Backlog · Nonresidential construction · Data centers
ABC’s Construction Backlog Indicator fell to 8.1 months in October as backlog for contractors without data center work dropped to 7.6
Backlog slipped 0.6 months in October, the largest drop since July. This month ABC split the figure by data center work, and the split shows where the drop came from: the 88% of contractors with no data center contracts fell to 7.6 months, while those with data center work rose to 11.5.
- Backlog, October 2026
- 8.1months
- From September
- −0.6September: 8.7, not revised
- From October 2025
- −0.3October 2025: 8.4
- Lower readings in 25 months
- 2January and July 2026, both 8.0
Construction Backlog Indicator, months of work under contract as a share of prior-year revenue, ABC member survey, October 2026 against September 2026. Bars are October. Green rose from September, red fell. The data center split appears in the release text only. Source: Associated Builders and Contractors, November 10 release
Associated Builders and Contractors reported on November 10 that its Construction Backlog Indicator fell to 8.1 months in October 2026. That is 0.6 months below September’s 8.7 and 0.3 months below October 2025. The indicator measures work under contract but not yet performed, expressed as months of a firm’s prior-year revenue, and it comes from a survey of ABC member firms in commercial, industrial and infrastructure construction. ABC ran the October survey from October 20 to November 3.
The 0.6-month drop is the largest since July, when the reading fell 0.8. Over the past 12 months the indicator has averaged 8.4 months, and in the last 25 months only January and July 2026, both at 8.0, came in lower.
The national series
Backlog fell to 8.1 months after two monthly gains
ABC Construction Backlog Indicator, months of work under contract, October 2024 to October 2026. The scale starts at 7.5 months. Each dot is colored by its change from the month before: green rose, red fell, gray unchanged. The dashed line is the average of the last 12 months, 8.4. Member survey. ABC’s methodology note does not describe a seasonal adjustment. Source: ABC CCI and CBI time series, November 4, 2026 workbook
What moved
The 88% of contractors with no data center work fell to 7.6 months from 8.3
This month ABC split the national figure by whether a contractor has data center work. ABC chief economist Anirban Basu said the decline came mostly from the 88% of contractors with no data center contracts, whose backlog fell to 7.6 months from 8.3. Contractors with data center work rose to 11.5 months from 11.3, and Basu said most of them have more than $100 million in annual revenue.
“Backlog fell sharply in October, returning to levels not consistently observed since last winter.”
On average, then, members without a data center job carry 3.9 fewer months of work than members with one.
Segments, regions and firm size
Heavy industrial rose 2.0 months to 10.1 while commercial and institutional fell a full month to 8.0
The segment rows in ABC’s workbook show where the drop landed. Commercial and institutional backlog fell a full month to 8.0, tying July for the segment’s lowest reading of 2026. ABC’s methodology note puts data centers in that segment, along with offices, schools, hospitals, multifamily and warehouses. Infrastructure fell to 8.7 months, which ABC says is the lowest since May 2025. Heavy industrial went the other way, rising 2.0 months to 10.1, a 15-month high by ABC’s count.
Backlog in months by segment, region and firm revenue, October 2026, with September 2026 as the dashed outline. Segments and regions are sorted by October backlog, revenue bands by size. All rows share one scale. Subgroups rest on fewer responses than the national figure. Source: ABC CCI and CBI time series, November 4, 2026 workbook
Three of the four regions fell. The West dropped 1.5 months to 6.6, matching February for its lowest reading this year, and the Northeast fell to 7.5 from 8.5. The South slipped 0.2 months to 10.1, still the highest of the four. The Middle States, ABC’s 12-state block from Ohio and Michigan west to the Dakotas and Kansas, recovered to 7.8 after September’s 6.7.
The revenue bands moved in large, opposite steps. The $50 million to $100 million band fell 2.1 months to 9.2, and the $30 million to $50 million band rose 2.8 months to the same 9.2, undoing most of its September drop. The $100 million-plus band slipped to 11.6 from 11.8.
That last figure sits a little oddly next to Basu’s account, since he describes the data center group as mostly large firms and that group gained. Both can hold if large firms without data center work lost enough backlog to offset the gain. The release does not break the top revenue band down further, so the data cannot settle it.
Confidence
Margin expectations rose to 53.3 while sales and staffing slipped
The Construction Confidence Index comes from the same survey. It is a diffusion index, meaning a reading above 50 says more firms expect growth than decline over the next six months. Profit margins rose to 53.3 from 52.0, the highest since March. Sales fell to 59.9 from 60.1 and staffing to 59.4 from 60.7, both the lowest since November 2025.
ABC Construction Confidence Index, six-month outlook, October 2024 to October 2026, all three panels on one scale. The heavier line is 50, where as many firms expect a decline as a rise. Source: ABC CCI and CBI time series, November 4, 2026 workbook
Expectations
23.6% of contractors expect profit margins to shrink over the next six months
Basu called the margin reading encouraging given recent increases in materials prices and borrowing costs, and added that roughly 1 in 4 contractors still expect margins to shrink. In the workbook that share is 23.6%, with 20.0% expecting margins to fall a little and 3.6% a lot. On sales, 5.1% of respondents expect a large decline over the next six months, the highest share since June 2023.
- Down a lot
- Down a little
- No change
- Up a little
- Up a lot
Share of respondents by expected change over the next six months, October 2026 survey. Source: ABC CCI and CBI time series, November 4, 2026 workbook
How to use this number
A firm with $36 million of signed work on $60 million of revenue carries 7.2 months
ABC computes each firm’s figure as current backlog dollars divided by prior fiscal-year revenue, times 12. You can run the same arithmetic on your own books:
- Take signed backlog from your work-in-progress schedule at the end of October.
- Divide by last fiscal year’s revenue and multiply by 12.
- Compare the result with the national 8.1, the 7.6 for contractors without data center work, and the rows in the segment table that match your market, region and size.
=36/60*127.2As an example with round numbers, a firm with $60 million in prior-year revenue and $36 million of signed, unbilled work has 36 divided by 60, times 12, or 7.2 months. That is 0.9 months below the national figure but only 0.4 months below members without data center work. If the firm has no data center contracts, the 7.6 is the closer benchmark. The site’s post on computing backlog in months walks through the calculation in more detail.
Months of backlog. The example firm uses round numbers from the article. The benchmarks are ABC’s October 2026 figures. Source: Associated Builders and Contractors
The second use is tracking the split over time. The data center figures appear in the release text and are not a column in ABC’s workbook, so you would need to record them from each monthly release. Put your own monthly figure next to the no-data-center line in the same sheet or Power BI table you use for WIP. A gap between the two that persists for several months is a reason to check your own pipeline, starting with bid volume and hit rate.
Revisions and caveats
September’s 8.7 carried into the November 4 workbook unrevised
September’s 8.7 was not revised. ABC reported 8.7 in its October 13 release, and the November 4 workbook carries the same figure. The workbook replaces the full history each month, so earlier months could change without a mention in the release text.
The indicator is a member survey, and the number of responding firms is not in the release or the methodology note. Subgroups such as a single region or revenue band rest on fewer responses than the national figure, which may explain one-month swings like the 2.8-month rise in the $30 million to $50 million band. The data center split also appears only in the release text, so its history cannot be checked against the workbook. In September Basu put the share of members with data center work at 15%. The October release’s 88% without it implies about 12%, and neither release says whether the difference comes from the sample or from firms finishing or starting data center jobs.
ABC’s methodology note says the backlog figure covers the previous month’s work under contract, based on the latest financials each firm has. ABC revised the reference months for the whole series in May 2020 to better match the survey period. The note does not describe a seasonal adjustment. (Last year the indicator also slipped in October and fell again in November.) The year-over-year comparison avoids that issue, and on that basis backlog is down 0.3 months.
The data
Backlog fell 0.6 months in October, the largest drop since July’s 0.8
| Month | Backlog | Prior month | Year earlier | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2025 | 8.4 | −0.1 | 0.0 | |||
| Nov 2025 | 8.1 | −0.3 | −0.3 | |||
| Dec 2025 | 8.2 | +0.1 | −0.1 | |||
| Jan 2026 | 8.0 | −0.2 | −0.4 | |||
| Feb 2026 | 8.1 | +0.1 | −0.2 | |||
| Mar 2026 | 8.6 | +0.5 | +0.1 | |||
| Apr 2026 | 8.8 | +0.2 | +0.1 | |||
| May 2026 | 9.1 | +0.3 | +0.7 | |||
| Jun 2026 | 8.8 | −0.3 | +0.1 | |||
| Jul 2026 | 8.0 | −0.8 | −0.8 | |||
| Aug 2026 | 8.5 | +0.5 | 0.0 | |||
| Sep 2026 | 8.7 | +0.2 | +0.2 | |||
| Oct 2026 | 8.1 | −0.6 | −0.3 | |||
| Group | Oct 2025 | Sep 2026 | Oct 2026 | From Sep | From Oct 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market segment | |||||
| Commercial and institutional | 8.5 | 9.0 | 8.0 | −1.0 | −0.5 |
| Heavy industrial | 8.8 | 8.1 | 10.1 | +2.0 | +1.3 |
| Infrastructure | 9.8 | 9.4 | 8.7 | −0.7 | −1.1 |
| Region | |||||
| Middle States | 8.1 | 6.7 | 7.8 | +1.1 | −0.3 |
| Northeast | 7.7 | 8.5 | 7.5 | −1.0 | −0.2 |
| South | 9.6 | 10.3 | 10.1 | −0.2 | +0.5 |
| West | 8.1 | 8.1 | 6.6 | −1.5 | −1.5 |
| Firm revenue | |||||
| Under $30 million | 7.3 | 7.7 | 7.1 | −0.6 | −0.2 |
| $30 million to $50 million | 9.4 | 6.4 | 9.2 | +2.8 | −0.2 |
| $50 million to $100 million | 10.4 | 11.3 | 9.2 | −2.1 | −1.2 |
| $100 million or more | 12.2 | 11.8 | 11.6 | −0.2 | −0.6 |
Download the data: table.csv, segments.csv. Data center split: datacenter.csv. Confidence index: confidence.csv. Expectations: expectations.csv. 25-month series: data.csv. Source: ABC CCI and CBI time series, November 4, 2026 workbook