Bridgit’s 2026 Construction Workforce Benchmark Report analyzed data from 233 companies and 114,000 people (including nearly 40% of the ENR 400). The findings? Top contractors plan 6.8 years ahead versus the industry average of 4.7. Median attrition sits just below 20%, creating a “treadmill effect” that forced 46% of firms to either contract or stay flat in 2025. The biggest differentiator between leaders and everyone else wasn’t lower turnover – it was proactive hiring and strategic workforce planning. And a new metric, the “rookie ratio,” is quietly becoming the way smart contractors balance team experience with talent development.
Construction’s labor shortage gets discussed constantly. In boardrooms, on panels, in podcast intros. Everybody agrees it’s a problem. Fewer people agree on what to actually do about it.
Bridgit’s 2026 Construction Workforce Benchmark Report cuts through the noise with something rare in this industry: real workforce data from real companies. We’re talking 233 contractors, 114,000 people tracked, and nearly 40% of the ENR 400 represented. The report doesn’t just confirm what most operators already feel. It quantifies the gap between contractors who are growing and the ones stuck running to stand still.
Three themes stand out. Growing sectors like data centers and industrial manufacturing demand fundamentally different team structures. Attrition is dragging growth more than most firms realize. And the contractors pulling ahead aren’t doing it with lower turnover – they’re doing it with better planning. If you’re responsible for workforce decisions at any level, this is the data you need to see.
Data Centers and Industrial Are Surging – and They Need Different Teams
Why project type should drive your workforce plan, not the other way around
The five-year project data in the report tells a clear story. Industrial and manufacturing work grew 68.1% year-over-year in 2025. Transportation and infrastructure climbed 45.2%. Data centers were up 41.7%. On the other end, hospitality grew just 0.5%, and education sat at 9.4%. The money is moving, and the workforce demands are moving with it.
What’s less obvious (and more useful) is how differently each project type loads a team. Solar projects carry the heaviest workforce requirement, with a median team size of 28.5 roles and a median duration of 28 months. Data centers need large teams too, but don’t necessarily run as long. Meanwhile, longer-duration projects like mixed-use and transportation don’t consistently need bigger headcounts. The implication is important: team size and project duration are distinct planning variables. Conflating them creates gaps in both hiring and forecasting strategy.
ENR Top 50 firms lean heavier into complex, regulated sectors. Their industrial/manufacturing share is 21.3% compared to 8.8% for everyone else, a 12.5 percentage point gap. Healthcare shows a similar pattern at 17.0% vs. 10.6%. These firms are staffing for complexity on purpose, not scrambling after the fact.
The Treadmill Effect: Why Nearly Half of Contractors Couldn’t Grow in 2025
A 20% attrition rate means hiring 125 people to add 100
Bridgit’s data puts median attrition just below 20% for 2025. That number sounds manageable until you do the math. A company trying to add 100 people to meet growth targets actually needs to hire 125 to account for turnover. At a 35% attrition rate, that number jumps to 154 hires. That’s the “treadmill effect” – working hard just to stay in place.
The result in 2025: 20% of companies contracted and 26% remained flat. Nearly half of all contractors in the dataset failed to achieve net headcount growth. For a sector with record demand in data centers, infrastructure, and industrial work, that’s a painful gap between opportunity and capacity.
Attrition isn’t an HR problem. It’s a growth problem. Every departure erodes bid capacity, strains project teams, and forces reactive hiring that costs more and delivers less. The companies treating attrition as an operations-level priority are the ones actually growing.
The surprising finding? ENR Top 50 firms face a similar attrition rate to the broader industry. Their median growth rate, though, was 3x higher. They didn’t solve turnover – they out-hired it through proactive workforce planning. That distinction matters. It suggests the competitive advantage isn’t about eliminating attrition but about planning around it aggressively enough to maintain forward momentum.
Superintendents and Project Managers: The Retention Problem Nobody’s Solved
Senior-level attrition is a quarter of their less-tenured counterparts
The report asked the obvious question: which roles matter most for project outcomes? Every contractor in the dataset pointed to two: site superintendents and project managers. Then it looked at what happens with those roles at different seniority levels – and the data is striking.
Senior superintendents and senior project managers have attrition rates of just 4.1% and 3.6% respectively, roughly a quarter of their non-senior counterparts (15.4% and 14.3%). But here’s the catch: growth for senior roles was flat at 0%, while non-senior supers and PMs grew at 7% and 4.8%. Senior people don’t move. You can’t hire your way into experienced superintendent bench strength. You have to build it internally.
Get smarter about workforce strategy
Join 2,500+ construction leaders getting the data that matters every week.
Join 2500+ ReadersMedian tenure for non-senior supers and PMs sits at 3.7 years. For senior supers it’s 7.0 years, for senior PMs it’s 5.6. Even ENR Top 50 companies haven’t cracked retention on these roles – their tenure numbers are comparable to the broader dataset. That creates a real opening. Any contractor that can keep supers and PMs past the 3.7-year industry average is building a competitive moat that even the biggest names in construction are still trying to figure out.
Compensation matters, but it’s not everything. The report notes that earlier-career superintendents and PMs actively evaluate employers based on whether the work will develop their portfolio – the project types, owners, and delivery methods that shape their reputation. If your workforce planning doesn’t consider past project experience alongside availability, you’re missing a retention lever that doesn’t cost a single dollar more in pay.
Two Metrics That Should Be in Every Workforce Plan
Commute distance and rookie ratios are where the data gets practical
Commute length is one of the most overlooked factors in superintendent retention. The report found it to be among the most significant liabilities for losing people prematurely, especially supers who have an outsize impact on project success. Being able to consistently offer shorter commutes than the industry average is a tangible recruiting and retention advantage – and it costs nothing to track.
Then there’s the “rookie ratio,” a metric gaining traction among more strategic contractors. It measures the proportion of team members with less than one year of company tenure versus everyone else. Across all companies, the average rookie ratio is 36.4%. It scales with team size: small teams (3-5 people) average 25.1%, while teams of 51+ people hit 56.2%. The smarter contractors don’t just track this number – they set targets for it.
- Balanced by design. Setting rookie ratio targets ensures newer team members are paired with experienced mentors, not thrown onto complex projects by default.
- Better bid strategy. Knowing whether a project can absorb a higher rookie ratio lets you match team composition to complexity – straightforward jobs develop newer staff while freeing veterans for demanding work.
- Connects people and performance. It’s one of the few metrics that ties bid strategy, project outcomes, and talent development into a single number.
ENR Top 50 vs. the Rest: How the Numbers Compare
| Metric | ENR Top 50 | All Others | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning horizon | 6.8 years | 4.7 years | +2.1 years |
| Median attrition rate | Similar (~20%) | ~20% | Comparable |
| Median growth rate | 3x higher | Baseline | Significant |
| Industrial/manufacturing share | 21.3% | 8.8% | +12.5 pp |
| Healthcare share | 17.0% | 10.6% | +6.4 pp |
| Transportation/infrastructure share | 7.7% | 2.1% | +5.6 pp |
Strategic workforce planning gives our clients confidence that we can provide the right people to build their projects.Peter Cotugno, Vice President of Operations, W.E. O’Neil Construction
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s an annual report from Bridgit analyzing anonymized, aggregated workforce data from 233 construction companies and 114,000 people worldwide. The dataset includes nearly 40% of the ENR 400 and covers trends in workforce planning, attrition, growth, and team composition. (Source)
The treadmill effect describes what happens when attrition outpaces or aligns with hiring. A company needs to run hard just to stay in place. For example, at a 20% attrition rate, a firm targeting 100 new hires actually needs to bring on 125 people to account for departures. At 35% attrition, that jumps to 154. Nearly 46% of contractors in the 2025 data either contracted or stayed flat due to this dynamic. (Source)
According to the report’s five-year project data, industrial/manufacturing led year-over-year growth in 2025 at +68.1%, followed by transportation/infrastructure at +45.2%, data centers at +41.7%, and commercial (general) at +41.4%. The slowest-growing sectors were hospitality (+0.5%) and education (+9.4%). (Source)
Non-senior superintendents and project managers have a median tenure of just 3.7 years, with attrition rates of 15.4% and 14.3% respectively. Senior-level counterparts barely move (3.6-4.1% attrition, 0% growth), which means you can’t reliably recruit experienced supers and PMs externally. Retention depends on offering career-developing project types, managing commute distances, and being intentional about workforce assignments. Even ENR Top 50 firms haven’t cracked this yet. (Source)
The rookie ratio measures the proportion of team members with less than one year of company tenure versus more experienced staff. The industry average is 36.4%. Strategic contractors use it as a planning tool: setting targets ensures teams are balanced by design, not accident. It connects bid strategy, project delivery, and talent development in one metric. Teams of 51+ people average a 56.2% rookie ratio, while smaller teams (3-5 people) sit at 25.1%. (Source)
The report found that ENR Top 50 firms face comparable attrition rates to the broader industry, but their median growth rate was 3x higher. The difference: proactive hiring and workforce planning. They plan 6.8 years ahead compared to 4.7 for the industry average. They concentrate portfolios in complex, regulated sectors. And they out-hire their turnover rather than trying to eliminate it. (Source)
Commute length is one of the most significant but overlooked factors in losing people early, especially for superintendents. The report includes commute distribution data showing that contractors who consistently assign shorter commutes than the industry average gain both a retention and recruitment advantage. It’s a lever that costs nothing to track and can meaningfully reduce preventable turnover. (Source)
Related Articles
How Fast Can You Really Build a Data Center? – Inside the operational playbook that Skanska uses to compress data center timelines, including how regional labor markets shape execution strategy.
A Venture Capitalist’s Hot Takes on Construction Tech – KP Reddy’s thesis on why PE-style rollups with embedded AI and workforce optimization may be the next chapter for contractor growth.
