Job Placement · Construction Management · Project Executive
Project executive is not an occupational title, it is a firm-specific one, so the scope has to be written rather than assumed. The seat owns a portfolio, a client book and the go or no-go call on pursuits. Pay is set by metro: BLS reports construction manager medians from $103,550 in Dallas to $158,000 in New York. BEG places it at $19,080 to $22,896 on milestones.
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TL;DR
Two things make this search unusual. First, project executive is a firm-specific title rather than an occupational one, so two firms using it rarely mean the same job and the scope has to be written down before anyone is approached. Second, the pay benchmark is geographic rather than national: BLS puts the construction manager median at $158,000 in New York, $163,040 in San Jose, $159,430 in Seattle and $103,550 in Dallas, against $114,990 nationally. BEG scopes both, then runs a Tier IV search at $19,080 to $22,896 on fixed milestones.
An Undefined Title, A Geographic Market
Because the title carries no standard meaning. In one firm it is a portfolio owner with a sales number, in another a senior delivery manager with no business development at all.
Defining The Seat
Four questions. Because the title means nothing on its own, the answers are the specification, and candidates will ask all four in the first conversation.
| Question | Why it decides the candidate | What goes wrong when it is vague |
|---|---|---|
| Is there a sales expectation? | A project executive with a business development number is a different person from one who purely delivers. | A delivery-strong hire quietly failing against a revenue target nobody stated at interview. |
| How many jobs and how strong are the project managers? | Portfolio load only makes sense relative to the quality of the layer underneath it. | An executive absorbed into firefighting on one weak job, adding nothing to the other four. |
| What can they commit the firm to? | Contract signature, pursuit spend, hiring and settlement authority define whether the title is real. | An executive with a title and no authority, which candidates detect within two months. |
| What is the metro benchmark? | Pay is geographic in this occupation. BLS metro medians run from $103,550 to $158,000. | A nationally set band that reads generous in one market and dismissive in another. |
If the seat is really one large complex job rather than a portfolio, the senior project manager search is the accurate brief; the two titles overlap in the market and we separate them deliberately. If the seat sits on the owner side rather than inside a contractor, see director of construction. Vertical overview on the construction management placement service page.
Why A Percentage Fee Follows The Postcode
A contingency fee is indexed to salary, so the same search costs very different amounts depending on where the job is. Benchmarked to the metro medians, 20% in Dallas is around $20,710 and 20% in New York is around $31,600, before the premium a project executive commands over the occupational median at all. BEG charges a Tier IV milestone fee of $19,080 to $22,896 in every market, agreed before sourcing. The work of finding a project executive in Dallas is not materially cheaper than in New York, and we do not pretend it is by indexing the fee to your payroll.
What An Unowned Portfolio Costs
When a project executive seat sits empty, the jobs keep running and the pipeline stops. Project managers cover delivery adequately, because that is their job, but nobody is at the pursuit interviews, nobody is having the quiet conversation with a repeat client about next year, and nobody is declining the pursuit that should be declined. The effect is invisible for a quarter and then appears as a thin backlog with no single cause anyone can name. Against a national pool of about 380,360 construction managers, filling it in 23 to 35 days on isolved placement data is achievable when the scope is actually defined.
Filling The Portfolio Seat
Three routes, separated by who employs the executive and by whether a client relationship comes with them or has to be built.
| Option | Who employs the executive | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promote a senior project manager | You, already | No fee, and a vacancy at the level below that is itself hard to fill | They already handle the client relationship and have shown judgement on pursuits. |
| Retained construction search firm | You | Retainer plus a percentage of first-year compensation, indexed to your metro | You want a formal market map across a region and the fee is not the constraint. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier IV milestone fee of $19,080 to $22,896, the same in every market | You want the scope defined properly and the cost known before candidates are approached. |
The large construction search and staffing groups have deeper regional coverage than BEG and we will not claim otherwise. What we put in writing is a fee agreed before sourcing that does not track your metro or your offer, a 45-day replacement guarantee and 50% off a repeat search for the same seat. BEG is not a staffing agency and does not supply interim executives. For the preconstruction capability a project executive depends on when chasing new work, see preconstruction manager.
FAQ
No, and that is worth knowing before you write the specification. The occupational taxonomy does not carry it: O*NET lists reported job titles for construction managers as things like construction manager, construction superintendent, general superintendent, site manager and construction area manager. Project executive is a firm-specific title, so its scope has to be described rather than assumed.
A portfolio and a client book. Several jobs at once, each with its own project manager, plus the relationships that produce the next ones and the go or no-go judgement on which pursuits are worth the preconstruction cost. It is the first seat where winning work matters as much as running it.
Depth against breadth. A senior project manager owns one complex job and is usually in daily contact with that owner. A project executive owns several and is in monthly contact with several owners, spending the rest of their time on pursuits, staffing and problems that have escalated past a project manager.
It depends almost entirely on the metro. BLS reports construction manager medians of $158,000 in New York, $163,040 in San Jose, $159,430 in Seattle and $103,550 in Dallas. A project executive sits well above the metro median, but the metro is what sets the base the whole band moves from.
Because they are different construction economies with different cost bases and different competition. BLS puts 17,110 construction managers in the Dallas area against 12,120 in New York, with a median roughly $54,450 lower. Depth of market and level of pay move independently.
This is a Tier IV search at $19,080 to $22,896 on milestone billing, agreed before sourcing. On a project executive package a 20% to 25% contingency fee would commonly run $40,000 or more, and it rises with every increment agreed during the close, which at this level is usually several.
Often that is the entire point, and it should be discussed openly rather than implied. Be specific in the conversation about what they can and cannot solicit under their existing agreements, because an expectation built on an assumption here causes litigation rather than disappointment.
By asking what they turned down. Any project executive can list what they won. The stronger signal is a pursuit they argued against taking, why, and whether the firm listened. That answer tells you whether they think about risk-adjusted margin or about keeping the machine busy.
It depends on complexity and on how strong the project managers under them are, and the honest answer is usually fewer than the firm wants. A project executive who is carrying so many jobs that they can only react is not adding the judgement they were hired for, and the first sign is that they stop attending the pursuits.
Indirectly, and it matters more than most job descriptions acknowledge. A project executive taking on larger work has to understand what the surety relationship will bear and how a single bad job affects it. Candidates who have been through a difficult year with a surety are noticeably more careful about which pursuits they back.
23 to 35 days from the discovery call to an accepted offer on isolved placement data, at an 86% fill rate on live searches. Confidentiality usually sets the pace at this level, because a project executive exploring a move is visible to the clients they share with your firm.
No. BEG places a permanent project executive employed directly by your company, for a fee fixed before sourcing with a 45-day replacement guarantee and 50% off a repeat search for the same seat. We do not employ construction professionals and do not bill hourly.
Sorting the leadership layer? See senior project manager, director of construction, VP of construction and project manager, or all construction management placement.
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