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Construction delays were common among the 194 general-contractor managers and executives in a poll reported by Building Design + Construction: 87% said their projects had experienced delays. Respondents most often pointed to material availability and supply-chain issues (71%) and weather (66%); budget overruns (53%) and managing schedules and meeting timelines (49%) were also frequent concerns. These are findings from a defined survey sample, not a representative estimate for every construction project or contractor.
What did the contractor poll find about construction delays?
The poll’s clearest finding is that delays were widespread among its respondents, while the causes they identified ranged from materials and weather to budget and schedule management. The percentages describe survey responses; they should not be read as the share of all North American projects affected by each problem.
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In an article published on May 9, 2025, John Caulfield reported on a poll conducted the previous summer by Endeavor Business Intelligence for Sherwin-Williams Construction Solutions. The survey included 194 managers or executives at general-contractor firms. Among those respondents, 87% said their projects had experienced delays. The most frequently cited causes were material availability and supply-chain issues (71%) and weather-related delays (66%). Budget overruns (53%) and managing the schedule and meeting project timelines (49%) were also common challenges.
The poll also touched on project demand and safety incidents. Eighty percent of respondents were optimistic that demand for large-scale projects would increase over the following three to five years. Forty-three percent said they had projects where an accident, injury, or death occurred at a significant height, and 24% said they had projects where the building caught fire. Those figures describe respondents’ reported project experience; they are not incident rates per project, worker, or construction hour.
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BD+C’s account of the contractor poll reports these figures and discusses the sponsor’s proposed use of shop-applied fireproofing. The distinctions matter: the delay findings are poll results, while the proposed coating approach is a sponsor-backed response discussed in the same article.
Which causes of delay did respondents cite most often?
Materials and supply-chain issues ranked first in the article’s account, narrowly ahead of weather. Schedule management and budget overruns were separate, also-common pressures—not alternative names for a single cause.
| Issue reported | Share of respondents | What the figure tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Projects experienced delays | 87% | Most surveyed respondents reported delay experience on their projects. |
| Material availability and supply-chain issues | 71% | The most frequently cited delay cause in the article’s account. |
| Weather-related delays | 66% | A close second among the reported causes. |
| Budget overruns | 53% | A common project pressure, reported separately from delay causes. |
| Managing schedules and meeting timelines | 49% | Nearly half cited schedule management and meeting project timelines as a challenge. |
These percentages should not be added together to produce a total. The available account does not provide the questionnaire, a full table, or enough detail to establish whether respondents could select multiple answers, how each item was worded, or whether the responses refer to the same projects. The safe reading is simply that each percentage is the share of surveyed respondents reported as identifying that issue.
The ordering also does not show which cause produces the greatest number of lost days or the largest financial impact. A category named by more respondents is not necessarily the most damaging on an individual project. The poll account gives prevalence of reported experience or concern, not duration, cost per event, or a ranking by total industry impact.
How should contractors interpret the results?
Read the poll as a snapshot of perspectives from people responsible for large general-contractor projects—not as a census of construction activity. Its value is in showing which perennial reasons for project delays appeared salient to this particular group, while its scope limits how broadly the figures can be applied.
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Respondents worked at general-contractor firms averaging one to five North American projects per year, with each project worth at least $30 million. Nearly half of qualified respondents were managers, about 40% were executives, and nearly seven in ten said they made final purchasing decisions. That profile makes the findings relevant to decision-makers overseeing large projects, but less directly representative of smaller contractors, specialty trades, projects below the stated value threshold, or construction in other regions.
The published account does not supply a detailed sampling frame, response rate, questionnaire, or full survey tables. Without those details, readers cannot assess how participants were selected, how nonresponse might affect the results, or the precise wording and response options behind each percentage. The poll therefore supports statements about its respondents, but not a claim that 87% of construction projects generally experience delays.
There is also a sponsorship context. Sherwin-Williams Construction Solutions commissioned the poll, and the BD+C article uses its findings to discuss the sponsor’s proposal for shop-applied fireproofing. That does not invalidate the reported poll figures, but it is important context when evaluating the proposed solution. The survey results and the sponsor’s product argument are different kinds of evidence: one records respondents’ answers, while the other advances an approach that would need to be evaluated for the specific project.
What do materials, weather, schedules, and budgets have to do with one another?
The poll identifies several pressures that can coexist, but it does not trace causal links among them. A contractor might face a materials delay and a weather disruption on the same job, for example, but the reported percentages do not show whether one caused another or how respondents classified overlapping events.
That distinction helps keep the findings useful. Material availability and supply-chain issues were the leading reported cause, so the result points to procurement and availability as prominent concerns for this sample. Weather was nearly as often cited. Schedule management and budget overruns were also common, but the article reports them as challenges rather than proving that materials or weather caused either outcome.
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For a project team, the poll can prompt questions without supplying project-specific answers: Which long-lead materials could affect the critical path? Which tasks are exposed to weather? Where could schedule assumptions or handoffs be vulnerable? What budget contingencies exist if work takes longer? These are planning questions inferred from the categories in the poll, not recommendations tested or validated by the survey.
Nor does the poll compare scheduling systems, procurement methods, contract structures, or other delay-reduction interventions. It cannot establish that any named tool or single change will prevent all construction delays. Its most defensible use is as a reminder that reported delay concerns include both external constraints, such as material availability and weather, and management pressures, such as keeping timelines and budgets on track.
Does the poll show that shop-applied fireproofing prevents delays?
No. The poll account presents shop-applied fireproofing as the sponsor’s proposed response, but the available findings do not establish that it prevents delays generally or quantify a guaranteed time saving for a particular project.
The report’s rationale, reproduced by BD+C, is that specialist shops may complete fire-protective coating work faster because they have equipment and experience, and because shop work can avoid weather factors such as rain, snow, and cold that can delay field work. This is a claim attributed to the report, not an independently verified result in the poll. It is also specific to the coating work: it does not remove other possible constraints such as materials availability, sequencing, or schedule management.
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BD+C also reports that 72% of survey respondents reported a budget impact of up to 20% when using field-applied fireproofing. Keep that statement in its stated context. It is not a general cost-overrun estimate for construction, and the available account does not give the underlying question, a breakdown of the impact, or project-by-project comparisons. The article notes that shop-applied passive fire-protective coatings may cost more per gallon than field-applied counterparts, while the sponsor’s case is that project-level time and cost savings can make them advantageous. Neither statement establishes the net cost for a particular job.
Potential applications discussed in the report include EV battery gigafactories, semiconductor fabrication plants, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, and other large-scale manufacturing buildings. A project considering this approach would need to assess its own schedule, scope, coating specification, cost, and execution requirements; the poll alone cannot decide whether shop application is suitable or economical. The official report page describes its focus on advanced manufacturing and megaproject construction, but the landing page does not expose the full report tables.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can the poll tell us about safety and project demand?
It offers two additional signals from the surveyed group, but neither should be mistaken for a forecast or a measure of industrywide risk. The survey reported respondents’ expectations and recollections, not a verified construction-project database.
The 80% optimism figure refers to respondents who expected demand for large-scale projects to increase over the next three to five years. It captures sentiment at the time of the 2024 poll, as reported in 2025; it does not confirm that demand subsequently increased or predict current conditions. The statement is especially important to read with its original time frame rather than as a present-day forecast.
The 43% figure concerns respondents who had projects with an accident, injury, or death at a significant height, while the 24% figure concerns respondents who had projects where a building caught fire. Neither percentage is a safety rate. The reported denominator is respondents, not the number of projects, workers, hours worked, or incidents. The findings also do not establish that fireproofing or any other measure caused or prevented these reported events.
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What is the most defensible takeaway?
Among the 194 large-project general-contractor managers and executives surveyed, delays were widely reported, with material availability and supply-chain issues and weather most frequently cited. Budget overruns and schedule management were also common concerns. The results are useful as a bounded account of what this respondent group reported, not as a representative statistic for all construction or proof that the sponsor’s proposed coating method will solve those problems.
When using the findings in planning or discussion, keep the denominator and context attached to every number: these are reported percentages from a 194-person poll conducted for Sherwin-Williams Construction Solutions, as summarized by BD+C. That framing preserves what the survey can show—and avoids asking it to answer questions about industrywide rates, exact delay costs, or the effectiveness of an intervention that it did not test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who conducted the contractor project-delay poll?
Endeavor Business Intelligence conducted the poll for Sherwin-Williams Construction Solutions, according to BD+C. Sherwin-Williams commissioned it, so its findings should be distinguished from the sponsor’s case for shop-applied fireproofing.
When was the survey conducted, and when were the results published?
BD+C published its account on May 9, 2025, and says the poll was conducted the previous summer, in 2024. The reported optimism about demand referred to the three-to-five-year period following the poll, not a current forecast.
Does 87% mean 87% of construction projects are delayed?
No. It means 87% of the 194 surveyed managers and executives said their projects had experienced delays. The poll’s denominator is respondents, and the account does not provide a representative industrywide project sample.
Did respondents say shop-applied fireproofing would save ten weeks?
More than a third strongly agreed they would consider it if it could save ten weeks of overall project time. That is a response to a hypothetical condition, not a measured time saving or a guarantee that a project would finish ten weeks earlier.
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