Per-MW pricing, regional variance, and cost drivers for owners scoping hyperscale & AI builds.
Salary benchmarks across the 14 mission-critical disciplines.
PROJECTS
16 aerospace, defense, and advanced-manufacturing plant builds across the U.S. — by region, status, and owner — with the construction scopes and production hiring behind each one.
Use the navigation below to jump to a regional section. Each project card carries program, owner, scope, status, and the hiring-relevant roles behind it.
Five programs whose scale and pace mark them as the defining plant builds of the 2024–2030 reindustrialization cycle — each one hiring on both sides of the fence: the construction team delivering the plant and the production team standing up the line.
The defining build of the reindustrialization cycle: a ~$1B, 5M sq ft hyperscale autonomous-weapons campus near Rickenbacker. The first 775,000 sq ft production building came online ahead of schedule — the first Ohio-built Fury rolled off the line in 2026 — while follow-on buildings keep the construction and production hiring engines running in parallel.
The ~1M sq ft Starfactory feeds a new 700,000 sq ft Gigabay integration building — 24 work cells, 400-ton cranes — targeted for completion at the end of 2026 as Starship output scales.
A 20-plus-building, 110-acre large-SRM campus that broke ground in November 2025 — DPA Title III funding plus a $1B Department of War investment closed in 2026, targeting a six-fold lift in large-motor capacity.
Broke ground in January 2026 at the Camden missile campus — an advanced-manufacturing acceleration facility inside the ramp lifting PAC-3 MSE output toward roughly 2,000 interceptors a year.
A 250,000 sq ft composite-manufacturing complex on 28 acres beside NASA Wallops and the LC-3 pad inaugurated in 2025 — automated fiber placement standing up ahead of Neutron's debut.
Organized by region. We track every build below; on select programs we’re actively recruiting both the construction scopes — PM, superintendent, MEP, commissioning — and the production scopes: manufacturing engineers, production supervisors, quality, test, and cleared program leadership.
Hyperscale autonomous-weapons plant near Rickenbacker — a 775,000 sq ft first production building plus ~120,000 sq ft of support space, with follow-on buildings underway across a 500-acre, seven-building master plan. The first Ohio-built Fury (YFQ-44A) rolled off the line in 2026, ahead of schedule, on a line sized for up to 150 aircraft a year.
Propeller-blade production started in Dayton in 2025; the newly acquired 700,000+ sq ft plant more than doubles Joby's manufacturing footprint as FAA certification and defense-adjacent programs advance, with long-term capacity plans of up to 500 aircraft a year.
Final assembly and integration plant for ground-launched small-diameter bombs and shoulder-fired munitions in the Grayling Industrial Park — construction in its final stages toward Q4 2026 operations and roughly 70 initial production roles.
Starship production scale-up on the Gulf: the ~1M sq ft Starfactory feeding a new 700,000 sq ft Gigabay integration building — 24 work cells and 400-ton crane capacity — targeted for completion at the end of 2026 as vehicle output climbs.
Air Force Plant 4's mile-long line is absorbing Block 4 modernization, a $991M upgrade-package award, and a record delivery cadence — sustained manufacturing-engineering, quality, and test hiring across the F-35 enterprise.
Purpose-built 155mm projectile metal-parts factory opened in 2024; GD announced a $200M self-funded re-equipment program in June 2026 to bring the line to the Army's rate targets after early production shortfalls — a retooling that is itself a hiring event.
Advanced-manufacturing training and production-acceleration facility broke ground in January 2026 at the Camden missile campus — part of the ramp lifting PAC-3 MSE output toward roughly 2,000 interceptors a year alongside GMLRS and HIMARS lines, inside a company-wide capex wave.
Large solid-rocket-motor campus broke ground in November 2025 under a $215.6M DPA Title III agreement, with a further $1B Department of War investment closed in 2026 to expand and modernize missile-propulsion production across the site.
Groundbreaking to operational in 18 months: an automated, one-piece-flow SRM plant scaling toward 6,000 tactical motors a year by the end of 2026, with additional federal funding announced in February 2026 to expand capacity further.
North Alabama's 'Home of Hypersonic Strike Production' adds Missile Assembly Building 5 for Next Generation Interceptor work — opening in 2026 alongside the existing 65,000 sq ft hypersonic strike facility, with workforce growth to follow.
BE-4 and BE-3U production for New Glenn and Vulcan runs from the Cummings Research Park engine factory; a 2026 expansion adds thruster production and 100+ roles to a 1,600-strong Alabama workforce.
Completed in March 2026, the $115M expansion lifts missile integration and delivery capacity by more than 50% as five framework agreements ramp Tomahawk, AMRAAM, SM-3, and SM-6 production across the RTX network — with parallel ramp hiring in Tucson.
Neutron rocket production, assembly, and integration complex adjacent to NASA Wallops and the Launch Complex 3 pad inaugurated in 2025 — automated fiber-placement composite manufacturing standing up ahead of Neutron's launch debut.
Multi-site propulsion expansion across 10M sq ft of manufacturing space — tripling tactical solid-rocket-motor capacity in West Virginia, doubling large-motor capacity in Utah, and finishing a new Maryland propulsion innovation center in 2026.
Advanced manufacturing plant opened in July 2026 for hypersonic systems, directed-energy, and defense hardware production — one of the faster-moving mid-scale builds of the reindustrialization wave.
AI-run precision-machining 'factory as a service' for space and defense primes, opened January 2026 — autonomous workflows feeding machined components to programs across the defense industrial base.
Every build shown is compiled from company announcements, state economic-development filings, Department of War and service-branch disclosures, and our own placement work across the segment.
To appear in the tracker, a project must meet at least three of the following criteria:
The tracker is maintained by iRecruit.co’s research team in coordination with our active placement work across the segment. Verify all data before referencing in formal documents. Project specifics ($ figures, square footage, rate targets, timelines) evolve as programs are re-baselined and appropriations shift.
If you’re researching these builds, you’re likely also weighing the construction workforce that delivers them and the production workforce that runs them.
The sibling advanced-manufacturing buildout — fabs, advanced packaging, and supplier plants across the post-CHIPS Act cycle.
Why defense-tech manufacturers struggle to hire — clearances, credential stacks, and the thin market for production leadership.
How robotics and defense-tech companies scale manufacturing teams without stalling the rate ramp.
iRecruit.co recruits both sides of the fence — the project managers, superintendents, and MEP leaders who deliver these plants, and the manufacturing engineers, production supervisors, quality and test talent who run them. A 30-minute scoping call gets you a concrete proposal within 48 hours.
