Construction compensation across the Southeast continues to move, but not evenly.
At Elite Construction Professionals, we spend a significant amount of time talking directly with construction professionals and hiring leaders about what it actually takes to make a move. Those conversations often tell a different story than the salary averages you find online.
Broad compensation data can be helpful as a starting point, but it does not always reflect what it takes to recruit proven construction professionals who are already employed and performing at a high level.
When we look at actual recruiting conversations taking place across Florida, Georgia and the broader Southeast, the market for experienced construction talent is considerably more segmented.
What We’re Seeing in the Market
Based on recent ECP recruiting activity, candidate conversations, active searches and compensation discussions, these are the competitive base salary ranges we are seeing for experienced construction professionals across the Southeast.
Project Engineers and Assistant Project Managers are generally falling in the $75,000 to $110,000 range.
Project Managers are commonly landing between $110,000 and $145,000.
Senior Project Managers and Senior Development Project Managers are frequently in the $140,000 to $185,000 range.
Superintendents are generally falling between $105,000 and $145,000, while Senior Superintendents and General Superintendents can move into the $145,000 to $175,000-plus range.
Senior Project Schedulers and Project Controls professionals are regularly reaching $140,000 to $170,000.
Senior Estimators and Preconstruction Managers are typically falling between $120,000 and $160,000.
Director-level Preconstruction professionals can reach $180,000 to $200,000.
Experienced VDC Managers and Senior VDC Managers are commonly falling in the $150,000 to $180,000 range.
At the Project Executive, Operations Manager and Project Director level, compensation can range from approximately $180,000 to $250,000, depending on the size of the organization, level of responsibility and complexity of the work.
These figures are not meant to represent what every company pays or what every person with a particular title should expect to earn. They represent the ranges we are seeing when companies attempt to recruit experienced professionals who can step into a role and make an immediate impact.
And that distinction matters.
Project Complexity Is Becoming More Important Than Title
One of the biggest compensation mistakes we see is benchmarking entirely by job title.
Two people can both be called a Project Manager while operating at completely different levels.
One may manage a $5 million commercial project with a relatively straightforward subcontractor base. Another may oversee several projects simultaneously, manage $50 million or more in annual construction volume, coordinate multiple jurisdictions and consultants, handle major owner relationships and operate with very little executive oversight.
They have the same title.
They do not have the same market value.
We are seeing premiums for professionals who have experience with large, complex projects, particularly in healthcare, mission critical and data centers, sports and entertainment, aviation, sophisticated multifamily, major commercial programs and national multi-site construction.
Specialized experience costs more because there are simply fewer people who have it.
Senior Project Management Has Clearly Moved Up
For traditional commercial Project Managers, we continue to see a healthy market in the $110,000 to $145,000 range.
But once the requirements expand into Senior Project Manager, owner's representation, development, significant preconstruction responsibility or multi-project oversight, compensation changes quickly.
We are regularly having conversations in the $140,000 to $185,000 range for strong senior-level talent.
At the upper end, professionals who have managed major development portfolios, large capital programs or teams of project managers can push beyond $200,000.
This is one of the areas where broad salary averages can be misleading. A market average does not necessarily tell you what it will cost to recruit an experienced passive candidate who is already successful somewhere else.
Field Leadership Remains Expensive and Valuable
Strong Superintendents remain one of the hardest populations to recruit.
For local commercial Superintendent positions, we generally see competitive compensation beginning around $105,000 and extending into the $140,000s.
Senior Superintendents and General Superintendents with experience on large healthcare, institutional, sports, aviation or similarly complex projects commonly move into the $145,000 to $175,000-plus range.
Travel changes the equation further.
Traveling Superintendent opportunities often include additional compensation through per diem, company-paid housing, travel reimbursement, vehicle allowances, project incentives and trips home.
Our recruiting conversations reinforce the importance of that total package. Experienced traveling candidates increasingly ask about the entire economics of the assignment before deciding whether the base salary is attractive.
Preconstruction, Scheduling and VDC Are Becoming Premium Functions
Some of the strongest compensation movement we are seeing is happening outside the traditional Project Manager and Superintendent career tracks.
Experienced Senior Schedulers and Project Controls professionals with deep Primavera P6 expertise and large-project experience are frequently in the $140,000 to $170,000 conversation.
Strong VDC leaders who understand true multidisciplinary BIM coordination, rather than simply visualization, are reaching approximately $150,000 to $180,000 in markets such as Atlanta.
Preconstruction leadership continues to command a premium as well.
Experienced Preconstruction Managers and Senior Estimators can reach the $120,000 to $160,000 range, while Director-level preconstruction leadership in Florida can move toward $180,000 to $200,000.
These functions have become increasingly strategic.
Contractors are not simply looking for someone who can operate software. They want people who can identify risk early, coordinate complex systems, improve constructability, protect margins and help project teams make better decisions before problems hit the field.
Base Salary Is Only Part of the Conversation
Perhaps the clearest trend from our conversations is that candidates are evaluating total compensation, not simply salary.
A $140,000 offer with a strong bonus, vehicle allowance and excellent benefits can compete very differently than a $150,000 offer without them.
For traveling positions, candidates increasingly want clarity around housing, per diem, trips home and whether travel costs are fully covered.
For senior leadership, bonus potential becomes even more important.
At the executive level, long-term incentives, profit sharing and equity can sometimes matter more than another $10,000 or $20,000 in base salary.
The strongest recruiting conversations therefore address compensation as a package rather than a single number.
Atlanta and Florida Are Not One Market
Even within the Southeast, employers need to be careful about treating compensation as a single regional average.
Atlanta continues to see strong demand around large commercial construction, VDC, project controls, operations leadership and mission-critical work.
Central Florida has a different mixture of commercial development, tourism and entertainment, healthcare, multifamily and owner/developer opportunities.
Tampa and Southwest Florida continue to create demand for experienced healthcare, preconstruction and senior field leadership.
The appropriate range ultimately depends on the intersection of location, sector, project complexity, responsibility and candidate scarcity.
Passive Candidates Often Cost More Than the Market Average
This may be the most important point for employers.
There is a difference between the salary required to attract an applicant and the salary required to recruit someone who is already successful in a comparable position.
Many of the strongest candidates we speak with are not actively looking.
They are employed, performing well and usually have a reason to stay where they are.
To make a move, they may need a meaningful increase in compensation, a stronger bonus plan, greater responsibility, better project exposure, improved work-life balance, a clearer career path or some combination of those factors.
That is why a role that appears appropriately priced based on an online salary survey may still struggle to attract the level of talent an employer actually wants.
What Employers Should Take Away
The construction labor market is not behaving like a market where companies can simply post a job at the midpoint of a salary survey and expect the best candidates to show up.
If you need someone who has already delivered $100 million-plus projects, understands sophisticated MEP systems, can manage multiple teams, carries strong client relationships and can operate independently from day one, you are probably not competing for an average candidate.
Your compensation strategy should reflect that.
And if the available budget does not support the profile you are targeting, the better answer may be to adjust the requirements rather than spend months waiting for the market to produce a candidate who does not exist at that price point.
What Candidates Should Take Away
For construction professionals, compensation remains strong, but experience still matters more than title.
The professionals seeing the greatest leverage are usually able to demonstrate measurable responsibility.
That may include larger project values, ownership of multiple projects, direct budget responsibility, preconstruction experience, complex scheduling, healthcare or mission-critical expertise, client-facing responsibility, team leadership or specialized technical skills.
The best way to understand your market value is not simply to compare your title against someone else's.
Compare what you actually own, what you have delivered and how difficult your experience is to replace.
The Bottom Line
The Southeast remains an attractive construction market, but experienced talent has options.
For mid-level positions, companies can still find very good professionals within traditional market ranges.
At the senior and specialty level, however, the compensation curve gets steep quickly.
Right now, the largest premiums are showing up around complex-project leadership, healthcare, mission critical, VDC, preconstruction, scheduling and project controls, owner-side development and multi-project operational leadership.
For candidates, that creates opportunity.
For employers, it makes accurate compensation benchmarking increasingly important.
At Elite Construction Professionals, we continuously track these conversations through the searches we work, the construction professionals we speak with and the hiring teams we support.
Our goal is to give both sides a clearer picture of what the market is actually doing, not simply what a salary survey says it should be doing.
If you are hiring and would like a confidential compensation benchmark for a specific construction position or market, connect with Elite Construction Professionals before you take the role to market.
Methodology: ECP compensation ranges are directional recruiting benchmarks developed from recent anonymized candidate conversations, active searches, employer compensation discussions and market activity across the Southeast. We supplement this live recruiting data with publicly available compensation surveys, government labor statistics, construction workforce reports and current job-market data. Actual compensation varies by geography, project type, experience, company size, travel requirements and total rewards package.
