WIL Federal Construction Awards · Research Brief · September 2026

Federal Construction Awards: North Carolina

Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in North Carolina, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026

998 federal construction contracts were awarded for performance in North Carolina between September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, carrying $1.63 billion in obligations to date — 1.8% of the national total and rank 12 of 49 states — led by the Department of Defense (55% of dollars).

Overview

This profile records the federal prime construction contracts awarded for performance in North Carolina — 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 — North Carolina vs. United States
GeographyNew awardsObligated to dateMedian awardShare of US dollars
North Carolina998$1,634,387,308$160,9841.8%
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

North Carolina · 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 903.1; Department of Veterans Affai 202; Department of Transportation 139.6; Department of Homeland Secur 130.8; Department of Agriculture 119; Department of Health and Hum 66.1, on a 0–1000 scale.02505007501000Department ofDefense903.1Department ofVeterans Affai202Department ofTransportation139.6Department ofHomeland Secur130.8Department ofAgriculture119Department ofHealth and Hum66.1

Source: USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), prime contract awards — construction NAICS 236/237/238, place of performance North Carolina, 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 — North Carolina
Awarding agencyAwardsObligated to dateShare
Department of Defense484$903,129,78055.3%
Department of Veterans Affairs95$202,000,65412.4%
Department of Transportation44$139,564,7818.5%
Department of Homeland Security92$130,784,9998.0%
Department of Agriculture101$118,957,7027.3%
Department of Health and Human Services28$66,106,8544.0%
Department of the Interior82$37,368,1842.3%
General Services Administration20$18,357,1991.1%
Department of Commerce4$7,849,4550.5%
Environmental Protection Agency11$4,518,4440.3%

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

Table 3. Awards by construction segment (NAICS) — North Carolina
SegmentAwardsObligated to dateShare
Construction of buildings (236)413$872,626,82953.4%
Heavy and civil engineering (237)185$550,785,05533.7%
Specialty trade contractors (238)400$210,975,42312.9%

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

Table 4. Awards by federal fiscal quarter of base obligation — North Carolina
Fiscal quarterAwardsObligated to date
FY2024 Q421$100,434,687
FY2025 Q165$81,877,009
FY2025 Q263$42,583,637
FY2025 Q3135$345,924,501
FY2025 Q4319$467,124,075
FY2026 Q143$131,830,902
FY2026 Q271$124,272,114
FY2026 Q3141$220,015,033
FY2026 Q4140$120,325,350

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 — North Carolina
RecipientAwarding agencyNAICSObligated to dateBase obligation date
Walsh Federal LLCDepartment of Defense236220$58,007,4932025-05-01
Environmental Chemical CorporationDepartment of Health and Human Services236220$47,327,1912024-09-29
Acc Construction CO., INC.Department of Defense236220$43,131,5142025-04-03
Weeks Marine, INC.Department of Defense237990$33,649,3902025-08-06
Rq Construction, LLCDepartment of Homeland Security236220$33,435,6892025-08-11
Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, TheDepartment of Homeland Security236220$32,486,8142026-04-14
Eclipse Companies, LLCDepartment of Transportation237310$29,755,7682025-12-17
Norfolk Dredging CompanyDepartment of Defense237990$28,119,2002025-05-15
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock CO, LLCDepartment of Defense237990$26,950,1872025-08-25
Norfolk Dredging CompanyDepartment of Defense237990$26,049,2802025-05-08

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

North Carolina received 998 new federal construction awards in the window, carrying $1.63 billion obligated to date — 1.8% of the $90.72 billion national total across 38,650 awards, ranking 12 of 49 states. The Department of Defense is the largest awarding agency by dollars ($903.1 million, 55%), followed by the Department of Veterans Affairs ($202.0 million). By segment, construction of buildings leads at 53% of dollars. Award size is skewed: the median award is $160,984, while the ten largest awards carry 22% of the state's total; the single largest is $58.0 million to Walsh Federal LLC from the Department of Defense. 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 North Carolina. 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 — North Carolina

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

Workforce exposure
Moderate
Exposure movement
expanding
Wage position
modestly below national medians
Federal-award momentum
Low · 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: North Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in North Carolina, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026 (Publication No. WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NC, Version 1.0). WIL Federal Construction Awards.

Version 1.0 · Published 2026-10-13T19:00:00Z · Permanent ID WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NC. This record is versioned; the URL is permanent and stable for citation.

Export citation (BibTeX · RIS)
BibTeX
@techreport{WILRB20263FCASTNC,
  title       = {Federal Construction Awards: North Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in North Carolina, 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-NC},
  year        = {2026},
  note        = {Version 1.0; methodology WIL-FCA-1.0},
  url         = {https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-north-carolina},
}
RIS
TY  - RPRT
AU  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
TI  - Federal Construction Awards: North Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in North Carolina, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026
PY  - 2026
PB  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
M1  - WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-NC
ET  - Version 1.0
UR  - https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-north-carolina
AB  - A public-record profile of federal prime construction contracts (NAICS 236, 237, and 238; contract types A–D) awarded for performance in North Carolina in the two-year window September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, drawn from USAspending. 998 new awards carrying $1.63 billion obligated to date, ranking North Carolina 12 of 49 states by dollars. The Department of Defense accounts for 55% of dollars; construction of buildings is the largest NAICS segment at 53%. The ten largest awards carry 22% of the state's total. This is an observed record of awards, not a forecast of spending or a measure of workforce demand.
ER  -