Data centre spending is growing at a 217% annualised rate, and little else is

Total US construction spending fell 1.9% in September. Data centre spending rose 8.6% in the same month. That gap is the story of the market right now, and it came through clearly in the Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of Census Bureau figures published on 2 November.

The numbers

Nonresidential construction spending rose 0.6% in September to a seasonally adjusted annualised $1.325trn. Private nonresidential spending was up 1.1% and public spending dipped 0.1%. Only 8 of the 16 nonresidential categories grew on the month.

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Data centres did the heavy lifting. Spending in the category has grown at a 217% annualised rate since May, according to ABC. Take out data centres and the closely related power category, and ABC says nonresidential spending actually fell in September.

ENR's report on the same data adds the wider picture. Total construction spending was down 2.7% on a year earlier, dragged by residential, which fell 5.4% on the month and 8.8% on the year. The office category, which includes data centre work, rose 5% from August and 33.4% from September 2025.

"It's increasingly difficult to contextualize the speed of the data center boom" Anirban Basu, Chief Economist, ABC, quoted by ENR

Not only data centres

There is some breadth underneath. ConstructConnect chief economist Michael Guckes told ENR that military, hospital and clinic, and warehouse construction were each up 30% or more on a year earlier. Hospitals and military facilities are MEP-heavy buildings too, with complex mechanical, medical gas, power and life safety systems.

Who benefits

Basu's outlook is the part MEP firms should read twice. He expects momentum to stay narrowly focused on AI-related segments over the coming months, given higher treasury yields and rising materials prices, and he said current conditions "will continue to favor larger contractors who are far more likely to be involved" in data centre and power projects.

That lines up with what the big MEP contractors have been reporting. EMCOR's data centre remaining performance obligations more than doubled to $8.74bn at the end of September. Mid-size players are responding by buying capability: Limbach's latest results leaned on two acquisitions that bring data centre and electrical work.

For everyone else, the takeaway is that the work exists but is concentrated. Firms without a data centre, power or healthcare pipeline may find 2027 a tighter market than the headline nonresidential numbers suggest.

What it means for hiring

When growth is concentrated in one sector, so is hiring demand. In our view, MEP project managers, superintendents and commissioning agents with data centre or power experience will keep commanding a premium over generalists.
Healthcare and military projects growing 30% or more is a useful signal for MEP designers and contractors with hospital and medical gas experience, which we see as another hard-to-find specialism.
Contractors without mission-critical work may find experienced people coming to market as residential and some commercial work slows. That can be a good moment to hire.

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