Metal Fabrication & Machining
Metal fabricators, machinists, foundries, and forges producing precision parts, stampings, castings, and structural assemblies.
- 5
- Verticals
Overview
Metal Fabrication & Machining covers the fabricated-metal-products industry — forging, stamping, structural and architectural metals, machine shops, precision-turned products, fasteners, valves and fittings, coating and plating, and miscellaneous fabricated metal. At ~$412B across ~52,700 establishments, it is the largest and most fragmented manufacturing segment, a vast base of job shops and contract fabricators serving every industry.
Demand tracks industrial production, construction, and OEM build rates, with reshoring and automation as tailwinds. It is the archetypal private-equity roll-up arena — thousands of owner-operated machine shops and fabricators facing generational ownership transition, consolidating into precision-machining and metal-fabrication platforms.
Market snapshot
- Market size
- ~$381B
- Growth
- ~7.0%CAGR (2017–22, nominal)
- Companies
- ~44,336 firms
72.3% of firms have fewer than 20 employees: 32,042 micro-businesses, below most mandates.
- 20–99
- 8,88572%
- 100–499
- 2,24918%
- 500+
- 1,1589%
The deepest acquisition pool in the sector: over 44,000 firms, most of them job shops and machine shops holding a handful of customer relationships. Growth outran the sector on steel pricing rather than volume. Buyer diligence turns on customer concentration and whether the owner IS the sales function — both are the usual reason a good shop cannot be sold at a good price.
NAICS 331210, 331221, 331222, 331511, 331512, 331513, 331523, 331524, 331529, 332111, 332112, 332114, 332117, 332119, 332216, 332312, 332313, 332321, 332322, 332323, 332420, 332613, 332618, 332710, 332721, 332996, 332999, 333511. U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Economic Census.
Business model & economics
Revenue model
Custom fabrication and contract-machining work
Key economics
- Revenue per firm
- $8,600,266
- Revenue per employee
- $321,078
- Employees per firm
- 26.4
- Recurring revenue
- Moderate
- EBITDA margin
- Job-shop economics; richer for precision/specialty
- Capex intensity
- Moderate
recurring OEM and contract supply
Characteristics
- Scale-driven — payroll is only 19% of revenue; the cost base is assets, not headcount
- Deep strategic-buyer pool — 1,158 firms exceed 500 employees, so a scaled asset has trade buyers
- Largest, most fragmented manufacturing segment.
- Vast base of job shops and contract fabricators.
- The archetypal PE roll-up arena.
NAICS 331210, 331221, 331222, 331511, 331512, 331513, 331523, 331524, 331529, 332111, 332112, 332114, 332117, 332119, 332216, 332312, 332313, 332321, 332322, 332323, 332420, 332613, 332618, 332710, 332721, 332996, 332999, 333511. U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Economic Census.
Geographic concentration
The fabrication belt: Ohio alone holds nearly 2,900 firms at more than twice the national concentration, with Wisconsin and Michigan alongside it — job shops that grew up around automotive and heavy equipment and stayed.
U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses (firms by state), NAICS 331210/331221/331222/331511/331512/331513/331523/331524/331529/332111/332112/332114/332117/332119/332216/332312/332313/332321/332322/332323/332420/332613/332618/332710/332721/332996/332999/333511. Concentration shown by location quotient.
M&A deal context
Who’s acquiring
- PE-backed precision-machining platforms
- Metal-fabrication strategics
- Specialty & component consolidators
What’s driving deals
- Roll-up amid generational ownership transition.
- Reshoring and manufacturing-capex demand.
- Automation and precision-machining capability.
Verticals in this segment
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