Commercial builders and specialty contractors spent 2025 fighting a workforce shortage that shows no sign of easing. New search data suggests many are responding the same way: by going online to find software that helps a smaller crew get more done.
Online search demand in the United States for the platforms that run construction and field operations rose nearly 7 percent year on year in spring 2026, according to an analysis of public search-volume data by Klipboard, a field service management platform. Across three core categories, construction management software, field service management software and job management software, combined demand reached roughly 8,200 searches in May 2026, up about 10 percent on the same month a year earlier. Over the previous twelve months the three categories together drew close to 95,000 US searches.
The growth was not even across the board. Searches for construction management software, the category closest to commercial project work, were up around 5 percent year on year. Field service management software, used by the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and equipment-service firms that subcontract on commercial jobs, climbed about 22 percent in May against a year earlier, rebounding from a dip in late 2025. Searches for general job management software held roughly flat, a sign that the more established corner of the market has matured while interest shifts toward purpose-built field and project tools.
The numbers are modest in absolute terms, but the direction is the story. Construction has long sat near the bottom of the digital league table. McKinsey has repeatedly placed it among the least digitized sectors in the world, with the United States second to last on its industry digitization index. An industry that still runs a surprising share of its work on paper, spreadsheets and phone calls does not start searching for software in greater numbers without a reason.
The reason, contractors will tell you, is people. The Associated Builders and Contractors estimated the industry needed about 439,000 additional workers in 2025 on top of normal hiring just to keep pace with demand, and projections for 2026 are higher still. The Associated General Contractors of America’s 2025 workforce survey found 92 percent of firms struggling to fill open positions and 45 percent reporting that worker shortages had delayed at least one project in the past year. Faced with that math, firms are looking for ways to protect output without adding headcount they cannot find.
“When you cannot hire your way out of a backlog, the next lever is getting more value out of the people you already have,” said Gabriel Cohen, VP of Go-To-Market at Klipboard. “That is what is showing up in the search data. Contractors are not chasing technology for its own sake. They are looking for a way to schedule the right person, capture what happened on site, and bill it without three rounds of paperwork.”
The same survey suggests the openness to technology is real and growing. Forty-two percent of firms said they had increased spending on training and professional development, 55 percent had added digital strategies to reach new recruits, and 45 percent expected AI and robotics to have a positive effect on construction jobs by automating manual, error-prone tasks. Those are not the answers of an industry that views software as a threat.
For commercial construction and renovation firms, the practical gap is usually between the field and the office. Job details captured on a clipboard or in a text message have to be re-entered before anyone can act on them, and that lag is where margin quietly leaks out.
“The expensive problem on most jobs is not the software you do or do not have, it is the rework and the delay that come from information sitting in the wrong place,” Cohen said. “A photo, a measurement or a sign-off that lives on someone’s phone until Friday is a quote that goes out late and an invoice that goes out later. Closing that loop is the cheapest productivity a contractor can buy right now.”
None of this means construction is about to leap up the digitization rankings. The barriers McKinsey identified, fragmented projects, thin margins and one-off builds, have not gone away. But rising search demand is an early, unfiltered signal of intent, and right now it points one way. As the labor squeeze runs into another year, the firms that turn that intent into working systems will be the ones that keep their commitments while competitors are still hunting for crew.
Notes to editors: Search figures are based on Klipboard’s analysis of Ahrefs monthly US search-volume data through May 2026 for the terms “construction management software,” “field service management software” and “job management software.” Year-on-year comparisons measure the March to May 2026 quarter against March to May 2025, and the May figure compares May 2026 with May 2025. Workforce figures are from the Associated Builders and Contractors and the Associated General Contractors of America 2025 Workforce Survey. Digitization ranking from the McKinsey Global Institute industry digitization index.*
