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Without a good backlog of projects, contractors have nothing to build on. For Stockholm-based Skanska, that pipeline has grown much more robust in the past three months.
For the second quarter, Skanska posted 68 billion Swedish crowns ($7 billion) in order bookings, up 20 percent from the same period in 2025. That marked a record order intake, CEO Anders Danielsson said during an earnings call on Friday. Of this new work, 39.5 billion kroner was in the US
“This quarter was very good, but we always say you can’t create a trend in one quarter,” CFO Pontus Winqvist told Construction Dive after the company’s earnings call. “Overall, I’d say there’s a good market.”
He added: “Of course, it could be a bit thick between the different quarters.”
The same markets that drove the company’s results previously remained strong for Skanska. Data centers, which Winqvist said account for about 10 percent of Skanska’s backlog, and civil infrastructure construction have kept the company busy in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Winqvist said the contractor is largely unconcerned by headwinds such as rising material prices and data center growth.
Materials and moratoriums
After costs rose in the first quarter, largely driven by the Iran war that pushed up oil prices, building materials costs fell in June. However, the ongoing conflict has already started to recover costs in July.
Skanska is monitoring pricing, as it does anything when preparing risk management in project bids, Winqvist told Construction Dive.
“It’s important for us that, when we’re preparing the deals, we really try not to expose ourselves to fuel or anything that could have a pretty strong impact from the Middle East crisis,” he said.
As high demand for data centers helps builders fill wallets, public pushback has finally reached the point of political action. New York became the first state prohibit new permits for the construction of data centerswith Gov. Kathy Hochul enacting a one-year moratorium on major construction via executive order.
Winqvist says the situation is one Skanska is monitoring, but he wasn’t concerned about the impact of the decision — or other states that might follow suit — on the company’s business.
“Yes, we are looking at it, but we are not developing any data centers. We are doing the construction for others,” he said, adding that when it came to planning and permitting, moratoriums or bans would affect customers more than the builders themselves.
Any concerns, for now, were offset by unwavering demand, he said.
“And what we see right now in the future is that there are still multiple data centers,” Winqvist said. “We’ll see if we beat them or someone else does, but there’s still a strong pipeline.”
By the numbers
Skanska reported an operating profit of SEK 2.1 billion for the second quarter of 2026, an increase of approximately 17% compared to the same period a year earlier. Construction continued to lead the way for the builder, with 1.8 billion in unit operating profit.
The company has a portfolio of 297.5 billion crowns, 11% more than the previous year. That equates to 21 months of construction work on the pipeline, which Danielsson called “unusually high.” That’s two months more than what was on Skanska’s books in March.
“I would say it’s a good quality in the portfolio. We’ve been successful in positioning ourselves where the market is strong and good,” Danielsson said on Friday’s call. “And that applies to almost all geographies.”
Among the major second-quarter wins announced by Danielsson was the company’s appointment as master developer of the $8 billion Penn Station renovation in New York City. Skanska included about 70 million dollars of this award in its second quarter bookings, the firm announced at the time.
