Every search has a compensation conversation. In construction and institutional facilities executive search, that conversation happens in one of two ways: either the hiring organization has done current market research and built a competitive package before the search begins, or they have not, and the search takes longer, loses candidates late in the process, or ends without a hire.
Matt Lesher, a search consultant at Real8 Group, works on construction and facilities leadership searches for universities, health systems, cultural institutions, and construction management firms. Compensation misalignment is one of the most consistent and preventable reasons searches fail. Here is what the market actually looks like right now, and where organizations go wrong.
The Fundamental Problem: Benchmarking Against the Wrong Reference Points
Most institutions and firms approach compensation for a new hire by looking at two things: what the previous person in the role was paid, and what the internal pay grade structure allows. Both reference points can be severely out of date.
“The candidate you are trying to hire in 2026 is not comparing your offer to what your last Director made in 2021,” Lesher notes. “They are comparing it to what their current employer would offer them to stay, what the owners’ rep firms are paying for the same background, and what peer institutions have offered them in conversations they have already had.”
When those three reference points are all higher than what the hiring organization has approved, the search will produce finalists who accept counteroffers, withdraw after the offer stage, or never engage seriously in the first place.
What the Market Is Paying: Construction Management and GC Firms
The figures below reflect base salary ranges across the national market. Metro areas (New York, Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago) run 20 to 30 percent higher than the national midpoint. Total compensation including bonus and incentive adds 15 to 30 percent at senior levels.
Project Manager
Base salary: $100,000 to $150,000. The most active search volume in the market is at this level, and competition for candidates with $20M to $100M project delivery track records is intense. Firms anchoring below $110,000 in secondary markets are consistently losing candidates to metro-based competitors.
Senior Project Manager
Base salary: $150,000 to $200,000. At this level, many firms are adding business development expectations to the role. Candidates who are asked to carry both delivery and BD responsibility without a corresponding compensation adjustment are increasingly resistant to those offers.
Project Executive
Base salary: $200,000 to $225,000 and above. This is the scarcest title in the market. Genuine Project Executives, professionals who can win work, lead teams, and manage client relationships simultaneously, are not available through public postings. They are approached directly and choose carefully. Compensation is a threshold, not a differentiator, at this level: the package needs to clear the bar, and then other factors determine the decision.
Director of Construction
Base salary: $225,000 to $275,000. Director-level compensation varies significantly by firm revenue, P&L ownership, and geographic scope of the role. Candidates who came up through the field and have cross-functional leadership experience command a premium over those who arrived through a project management track only.
Vice President of Construction
Base salary: $275,000 to $500,000 and above. At firms in the $500M to $1B revenue range, VP base typically anchors between $300,000 and $375,000 with meaningful bonus upside. The differentiator at this level is often equity participation or a defined path to ownership. Firms that cannot offer either will consistently lose VP-caliber candidates to firms that can.
What the Market Is Paying: Institutional Owners
Owner-side compensation at universities, health systems, cultural institutions, and nonprofits is more constrained by formal pay banding, board approval processes, and sector norms. But the market has moved, and organizations that have not updated their bands in three or more years are operating with a structural disadvantage in every search they run.
Director of Facilities Operations and Director of Construction
Base salary: $175,000 to $250,000. These roles carry broad scope on the owner side, covering capital project delivery, ongoing operations, vendor management, and in many cases regulatory compliance. The candidate pool for this level at major research universities and academic medical centers is genuinely thin, which puts additional pressure on compensation to be competitive when a qualified candidate is identified.
Vice President of Facilities and VP of Design and Construction
Base salary: $275,000 to $600,000 and above. The spread at this level is wide because the role varies so significantly by institution type and size. Healthcare systems consistently pay 10 to 15 percent more than comparable higher education roles. Nonprofits and cultural institutions pay least, but attract candidates who are trading compensation for mission alignment and quality of life, a genuine recruiting advantage when positioned correctly.
At the top of the healthcare market, total compensation for the lead facilities executive at a major urban academic medical center has reached $950,000 to $980,000. Most institutions are not at that level and do not need to be, but if your VP of Facilities package has not been benchmarked against current healthcare comparables in the past two years, you are likely leaving a meaningful gap between what you are offering and what the candidate is hearing from other institutions.
Where Organizations Lose Candidates in the Compensation Conversation
Lesher identifies three consistent patterns in searches where compensation becomes the reason a hire does not close.
The late disclosure problem. Organizations that do not share the compensation range until late in the process frequently lose finalists who have been engaged for weeks, completed multiple rounds of interviews, and then received an offer below their current total compensation. The search has consumed significant time and organizational energy on a candidate who was never going to accept.
The internal equity constraint. When the approved compensation for a new hire is capped by what the person two levels above them currently earns, the organization is benchmarking against its own internal history rather than the market. This is especially common when a highly compensated incumbent retires and the institution assumes the successor can be hired at a lower rate.
The benefits miscalculation. On the owner side, particularly at universities and health systems, the benefits package (retirement contribution, healthcare, tuition benefit, schedule flexibility) has real dollar value that candidates from the private sector may underweight if it is not explicitly quantified in the offer conversation. A search partner who understands how to frame total compensation, not just base, can close gaps that appear larger than they are.
The Role of the Search Partner in the Compensation Conversation
One of the most practical contributions a specialized search partner makes is a direct market read on compensation before a search begins. Not a published salary survey, but a current, role-specific assessment based on what similar searches have closed at in the same geography, institution type, and title level in the past twelve months.
Real8 Group provides that assessment as part of every search engagement. It takes the compensation question off the table as a late-process surprise and focuses the search on finding the right candidate rather than managing a mismatch that could have been identified at the outset.
If you have an open role and are unsure whether your approved range is competitive in the current market, that is the right question to start with. We can give you a direct answer before you begin the process.
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Real8 Group is a specialized executive search firm placing leadership talent in construction, facilities operations, and real estate across higher education, healthcare, cultural institutions, and the AEC industry nationwide.
