Samuel James Recruitment

Operations

Superintendents are still the hardest hire in construction

Sam Patuzzo · September 2026 · 5 min read

Every September AGC and NCCER publish their workforce survey, and every year I read it hoping the superintendent numbers have moved. They haven’t.

This year’s survey had 1,830 contractors respond. 82% have salaried positions open, and 87% of those say the roles are as hard or harder to fill than a year ago. Superintendents top the list. 75% of firms with a superintendent opening report difficulty finding qualified candidates. Project managers and supervisors aren’t far behind at 74%.

That lines up with what I hear on calls every week. A good superintendent isn’t sitting on a job board. He’s running a job, usually one his company can’t afford to lose him from.

The shortage is about age as much as demand

ABC estimates the industry needs to bring in 349,000 new workers in 2026 just to keep supply and demand level. Their chief economist, Anirban Basu, made a point that doesn’t get enough attention. Most of that demand comes from people retiring, not from more work.

You see it in the management ranks too. Census survey data published by BLS puts the median age of a construction manager at 45, three years older than the median for all workers, and more than a quarter are 55 or older. A lot of the superintendents who carried Southeast building through the last cycle are in their final few projects.

The Carolinas are growing faster than the bench

South Carolina was the fastest-growing state in the country between July 2024 and July 2025. North Carolina added more than 145,000 people, the third-biggest gain of any state. The Charlotte metro alone added over 54,000, and Raleigh-Cary grew 2.4%.

People need schools, hospitals, apartments and distribution space. Dodge forecasts $13.2 billion in total construction starts for Charlotte this year, up from $10.2 billion in 2024. Frampton Construction told ENR the pressure has reached GCs directly, with data center work recruiting project managers and superintendents at every level.

What it’s doing to pay

53% of contractors in the AGC survey raised salaried base pay by more than they did last year. Another 31% raised it by about the same.

Be careful with published salary data. The BLS median for construction managers in North Carolina is $106,640, with Raleigh at $119,700 and Charlotte at $107,200. Those figures include everyone from small residential builders upward. Treat them as a floor. An experienced commercial or self-perform superintendent running $30 million-plus work in the Carolinas today expects meaningfully more, plus a truck and a bonus that means something.

What the firms hiring well are doing

They move quickly. The best candidates I speak to are usually weighing two or three conversations at once. A process that takes five weeks and three rounds of interviews loses people to one that takes ten days.

They sell the pipeline, not the job. A superintendent wants to know what he’s building next year and the year after. Backlog is the strongest recruiting tool a contractor has.

They’re honest about pay early. Nobody wants to reach an offer and find out the number was never going to work. If your band is behind the market, it’s better to know that in week one.

They look sideways. A self-perform concrete superintendent moving to a GC, or a heavy civil superintendent moving into vertical, can be a very strong hire. The skills carry over more often than people think.

If you’re planning a superintendent hire in the next six months, start the conversation now. The people you want take time to find.

Sources