Salary expectations on the rise in construction management

Getting a new job is always a thrill, but the feeling goes away pretty quickly if it seems that the company doing the hiring is lowballing its salary offer, especially for managers with some experience and/or specialized expertise under their belts. Knowing how much others are asking for is a key part of negotiating pay, and with that in mind, our friends at Hard Hat Hub have provided us with the latest salary-expectation data for those in construction management, based on statistical analysis of a random sample of the site’s 2016 users.

Virtually across the board, those vying for project manager, estimator, superintendent, and cost engineer / scheduler jobs over the past year have been looking for a few (or, in some cases, several) thousand dollars more annually than they were in 2015. Overall, the average expected salary rose by 6.6 percent, with particularly marked rises among those with 0–3 or 4–10 years of experience.

Additionally, a Hard Hat Hub blog post from mid-2016 noted that expectations have remained high in the petroleum and power sectors, and that appears to still be the case. Combined annual salary requests in the two fields are, on average, 7.2 percent higher than requests in other industry sectors such as manufacturing and buildings/facilities, even though construction starts are expected to rise in the commercial building market and fall dramatically for electric utilities and gas plants, according to Dodge Data & Analytics2017 Dodge Construction Outlook report.

It would seem that now’s the time to aim high, salary-wise, for both younger managers fresh out of school and seasoned veterans with more than 20 years in the field. Have a look at the full set of data below.