Job Placement · Construction Management · Senior PM and Project Executive
A senior project manager is not a project manager with more jobs. It is the person handed the one difficult project, usually with a contract structure that puts the risk in the wrong place. BEG recruits against contract type and commercial authority, on Tier IV milestone billing at $19,080 to $22,896.
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TL;DR
This seat exists because some jobs cannot be delegated downward. An occupied-site phased renovation, a design-build with an unresolved scope, a client already burned once. What separates candidates is not years but contract literacy: lump sum, guaranteed maximum price and cost plus put the risk in different places and produce genuinely different managers. AGC found 82% of firms had salaried openings and 87% of those firms said they were as hard or harder to fill than a year ago, with 41% saying harder. BEG runs this as a Tier IV search at $19,080 to $22,896 on fixed milestones.
The Commercial Framework
Because it decides what the manager is actually defending. A lump sum manager defends a number, a guaranteed maximum price manager defends a contingency in public, and a cost plus manager defends a relationship.
Matching Manager To Contract
Four framings, four different jobs. We establish which one your project runs under before sourcing, because the shortlist changes completely depending on the answer.
| Structure | What the manager is defending | What we probe for |
|---|---|---|
| Lump sum, hard bid | A fixed number against scope creep, with change orders as the only relief valve. | How they handle a client who believes every change was always in the scope. |
| Guaranteed maximum price | A contingency that the owner can see and will want returned, in an open book. | What they do when an owner asks for contingency to be released early to cover their own scope addition. |
| Cost plus | Trust, because every cost is visible and disputable and the fee depends on the relationship surviving. | A cost they had to explain that looked indefensible on paper and was actually correct. |
| Design-build or integrated delivery | A design team commercially, not just a construction programme. | Whether they have run designers to a budget or only received drawings and priced them. |
If the requirement is a portfolio and a client book rather than one complex job, the project executive search is the accurate brief and the two seats are genuinely different. If the job is standard delivery, the project manager search is a tier cheaper and a better fit. Vertical overview on the construction management placement service page.
Where A Percentage Fee Costs Most
At this level the salary itself is the variable a contingency fee is indexed to, and it is the variable most likely to move during the close. On a package at the upper end of the published construction manager range, a 20% to 25% fee runs roughly $38,000 to $47,000 and goes up with every element added to secure the candidate. BEG charges a Tier IV milestone fee of $19,080 to $22,896, agreed in writing before we approach anybody, so the number your finance team sees during budgeting is the number on the invoice. That is typically about half, and it removes the incentive that makes a percentage recruiter unhelpful in the final negotiation.
What The Wrong Manager Costs On A Difficult Job
A senior project manager who cannot hold the commercial line does not fail quickly. Change orders go unpriced for months, the contingency drains without being reported, the client relationship degrades in small increments, and the first visible symptom is a claim or a request for a replacement manager eight months in. Replacing a senior manager mid-project is worse than the original vacancy, because the incoming person inherits a record they did not create and a client who has stopped believing the reporting. Getting it right first time, in 23 to 35 days on isolved placement data, is a materially cheaper path.
Covering A Difficult Job
Three options, distinguished by who employs the manager and by what happens to the relationship with the client when the project finishes.
| Option | Who employs the manager | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promote an existing project manager | You, already | No fee, but their current job needs a replacement manager | They have already run a job where the contract terms, not the construction, were the difficulty. |
| Contract senior manager | The staffing firm or their own company | Day or hourly rate for the run of the project, leaving when the job closes out | The job is out of your normal geography or type, and there is no follow-on work behind it. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier IV milestone fee of $19,080 to $22,896, fixed before sourcing | The client relationship is worth keeping after this job, and the experience should stay in your firm. |
The national construction recruitment and staffing groups competing on this term are larger than BEG and will say so; we are not going to argue about size. What BEG puts in writing is a fee set before sourcing, unaffected by the package you agree, with 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 contract managers, so when a contract manager is the right answer we will point you elsewhere. For the field counterpart on the same difficult job, see superintendent.
FAQ
The complexity of the single job rather than the number of jobs. A senior project manager is given the one that cannot be handed to anybody else: the phased occupied-site renovation, the design-build with an unfinished scope, the job with a client who has already fallen out with a contractor once.
A project executive owns a portfolio and a client book, including business development and the go or no-go decision on pursuits. A senior project manager owns one job in depth and is usually the person the owner speaks to daily. Some firms use the titles interchangeably, which is why we establish the scope before sourcing rather than trusting the title.
Towards the top of the published construction manager range. BLS reports that the highest 10% of construction managers earned more than $189,440 in May 2025. A senior project manager on a technically difficult job in a strong market is frequently in that band, and benchmarking them against the median is how you lose them at offer stage.
AGC of America’s 2026 survey found 82% of firms had openings for salaried positions and that, among those with openings, 87% reported they were as hard or harder to fill than a year ago, including 41% saying harder. Difficulty at the senior end is not easing.
Because it determines where the risk sits and therefore what the job actually is. A lump sum manager protects a number against scope creep. A guaranteed maximum price manager runs an open book with a client watching the contingency. A cost plus manager is managing trust. These are different jobs and the candidates are not interchangeable.
This is a Tier IV search at $19,080 to $22,896 on milestone billing, agreed before sourcing. On a package at the upper end of the construction manager range, a 20% to 25% contingency fee would be roughly $38,000 to $47,000, so the milestone fee is typically around half and does not rise with the offer.
Often yes, and the question to ask is whether they have ever managed a job where the contract terms were against them. Running a well-drafted lump sum job brilliantly is not evidence of being able to run a cost plus job with a difficult owner. We look for a project where the commercial framework itself was the problem.
By asking about a relationship they lost. Every senior construction manager has one. What matters is whether they can describe their own contribution to it without either taking all the blame or none, because the same self-awareness is what stops the next one going the same way.
Yes, and it is a narrower pool than firms expect. A manager who has genuinely run design-build has managed a design team commercially rather than simply receiving drawings from one. That is a specific and uncommon experience, and we screen for it directly rather than accepting design-build exposure as a proxy.
Authority that does not match the job. A senior project manager appointed to a difficult project, then required to seek approval for every commercial decision from someone who is not on the job, will either defer until the moment passes or leave. We ask what this person can sign for, before we write the brief.
23 to 35 days from the discovery call to an accepted offer on isolved placement data, at an 86% fill rate on live searches. At this level candidates rarely leave a job mid-phase, so the realistic start date is often tied to a milestone on their current project rather than to a notice period.
No. BEG places a permanent senior project manager 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 by the hour.
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