Turner Construction’s Building Cost Index rose to 1552 in the second quarter of 2026, up 1.44% from the first quarter and up 5.15% from the second quarter of 2025, according to the company’s July 24 insights report. Turner has compiled the index, which tracks nationwide labor rates, material prices and marketplace competition, for more than 80 years.
Attilio Rivetti, the Turner vice president responsible for the index, said demand remains strongest in data centers, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and mission-critical facilities, particularly in the Midwest and Southeast. Those sectors continue to outpace more traditional commercial construction categories, a pattern that has held for several consecutive quarters as AI-driven infrastructure buildout keeps pulling contractor capacity and materials toward large-scale technical facilities.
Rivetti flagged persistent constraints in skilled mechanical and electrical labor availability as a key bottleneck across the industry, a shortage that tends to hit specialized projects like data centers and manufacturing plants hardest given their heavy reliance on electrical and mechanical systems work. He said owners and contractors will be watching material costs, tariff policy and supply-chain conditions closely in the coming quarters, and stressed the need for disciplined planning and early procurement strategies to manage those risks.
The 5.15% year-over-year increase in Turner’s index outpaces general consumer inflation and reflects a construction market where demand for technically complex, capital-intensive projects continues to run well ahead of the broader building sector. That divergence mirrors the pattern in Turner’s own project pipeline, where the company has taken on a wave of large data center assignments this year for major technology tenants.
The Turner index adds a contractor’s-eye view to a broader run of construction data pointing toward a bifurcated market. Data center projects like Google’s 8 million-square-foot campus in Columbia County, Georgia, and a planned 1.25-gigawatt campus in Lovejoy, Georgia, illustrate the scale of technical-facility construction now competing for skilled labor and materials alongside more conventional commercial building activity.
What it means: The index figures and quoted commentary are Turner’s own verified data and statements, based on the company’s national project experience. The characterization of labor and supply-chain conditions as ongoing risks is the company’s own forward-looking assessment, offered from its vantage point as a major general contractor, rather than an independently modeled forecast β a distinction relevant to anyone using the index to plan future project budgets.
