Contractor backlogs grew in September even as the people holding those backlogs got more nervous about what they'll earn on them.
That's the finding from the Associated Builders and Contractors' Construction Backlog Indicator, the industry's monthly gut-check on how many months of work the average commercial contractor has lined up. Backlog climbed, but ABC's companion Construction Confidence Index — contractors' own forecast of their sales, profit margins, and staffing over the next six months — slipped on the profit-margin component specifically. Contractors are booking more work and feeling worse about what they'll keep from it.
For a New York GC or sub, that gap is the story, not the backlog number by itself. A fuller pipeline sounds like good news until you remember what fills it: material costs that haven't settled, labor that's still tight in every trade from electrical to drywall, and owners who've gotten better at writing contracts that push risk downstream. A contractor can be busier in October 2026 and still be pricing jobs tighter than they did a year ago, because competition for that backlog hasn't eased even though the backlog itself has grown.
The practical read for an estimator bidding New York public or private work this fall: don't let a stacked pipeline talk you into shaving contingency. The same survey that shows more work on the books shows the people doing that work expect thinner margins on it. If ABC's own members — a national sample skewed toward commercial and industrial GCs — are flagging margin pressure while backlog rises, a New York sub pricing against five or six other bidders on a public job should treat that as confirmation, not a surprise. The market wants more buildings built for the same money, and that math eventually shows up in change-order fights.
First reported by Construction Dive, drawing on ABC's Construction Backlog Indicator and Construction Confidence Index survey data for September 2026.