Construction industry leaders remained optimistic in April, according to Associated Builders and Contractors.
All three components of ABC’s Construction Confidence Index rose for the month and were up year over year.
In April, ABC’s Construction Confidence Index increased from 64.3 to 65.5 for staffing levels; from 53.6 to 54.9 for profit margin expectations; and from 64.7 to 66.2 for sales expectations.
Additionally, ABC’s Construction Backlog Indicator rose from 8.6 months in March to 8.8 months in April and was up 0.1 months compared with April 2025.
“While backlog surged to a 10-month high in April, the industry’s recent momentum is highly concentrated among a subset of contractors,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Booming data center construction has almost exclusively benefited the largest ABC members; 42% of contractors with more than $100 million in annual revenues are under contract to work on data center projects. The same is true for just 7% of contractors with less than $100 million in annual revenues. Critically, contractors under contract to work on data centers have significantly longer backlog (12.2 months) than those that are not (8.3 months).
“Despite diverging levels of backlog, ABC contractor members of all sizes remain confident about the outlook,” Basu continued. “Just 1 in 5 expect their profit margins to shrink over the next six months, the fewest since January 2025, and contractors are similarly upbeat about their sales and staffing levels. The upshot is that weak construction spending data, the recent rise in oil prices and emerging materials price escalation have not diminished ABC member confidence.”
