Closing thoughts on the 2026 economy

By Emma Peterson.

FMI’s "Q4 North American Engineering and Construction Outlook" gives contractors valuable information about the current market.

Over the course of 2026, FMI Consulting has released quarterly reports on the state of the engineering and construction industries. These reports help industry experts track market growths and falls, as well as make future-facing predictions that can help professionals run successful businesses. Recently, FMI released their final report of 2026, the "Q4 North American Engineering and Construction Outlook."

The authors

This edition of the report is authored by Jay Bowman, Jacob McCann and Brian Strawberry. Jay joined FMI back in 1998 and is currently a partner. He leads the company’s Vertical AEC practice, which sees him “advising contractors and industry leaders on strategy and growth across North America and abroad.”

As for Jacob, he is one of FMI’s senior economists. Specifically, Jacob’s role puts him in charge of “estimating and forecasting market sizes for construction industry products, geographies and services.” And last but not least, Brian is the chief economist at FMI, meaning he leads the company's efforts in relation to forecasting, pricing and trend establishment. His day-to-day work is focused on “primary research methods, including the implementation and analysis of surveys and interviews,” as well as managing “various external market research engagements, tools and models for efficiently performing high-quality analyses.”

The insights

In the Q4 report, Jay, Jacob and Brian share forecasts for 19 different construction segments in the U.S. through 2030. The Q4 outlook shows that residential spending, single-family spending and multifamily spending are all falling by 5.9%, 5.8% and 1.4%, respectively. Other segments that are down in spending include manufacturing, traditional office spending and general construction spending.

As for segments on the rise, the Census Bureau’s new data center line hit a $75 billion annual pace earlier this year and in Q4 it is predicted to continue to rise 13.7%. Power is another growing segment as we head into 2027. The report found that power spending grew 4.9% year and predicts 8.1% growth next year.

Want more insights like these? Download the full Outlook for more segment forecasts as well as contractor sentiment scores, metro projections and more.