The 2026 AGC Workforce Survey: What Contractors Will Hire You For

September 4, 2026
ATS
Heavy Equipment Training

Key Takeaways

Eighty-seven percent of firms still have hourly craft openings.
Seventy-three percent expect to add people in the next 12 months.
Half of respondents say applicants lack skills, certificates, or licenses. That is the hiring door.
Worker shortages remain the top delay cause, cited by 42 percent of firms.
Eighty-three percent lose some new field hires in the first 90 days. Showing up trained helps you stay.
Construction equipment operators sit near a median of $59,600. About 42,500 openings are projected each year.

AGC’s 2026 survey is clear: contractors still have craft openings. They hire people with skills and licenses. A soft market did not open easy heavy equipment operator jobs.

The Associated General Contractors of America ran this survey in July and August 2026. About 1,830 people from construction firms answered. Headcount fell at some shops. Open seats did not go away.

If you are switching careers, read the survey as a hiring list. Not as a headline about data halls.

The market split most job boards skip

Some firms cut staff. Most still plan to hire. Both can be true in the same year.

Thirty-seven percent cut headcount by at least 5 percent. Thirty-four percent grew by at least 5 percent. Cuts won by a hair. That is the first time since the pandemic that cuts outpaced growth.

Then the next-year question flips the story. Seventy-three percent expect to add employees. Only 8 percent expect more cuts.

What the survey measured	Share of firms	What it means for you
Hourly craft openings now	87%	The seat exists. The resume still has to clear the bar.
Salaried openings	82%	Superintendents and PMs are tight too. You are not competing with them for a cab.
Craft jobs as hard or harder to fill than last year	88% of firms with openings	“Soft market” is not the same as easy hiring.
Plan to add staff next 12 months	73%	Fall 2026 is still a hiring window if you are qualified.
Headcount up 5%+ at firms over $500 million	79%	Bigger civil and industrial shops kept growing.

Growth clustered in larger firms. Firms doing $50.1 million to $500 million grew headcount at 54 percent. The smallest shops lagged. Highway, utility, and federal work sat in the stronger set.

That is the work we train people for in Sun Prairie. Cut and fill. Grade. Lift. Not every small remodeler.

What contractors want for heavy equipment operator jobs

Contractors will hire you if you can prove skill and last on a crew. They will not hire a walk-on who needs the jobsite to become a classroom.

Fifty percent of firms say available candidates are not qualified. The stated reason is missing skills, certificates, or licenses. That share improved from 57 percent last year. It is still the top barrier.

OSHA does not issue a national “operator card” for most dirt machines. The employer may only let people qualified by training or experience run equipment. Documented seat time is how you show that.

A certificate here means proof you were trained on the machine. It is not a federal license. Crane work is the exception. OSHA requires third-party crane credentials. That is the NCCCO path, not a dirt-machine path.

Screen	Survey signal	How you clear it
Skills on the iron	Top reason people fail the screen	Heavy equipment training with real seat time on excavators, dozers, loaders, and related machines
Certificates or licenses	Same 50% barrier	Paper from a real program. For cranes, mobile crane training aimed at NCCCO
Drug test	30% of firms cite it	Treat it as a hiring rule, not a surprise
Driver’s license, work papers, background	36%	Clean paperwork before you apply
New hires who vanish	42% say people no-show or quit fast	See the 90-day section below

Pay is still moving. Fifty-five percent of firms raised craft base pay more than they did a year earlier. Another 29 percent matched last year’s raise. You do not get that pay bump without proof you can run the iron.

Thirty-five percent of firms increased training spend. A quarter added or grew on-site craft training. Shops will still pick the person who already has hours in the cab.

If money is the blocker, financial assistance is how a lot of career-changers cover tuition. Ask about it before you assume you cannot enroll.

You can still get a heavy equipment operator job with no experience. “No experience” in that sense means no prior job title. It does not mean no training.

Why people wash out in 90 days

Most firms lose some new field people in the first three months. The survey’s main reason is a mismatch between the job they pictured and the job they got.

Eighty-three percent of firms report at least some turnover among new field employees in the first 90 days. After the expectation gap, they name physical demands, travel, and scheduling.

That is not a mystery on a Dane County grade job in March. Freeze-thaw wrecks gravel. Mud holds the tracks. The cab is loud. You work in weather the office staff never sees.

A construction equipment operator is the person who runs dozers, excavators, loaders, and similar machines to move earth and material. BLS puts the median at $59,600 a year as of May 2025. The high end clears $100,660. That pay assumes you can last through a bad week of weather.

Seat time before the first paycheck is how you test the work. If the hours and the dirt are not for you, you find that out in training. Not on a contractor’s overtime sheet.

Where the heavy equipment operator jobs actually are

The open seats sit with larger contractors and heavier work. Data centers raise wages. They are not a separate operator job title.

Twenty-eight percent of firms did data-center work in the past year. Among those shops, 58 percent say those jobs increased competition for skilled workers. Forty-nine percent report wage pressure.

We already covered the start numbers in our data center construction piece. The survey’s point is simpler. Those sites pull trained people off other jobs. The hire they want is still an excavator, dozer, loader, or crane operator.

Immigration enforcement is a side pressure, not the main plot. Twenty-nine percent of firms felt some impact in the past six months. The South was highest at 42 percent. The Midwest was lowest at 17 percent. Wisconsin sits in that lower band. Training still matters more than headlines.

Most dirt work still does not need a CDL. Hauling the machine between sites can. Our CDL vs. equipment guide covers that line. Do not delay heavy equipment training because you think a Class A comes first.

Will AI take the operator seat?

Contractors do not see AI as a replacement for the person in the cab. They see it in the office first.

Fifty-one percent expect AI and robotics to help the industry over the next five years. Only 8 percent expect a negative hit. The top uses they name are estimating, document review, and scheduling.

Machines still need a qualified operator. Grade still has to match the stakes. A load still has to match the chart. Software does not sit the OSHA test for you.

BLS still projects about 42,500 openings a year for construction equipment operators through 2035. Retirement and people leaving the trade drive a lot of that. That is the gap the survey is describing in contractor language.

If you want to be the person they will hire, get the hours and the paperwork. Then stay past week two.

Check upcoming training dates, apply online, or call ATS at (800) 383-7364. Career Services can help with a resume and employer leads. You still take the interview.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can you get a heavy equipment operator job with no experience? A: Yes, if “no experience” means no prior operator title. Contractors still want documented training. Half of firms say applicants lack skills, certificates, or licenses. Seat time is how you close that gap.

Q: Do I need a CDL to run heavy equipment? A: Usually no. Most machines stay on the jobsite. A CDL matters when you drive a commercial truck on public roads. Confirm the role before you delay equipment training.

Q: Is it hard to get into heavy equipment operator jobs in 2026? A: It is hard if you apply untrained. Eighty-eight percent of firms with craft openings say those jobs are as hard or harder to fill than last year. The shortage is qualified people, not empty job ads.

Q: Will AI replace heavy equipment operators? A: Contractors in the survey mostly expect AI to help estimating and planning. They do not treat it as a cab replacement. Openings remain in the tens of thousands a year.