Your best people already know your pay is behind.
An executive compensation and workforce stability review designed to evaluate labor market competitiveness, workforce continuity, and compensation pressure across construction operations — translating labor conditions into margin, retention, and operational-continuity implications. Three things reliably signal a compensation problem: an offer rejected by a candidate who told you they were "evaluating options," a leader who hasn't asked for a raise in two years but is suddenly less engaged, or a recent departure where exit interview feedback included "for the opportunity." All three mean the same thing: your comp is behind the market.
For CFOs, COOs, division presidents, and people leaders setting construction compensation
Four findings. One stability verdict.
The CVF™ compensation-velocity reads, regional escalation rankings, and replacement-exposure findings resolve into a single verdict — whether your current bands can hold the team through the next twelve months, and where they can't.
Current bands are at or above live market for the roles that matter. Retention risk is low and replacement exposure is contained — compensation is not a near-term threat to continuity or margin.
Most bands are competitive, but specific roles or markets have drifted behind live hiring rates. Surgical, defined adjustments close the gap before it turns into counteroffers and resignations.
Several core bands sit below what the market is paying to hire the same roles today. Offer-acceptance and retention risk is climbing — a structured repricing is needed to protect the bench and the backlog.
Compensation is materially below market across critical roles. Counteroffer pressure, replacement cost, and key-person flight are active threats to margin and project continuity — repricing alone may not be enough without a retention plan.
The verdict is an interpretive recommendation produced from the engagement — not an automated score. It is delivered with the underlying CVF™ velocity reads, regional escalation rankings, and replacement-exposure findings that support it.
How fast construction compensation is moving — by role and market.
These are year-over-year base compensation movements in four active construction markets. Salary surveys do not reflect these rates — they reflect what firms were paying 12–18 months ago.
| Role | Phoenix | Dallas | Columbus | Ashburn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior PM | +18% | +14% | +12% | +22% |
| Superintendent | +21% | +16% | +15% | +28% |
| Chief Estimator | +11% | +9% | +10% | +14% |
| Project Executive | +24% | +19% | +17% | +31% |
Year-over-year base compensation movement. Mission-critical and data center markets shown. Source: AlphaHire active hiring data, trailing 12 months.
Markets ranked by current compensation pressure.
These five markets are experiencing the most significant upward compensation pressure for construction PM, superintendent, and estimating roles right now. Firms operating in these markets that are using survey-based comp are almost certainly behind.
Role-Specific Construction Compensation Report
Each compensation review is role-specific, market-specific, and built from active hiring data — not survey aggregates. Five components make up every report.
Request a Compensation & Workforce Stability Review™.
Tell us the roles, markets, and project types relevant to your compensation decisions. We'll benchmark against live hiring data and structure the review around your specific retention, replacement-exposure, and offer-positioning needs.
Or email directly: briefings@alpha-hire.com
Decisions we help construction executives make
- Should we expand into Phoenix?
- Are we entering a compensation escalation cycle?
- Can we support another major project award?
- Is our leadership team exposed to retention risk?
- Where is competitor hiring accelerating?