Like last year, electrical contractors who filled out our annual Top 50 Electrical Contractors survey acknowledged the presence of many ongoing hurdles that make it difficult to complete projects on time and within budget, including delays with material delivery/logistics, material price increases, extraordinarily long lead times on certain types of electrical equipment, difficulty finding and retaining quality employees/skilled worker shortage, inflation, elevated interest rates, and economic uncertainty.
Despite the fact that all of these challenges are still in play, this year’s Top 50 Electrical Contractors seemed to be relatively unphased by them, managing to blow past the prior year’s collective revenue total by 18% and deliver a record $51.37 billion in revenue in 2023 (up from $43.8 billion in 2022). Looking back, I had actually forgotten just how many years the Top 50 had racked in record profits — the last decline dates back to 2010! In total, almost 87% of Top 50 respondents rated the overall business climate in 2023 (the year in which 2024 rankings are based) as “strong,” which is up 13 percentage points from last year.
I recently had the privilege of sitting down with executives from a few of the electrical contracting firms featured in this year’s 2024 Top 50 in my “On Air” podcast and had a chance to pick their brains about everything electrical. We talked about the most important issues in the electrical industry right now as well as how their firms have navigated the ongoing challenges mentioned above, what new revenue streams have emerged as of late, how they’ve positioned their companies for growth going forward, analysis on hot and cold markets, and what they believe are the big things to watch as we move through 2024 and into 2025. Don’t miss my interview with Gaël Pirlot, vice president of Inglett & Stubbs, Mableton, Ga.; Tony Mann, CEO of E-J Electric Installation Co., Long Island City, N.Y.; and Chuck Goodrich, president and CEO of Gaylor Electric, Indianapolis. All agreeing now is a great time to be in the electrical business, they offered unique perspectives on the nuances they believe will make a difference in our industry going forward. Since we had such a great discussion, I’m splitting the podcast into two parts to make sure listeners can get to hear the full conversation. The first Top 50 episode will drop end of September and the second toward the end of October.
Can these good times continue to roll for the electrical contracting industry? According to the “United States Construction Industry Databook Series — Market Size & Forecast by Value and Volume (area and units), Q1 2024 Update” from ResearchAndMarkets.com, steady growth is on the horizon. In fact, the construction industry in the United States is expected to grow by 5.6% to reach $1,271.65 billion (U.S.) in 2024. The growth momentum is expected to continue over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 4.7% during 2024 to 2028. The construction output in the United States is expected to reach $1,530.39 billion (U.S.) by 2028. As Tony Mann reminded us in the podcast, electrical work is now commonly one-third of the overall price of the entire project — a trend that can only mean good things for electrical contractors in the future.
