WIL Federal Construction Awards · Research Brief · September 2026

Federal Construction Awards: South Carolina

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

687 federal construction contracts were awarded for performance in South Carolina between September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, carrying $1.50 billion in obligations to date — 1.6% of the national total and rank 14 of 49 states — led by the Department of Defense (52% of dollars).

Overview

This profile records the federal prime construction contracts awarded for performance in South 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 — South Carolina vs. United States
GeographyNew awardsObligated to dateMedian awardShare of US dollars
South Carolina687$1,496,041,449$140,2001.6%
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

South 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 778.4; Department of Homeland Secur 471; Department of Transportation 121; Department of Veterans Affai 51.3; Department of the Interior 22.1; Department of State 15.3, on a 0–800 scale.0200400600800Department ofDefense778.4Department ofHomeland Secur471Department ofTransportation121Department ofVeterans Affai51.3Department of theInterior22.1Department ofState15.3

Source: USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), prime contract awards — construction NAICS 236/237/238, place of performance South 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 — South Carolina
Awarding agencyAwardsObligated to dateShare
Department of Defense413$778,375,11952.0%
Department of Homeland Security75$471,001,73931.5%
Department of Transportation11$120,960,7988.1%
Department of Veterans Affairs70$51,265,4913.4%
Department of the Interior20$22,135,2331.5%
Department of State7$15,323,4781.0%
Department of Agriculture32$10,777,8110.7%
Department of Justice19$10,578,0460.7%
General Services Administration23$10,443,8570.7%
Department of Commerce14$5,142,1500.3%

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

Table 3. Awards by construction segment (NAICS) — South Carolina
SegmentAwardsObligated to dateShare
Construction of buildings (236)385$1,161,691,91677.7%
Heavy and civil engineering (237)79$278,160,48918.6%
Specialty trade contractors (238)223$56,189,0443.8%

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

Table 4. Awards by federal fiscal quarter of base obligation — South Carolina
Fiscal quarterAwardsObligated to date
FY2024 Q411$3,291,711
FY2025 Q133$96,969,999
FY2025 Q247$51,697,490
FY2025 Q388$118,671,646
FY2025 Q4233$212,448,748
FY2026 Q128$22,046,667
FY2026 Q282$210,431,478
FY2026 Q398$669,268,219
FY2026 Q467$111,215,491

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 — South Carolina
RecipientAwarding agencyNAICSObligated to dateBase obligation date
Brasfield & Gorrie LLCDepartment of Homeland Security236220$230,000,0002026-06-16
Bl Harbert International LLCDepartment of Defense236220$156,104,6872026-05-29
Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, TheDepartment of Homeland Security236220$116,740,4502026-03-06
Brasfield & Gorrie LLCDepartment of Homeland Security236220$101,543,5822026-04-07
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock CO, LLCDepartment of Defense237990$75,353,5712024-12-12
Bl Harbert International LLCDepartment of Defense236220$70,320,6882026-05-19
Walsh Federal LLCDepartment of Transportation236220$60,723,0942025-04-07
Brasfield & Gorrie LLCDepartment of Transportation236220$56,086,0402026-08-27
Kiewit Infrastructure South CODepartment of Defense237310$36,037,4002026-05-04
Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, TheDepartment of Defense236220$32,402,0482026-03-31

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

South Carolina received 687 new federal construction awards in the window, carrying $1.50 billion obligated to date — 1.6% of the $90.72 billion national total across 38,650 awards, ranking 14 of 49 states. The Department of Defense is the largest awarding agency by dollars ($778.4 million, 52%), followed by the Department of Homeland Security ($471.0 million). By segment, construction of buildings leads at 78% of dollars. Award size is skewed: the median award is $140,200, while the ten largest awards carry 63% of the state's total; the single largest is $230.0 million to Brasfield & Gorrie LLC 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 South 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 — South Carolina

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

Workforce exposure
Moderate
Exposure movement
accelerating
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: South Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in South Carolina, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026 (Publication No. WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-SC, Version 1.0). WIL Federal Construction Awards.

Version 1.0 · Published 2026-10-14T19:00:00Z · Permanent ID WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-SC. This record is versioned; the URL is permanent and stable for citation.

Export citation (BibTeX · RIS)
BibTeX
@techreport{WILRB20263FCASTSC,
  title       = {Federal Construction Awards: South Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in South 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-SC},
  year        = {2026},
  note        = {Version 1.0; methodology WIL-FCA-1.0},
  url         = {https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-south-carolina},
}
RIS
TY  - RPRT
AU  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
TI  - Federal Construction Awards: South Carolina: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in South Carolina, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026
PY  - 2026
PB  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
M1  - WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-SC
ET  - Version 1.0
UR  - https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-south-carolina
AB  - A public-record profile of federal prime construction contracts (NAICS 236, 237, and 238; contract types A–D) awarded for performance in South Carolina in the two-year window September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, drawn from USAspending. 687 new awards carrying $1.50 billion obligated to date, ranking South Carolina 14 of 49 states by dollars. The Department of Defense accounts for 52% of dollars; construction of buildings is the largest NAICS segment at 78%. The ten largest awards carry 63% of the state's total. This is an observed record of awards, not a forecast of spending or a measure of workforce demand.
ER  -