY2025
How many registered apprentices train in U.S. construction, which trades and states have the most, how many finish, and how the pipeline compares with projected openings.

SBA Loans for Construction Companies: FY2025 Approvals by State, Program and Risk
A state atlas built from the SBA’s loan-level FOIA records, scaled by the number of construction establishments in each state.

Best Time of Year to Build: Monthly Workload Index for US Commercial Construction and State Seasonal Swing Ranking
A monthly index of private nonresidential spending and construction employment, a 51-state ranking of seasonal swing, and tests of how stable the pattern is.

Commercial building permits by city: counts, value and issuance times in 8 large US cities, 2025 to 2026
A side-by-side of eight city open-data permit files, using each city’s own commercial label, with every count reproducible from the published CSVs.

Mechanics lien laws by state: lien deadlines, preliminary notice and prompt pay rules for commercial subcontractors
A statute-by-statute registry of how long subcontractors have to lien private commercial projects, who must send notice first, and how fast they must be paid, checked against each state’s code…

Workers Comp Rates for Contractors by State: Premium Index and Construction Class Codes
A state atlas built on Oregon’s 2024 premium rate ranking and the 2026 class rate tables published in California, Florida, Ohio, North Dakota and Washington.

Immigrant construction workers vs U.S.-born workers: share, trades, states and pay
A side-by-side comparison built from the BLS Foreign-Born Workers release for 2025, the Census 2024 American Community Survey microdata and DOL H-2B records.

Construction Business Failure Rate: 1, 5 and 10-Year Survival in U.S. Data
Every construction establishment cohort opened since 1994, compared with 18 other private sectors and across three business cycles, from BLS Business Employment Dynamics and Census Business Dynamics Statistics.

Construction Union Membership Tracker 2025: Rate, Earnings and States
Annual tracker of the union membership rate, member count, union pay premium and state rates for U.S. construction workers, built from BLS and academic CPS data.

Age of Commercial Buildings in the United States: How Old Is the Stock?
A data answer built from the EIA Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) 2018, the latest release, with CB&C estimates of floor-space age, regional rankings and renovation coverage.

Women in Construction: Share, Jobs and Pay Compared With Men, 2005 to 2025
A side-by-side comparison of women and men in the U.S. construction industry built from BLS household-survey tables, Census business-owner data and Department of Labor apprenticeship records.

Data Center Construction Projects in the US: 44 Announcements Worth $735.9 Billion, Checked Against Census Spending
A sourced registry of every $1 billion-plus US data center announcement we could verify from January 2024 to October 2026, with state totals, project sizes and the official spending series…

Highest paying cities for construction workers: the 2025 CB&C Real Construction Pay Index
A seven-occupation construction pay index for the 56 US metros with more than 1 million residents, built from BLS May 2025 wages and BEA local price levels, with trade-by-trade rankings.
How we produce research
Reports are built from public datasets, mostly U.S. federal statistics, opened and checked at the time of writing. We list every source with its access date, flag limitations, and publish the calculations behind every derived figure. Research pages carry no advertising or sales content. Spot an error? Contact us and we will correct it and note the change.