WIL Federal Construction Awards · Research Brief · September 2026

Federal Construction Awards: New Jersey

Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in New Jersey, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026

861 federal construction contracts were awarded for performance in New Jersey between September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, carrying $1.17 billion in obligations to date — 1.3% of the national total and rank 17 of 49 states — led by the Department of Defense (45% of dollars).

Overview

This profile records the federal prime construction contracts awarded for performance in New Jersey — every contract of types A through D (definitive contracts, purchase orders, delivery orders, and BPA calls) coded to a construction NAICS (236 buildings, 237 heavy and civil engineering, 238 specialty trades) with a base obligation date between September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026. Dollar figures are the obligation to date on each award as published by USAspending at the time of the pull, not the ceiling value and not spending within the window. The measure is therefore "awards made in the window and what they have obligated so far"; it is not total federal construction spending in the state, which also includes obligations on awards made earlier. Sub-awards, grants, and state or local contracts are outside scope. This is a public-data profile: it describes where federal construction dollars were awarded, and makes no claim about labor availability, hiring conditions, or the workforce a project will require.

Table 1. Federal construction awards made in the window — New Jersey vs. United States
GeographyNew awardsObligated to dateMedian awardShare of US dollars
New Jersey861$1,166,055,734$74,8141.3%
United States (49 states + DC)38,650$90,724,163,991$100,841100%

Awards with a base obligation date in the window; dollars are obligations to date as of 2026-09-29. Alaska and Hawaii are not in the Lab's warehouse coverage and are excluded from the national figure. — Sources: USAspending

New Jersey · USAspending, 2024-09-29 to 2026-09-29
Obligated dollars by awarding agency
US dollars, millions. Six largest awarding agencies. Observed award records — not a spending forecast.

Scroll horizontally to read the full chart →

Obligated dollars by awarding agencyBar chart: Department of Defense 529.4; Department of Homeland Secur 436.6; Department of Veterans Affai 78.5; Department of Transportation 48.1; Department of Justice 37.6; Department of the Interior 24, on a 0–600 scale.0150300450600Department ofDefense529.4Department ofHomeland Secur436.6Department ofVeterans Affai78.5Department ofTransportation48.1Department ofJustice37.6Department of theInterior24

Source: USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), prime contract awards — construction NAICS 236/237/238, place of performance New Jersey, 2024-09-29 to 2026-09-29 · Methodology WIL-FCA-1.0 · Public federal award records. Dollar values are obligations to date on each award at the pull date; they are not contract ceilings and not spending within the window.

Table 2. Awards by awarding agency — New Jersey
Awarding agencyAwardsObligated to dateShare
Department of Defense564$529,392,28945.4%
Department of Homeland Security52$436,640,93537.4%
Department of Veterans Affairs57$78,459,0246.7%
Department of Transportation63$48,143,9064.1%
Department of Justice48$37,628,6073.2%
Department of the Interior40$24,007,6112.1%
General Services Administration22$8,585,3010.7%
Department of State3$1,907,6980.2%
Department of Commerce7$665,0920.1%
Department of Agriculture2$522,0580.0%

Ten largest agencies by dollars. Agency is the awarding agency as recorded by USAspending. — Sources: USAspending

Table 3. Awards by construction segment (NAICS) — New Jersey
SegmentAwardsObligated to dateShare
Construction of buildings (236)365$639,524,14054.8%
Heavy and civil engineering (237)131$418,780,45635.9%
Specialty trade contractors (238)365$107,751,1389.2%

Segment from the award's primary NAICS code. — Sources: USAspending

Table 4. Awards by federal fiscal quarter of base obligation — New Jersey
Fiscal quarterAwardsObligated to date
FY2024 Q416$1,302,405
FY2025 Q152$156,599,141
FY2025 Q288$32,191,015
FY2025 Q399$61,820,592
FY2025 Q4276$221,496,977
FY2026 Q134$9,455,723
FY2026 Q288$32,218,544
FY2026 Q3131$590,229,441
FY2026 Q477$60,741,897

Federal fiscal year begins October 1. The first and last quarters shown are partial where the window boundary falls inside them. — Sources: USAspending

Table 5. Ten largest awards by obligation to date — New Jersey
RecipientAwarding agencyNAICSObligated to dateBase obligation date
Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, TheDepartment of Homeland Security236220$400,034,5172026-04-29
Donjon Marine CO., LLCDepartment of Defense237990$82,097,8902025-08-01
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock CO, LLCDepartment of Defense237990$75,050,8962024-10-16
Anselmi & De Cicco, INC.Department of Defense237990$69,773,7322024-11-21
Niram INCDepartment of Veterans Affairs236220$43,337,0002026-06-11
Scalfo Electric INC.Department of Transportation237130$26,077,0032025-09-22
Norfolk Dredging CompanyDepartment of Defense237990$21,679,1262026-04-29
Seneca Federal Solutions, LLCDepartment of Justice238160$21,184,7832026-09-17
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock CO, LLCDepartment of Defense237990$19,493,9712026-05-29
Union Paving & Construction CODepartment of Defense237990$17,154,7002026-04-15

Recipient names as registered with the federal government (case normalized for display); each award is a public record on USAspending.gov. — Sources: USAspending

What the record shows

New Jersey received 861 new federal construction awards in the window, carrying $1.17 billion obligated to date — 1.3% of the $90.72 billion national total across 38,650 awards, ranking 17 of 49 states. The Department of Defense is the largest awarding agency by dollars ($529.4 million, 45%), followed by the Department of Homeland Security ($436.6 million). By segment, construction of buildings leads at 55% of dollars. Award size is skewed: the median award is $74,814, while the ten largest awards carry 67% of the state's total; the single largest is $400.0 million to Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, The from the Department of Homeland Security. These are observed award records; nothing here measures how hard the work will be to staff.

Method and limitations

Source: USAspending.gov, spending_by_award search API, pulled 2026-09-29 with date_type new_awards_only over the window 2024-09-29 to 2026-09-29; filters: award types A, B, C, D; NAICS 236xxx, 237xxx, 238xxx (31 six-digit codes); place of performance in New Jersey. Every page of results was retrieved (no result cap), and the rows are archived in the Lab's governed warehouse (workforce_intel.federal_construction_awards, source USASPENDING_FULL). Limitations: obligation-to-date values change as agencies modify awards, so figures are as of the pull date; place of performance is the primary location USAspending records and may differ from where work is physically performed for multi-site contracts; agency attribution follows the awarding (not funding) agency; recipient names are as registered in SAM. Fiscal quarters follow the federal fiscal year. This profile asserts where awards were made and their obligated value only — not workforce availability, not hiring conditions, not project outcomes.

State workforce context — New Jersey

A live public-signal read for New Jersey from the Lab's standing trackers — banded and directional, refreshed independently of this brief.

Workforce exposure
Moderate
Exposure movement
stable
Wage position
material premium over national medians
Federal-award momentum
Moderate · softening

Source: Workforce Exposure Index and federal-award momentum — public_reports (banded). Directional, banded read — not a forecast. Methodology v2 · last updated 2026-05-26. See Live metrics for the full charts.

Suggested citationAlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab. (2026). Federal Construction Awards: New Jersey: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in New Jersey, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026 (Publication No. WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NJ, Version 1.0). WIL Federal Construction Awards.

Version 1.0 · Published 2026-10-16T17:00:00Z · Permanent ID WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NJ. This record is versioned; the URL is permanent and stable for citation.

Export citation (BibTeX · RIS)
BibTeX
@techreport{WILRB20263FCASTNJ,
  title       = {Federal Construction Awards: New Jersey: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in New Jersey, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026},
  author      = {AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab},
  institution = {AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab},
  type        = {WIL Federal Construction Awards},
  number      = {WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NJ},
  year        = {2026},
  note        = {Version 1.0; methodology WIL-FCA-1.0},
  url         = {https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-new-jersey},
}
RIS
TY  - RPRT
AU  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
TI  - Federal Construction Awards: New Jersey: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in New Jersey, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026
PY  - 2026
PB  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
M1  - WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NJ
ET  - Version 1.0
UR  - https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-new-jersey
AB  - A public-record profile of federal prime construction contracts (NAICS 236, 237, and 238; contract types A–D) awarded for performance in New Jersey in the two-year window September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, drawn from USAspending. 861 new awards carrying $1.17 billion obligated to date, ranking New Jersey 17 of 49 states by dollars. The Department of Defense accounts for 45% of dollars; construction of buildings is the largest NAICS segment at 55%. The ten largest awards carry 67% of the state's total. This is an observed record of awards, not a forecast of spending or a measure of workforce demand.
ER  -