Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Industrial Building Construction Revenue Benchmark
General contractors building factories, plants, warehouses and other industrial structures.
Average Industrial Building Construction Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every industrial building contractor with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing one by the other gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment below.
≈$11,586,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
3,125
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $36.2 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $36.2 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,125 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $11,586,000 per employer establishment. A contractor books the whole contract value as revenue, including work performed by subcontractors, which lifts this figure above what the firm itself performs.
Scope: Industrial Building Construction, NAICS 236210. Classified separately in group 2362: 236220 Commercial and Institutional Building Construction. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026
Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group
Nonresidential building construction, NAICS 2362, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.
58.0%the year-five count as a share of the starting count
Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 53.8 to 60.1 percent. This benchmark covers Nonresidential building construction, NAICS 2362, as a whole, and this category accounts for 3,125 of the 43,965 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈17% |
Payroll share of receipts, Industrial Building Construction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 17.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Subcontractor payments are not payroll, so a firm that subcontracts heavily shows a small share against a large contract value.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes, payments to subcontractors and owner compensation, and the census ratio cannot show how much of a project a firm self-performs.
Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data
How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 24.7 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.05 |
Scale and ownership, Industrial Building Construction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 24.7 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm.
These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.
Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis
Industrial Building Construction: what to verify before relying on this.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- How specialized is the plant work? Industrial projects often demand process knowledge and certifications that a commercial builder does not carry, which narrows the field of competitors and changes pricing.
- How concentrated is the client list? A single manufacturer expanding a plant can dominate a contractor's year, and the census figure will not show that dependence.
- What is the shutdown exposure? Work performed during a plant shutdown is priced and scheduled differently from greenfield construction, and delays can create significant contractual or commercial exposure.
- How much equipment does the firm own? Heavy lifting and rigging capacity is capital that sits outside payroll entirely, and owning it rather than hiring it changes the whole cost structure.
- What is the safety record? Industrial clients commonly prequalify on safety statistics, and a poor record can disqualify a contractor at that stage.
- What does site access allow? An operating plant restricts where crews can work, when they can lift and which routes they may use, and those constraints are agreed before the schedule is priced.
Explore More on BusinessNES
Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.
Data Source Notice
This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.
Sources and Methodology
Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.
The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each office with paid staff rather than each project or joint venture.