92% of projects overrun their budget, and the data now says the main causes are internal, not external. Plus: an insurance company cutting premiums for tech adoption, workforce benchmarks from 233 firms, and a tease of our upcoming supply chain report.

THE EXECUTIVE BRIEFING
THIS WEEK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS

Full episode write-up at the bottom↓

Rework is now self-inflicted. Site conditions dropped as a driver. Design errors, poor coordination, and scope creep are the top three causes. 92% of projects overrun. 60% of firms still rely on 2D drawings. The tools exist. Leadership mandate does not.

Your tech stack is now an insurance variable. Shepherd found a 40-50% difference in claims between tech users and non-users. Contractors using Procore and OpenSpace get lower premiums immediately. The business case for tech just shifted from productivity to premium reduction.

The labour shortage is an experience shortage. Senior supers and PMs leave at a quarter of the rate of juniors, but companies show zero growth in senior roles. ENR Top 50 firms plan 6.8 years ahead versus the industry average of 4.7. The moat is retention.

THINGS WORTH YOUR ATTENTION
ON THE RADAR THIS WEEK

Steel, aluminium & copper tariffs hit 50% - New Section 232 tariffs add $17,500 per US home. AGC Chief Economist briefs contractors Wednesday 11AM ET. (More)

March Producer Price Index drops Tuesday - Construction costs running at 12.6% annualised through February. Watch for tariff impact in Tuesday's BLS release. (More)

Construction output data lands Thursday - Four consecutive quarterly declines. Housing starts down 6.3%. ONS confirms Thursday if contraction is deepening. (More)

Government rewrites building product safety rules Mandatory safety regulation proposed for all products. MHCLG webinar Monday 2:30PM BST. Consultation closes May 20. (More)

Federal Reserve Beige Book publishes Wednesday - Real-world read on tariffs, diesel, and labour shortages. Feeds into the April 28–29 rate decision. (More)

SMOPYC 2026 opens in Zaragoza - Southern Europe's biggest equipment expo, April 15–18. Focus: electrification, automation, sustainable fleet investment. (More)

Building codes rewritten in Hartford this week - ICC hearings open Sunday April 19. Proposals include expanding residential code to cover triplexes. (More)

POWERED BY:

92% of construction projects overrun their budget by 6% or more. And the industry can no longer blame the weather.

Site conditions dropped from 53% to 41% as a rework driver. The top three causes are now all internal: scope creep (47%), design errors (42%), and poor coordination (41%).

Construction is doing this to itself. Which means it can fix it.

Here's what we covered this week.

We spent months researching how construction buys its materials. The headline: the US spends $600 billion a year on materials. An estimated $60-120 billion of that is waste.

The overhead to process a $3,000 order can reach $400. Average material overpayment sits at 5%, with 25-30% regional variance within the same company. For a business running on 2-3% margins, that is the difference between profit and loss.

The full report drops 24th April. Sign up here: https://bricks-bytes.com/downloads/procurement-report/

Anirban Basu confirmed it in his Q1 forecast. US construction input prices are up 45.3% since 2020. Manufacturing spending dropped 15%. Residential continues to decline.

Data centres are the one engine left. Projected $86B in spend this year, consuming 85% of the industry's new workforce demand. One sector. Eighty-five per cent.

Basu's line: Silicon Valley and Wall Street will be fine. Main Street is going to be a little rocky.

In Europe, the construction PMI dropped to 44.6 in March. Sharpest contraction in five months. All three major Eurozone economies pessimistic for the first time since August 2022.

This should stop you in your tracks.

Shepherd is an insurance company that just closed a $42M Series B. Revenue up 7x in 24 months. 1,500+ policies. $400B+ in insured project value.

Their thesis: nobody in insurance was looking at a contractor's tech stack. Shepherd partnered with Procore, OpenSpace, and Autodesk, then studied claims data against technology usage.

The result: 40-50% difference in claims between users and non-users of reality capture tools. When contractors standardise across platforms, performance improves further.

What it means for you: Shepherd presents two quotes side by side. Standard, and savings. Opt into data sharing and your premium drops immediately. They also offer rate certainty year over year.

The argument for tech adoption just changed. It is no longer "this makes us productive." It is "this makes our insurance cheaper." For a CFO, that is a different conversation. Insurance is obligatory. A premium cut is pure margin.

Your tech stack is now an underwriting variable. The firms that invest in it will pay less, bid sharper, and compound the advantage every year.

From the Revizto report (2,006 respondents, 8 markets):
Technology integration is the #1 challenge for the second year (22%). Project complexity surged from 5th to joint 2nd (17%).

60% of firms still rely primarily on 2D drawings. The #1 adoption barrier is time (32%), not cost (18%). Without leadership mandate (27%), digitisation loses to whatever is urgent today.

On AI: 96% of CIOs are concerned about data ownership. Only 10% are seeing value. Mostly aspiration, not deployment.

From the Bridgit Workforce Benchmark (233 companies, 114K people):
ENR Top 50 firms plan 6.8 years ahead. Industry average: 4.7. That gap is the difference between bidding with confidence and scrambling after you win.

Median attrition: just under 20%. Nearly half of firms achieved zero or negative net growth in 2025. The top firms face the same attrition. They overcome it by out-hiring, not by lower turnover.

Senior supers and PMs leave at a quarter of the rate of juniors, but companies show zero growth in those roles. The smart play: hire early-career and retain past 3.7 years. Commute distance is one of the biggest hidden retention levers.

Average rookie ratio: 36.4%. Do you know yours?

1. Call your broker. Ask if your tech usage has ever factored into your premium. Five-minute call. Could save real money.

2. Pull your at-risk list. Every super and PM under four years tenure. Check commute distances and whether their projects are developing them or just filling a seat.

3. Calculate procurement overhead on one finished project. Not the material cost. The people, calls, invoice matching. If you can quantify it, you are ahead of most firms.