Job Placement · Construction Management · Superintendent
OSHA states plainly that the Outreach Training Program is voluntary and does not satisfy any OSHA standard, so an OSHA 30 card is a baseline rather than a credential. What the regulation actually requires is a competent person with the authority to stop work. BEG recruits for that, on Tier III milestone billing at $12,864 to $15,437.
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TL;DR
Superintendents are the hardest salaried seat in construction to fill on the current AGC data, with 75% of firms that had openings reporting difficulty. Most job adverts respond by asking for an OSHA 30 card, which OSHA itself describes as voluntary training that does not meet the requirements of any OSHA standard. The regulation asks for something different: a competent person, defined at 29 CFR 1926.32(f) as someone capable of identifying hazards and authorised to take prompt corrective measures. Authority, not a card. BEG recruits against that definition at $12,864 to $15,437 on fixed milestones.
Authority On Site
Because OSHA says so. The training is voluntary and satisfies no standard by itself. What the regulation actually requires is a designated person who can identify hazards and is authorised to stop them, which is a question about your organisation as much as the candidate.
What The Search Establishes
Four conditions. Three of them are about your organisation rather than the candidate, which is why we scope them before sourcing rather than discovering them at week six.
| Condition | Where it comes from | What goes wrong without it |
|---|---|---|
| A written designation as competent person | The duty sits at 29 CFR 1926.20(b)(2), requiring frequent and regular inspections by competent persons designated by the employer. | An assumed designation nobody can produce when an inspector asks who was designated and when. |
| Real authority to stop work | The definition itself, which requires authorisation to take prompt corrective measures. | A superintendent who raises a hazard, is overruled on programme grounds, and stops raising them. |
| The right training for the jurisdiction | Local rules can exceed the federal baseline. New York City requires 62 hours for supervisors and 40 for workers, with cards valid five years. | A qualified hire who cannot legally be on your site in that city until further training is completed. |
| A clear split with the project manager | Field operations and self-perform work sit with the superintendent; commercial and client management with the project manager. | Two people managing the same subcontractor differently, which the subcontractor will exploit. |
The statutory OSHA 10 requirements that apply to workers and entry-level staff, and the states that mandate them, are covered on the field engineer and coordinator page rather than repeated here. For the commercial half of the job, see the construction project manager search. The vertical overview is on the construction management placement service page.
What The 30-Hour Course Actually Contains
OSHA's construction outreach procedures set the 30-hour course at a minimum of 30 instructional hours: 14 required, made up of 1 hour of Introduction to OSHA, 2 hours of Managing Safety and Health, 6 hours on the Focus Four hazards, 2 hours on personal protective equipment, 2 hours on health hazards and 1 hour on stairways and ladders, then 12 elective hours across at least six topics and 4 optional hours. Falls alone must take at least 1 hour 30 minutes of the Focus Four block. It is a genuinely useful baseline. It is also 30 hours, which is why it tells you a candidate turned up rather than that they can run a site.
Milestone Billing On The Hardest Seat To Fill
Scarcity and percentage fees are a bad combination. With 75% of firms that have superintendent openings reporting difficulty, per the 2026 AGC workforce survey, the salary you finally agree is usually above where you started, and a contingency fee follows it up. BEG charges a Tier III milestone fee of $12,864 to $15,437, agreed in writing before we approach anybody, so the hardest hire of your year is the one where the fee is most predictable. Against a typical contingency fee on a superintendent package that is commonly a saving in the five figures, and the recruiter gains nothing from the counteroffer.
Covering The Field Seat
Three real options in this market, and they answer different questions about who employs the person standing on your site every morning.
| Model | Who employs the superintendent | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction staffing firm | The staffing firm | Hourly or weekly bill rate including margin, for the run of the job | One job, a hard end date, and no follow-on work to move them to. |
| Travelling superintendent on contract | Usually their own company | Day rate plus per diem and travel, negotiated per project | The job is out of your normal geography and you need experience you cannot recruit locally. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier III milestone fee of $12,864 to $15,437, fixed before sourcing | You have work beyond this job and need the site knowledge and the safety culture to stay with you. |
The big construction staffing firms are larger than BEG and can put somebody on a site faster than we can, which is a genuine advantage when the need is immediate. We are not a staffing agency and will not describe ourselves as one. What we offer is a permanent hire your company employs, a fee fixed before sourcing, a 45-day replacement guarantee and 50% off a repeat search for the same seat. For the person who trains into this seat, see assistant project manager.
FAQ
On the published data, yes. AGC of America’s 2026 workforce survey found superintendents to be among the most difficult salaried positions to fill, with 75% of firms that had superintendent openings reporting difficulty finding qualified candidates across 476 responding firms. The equivalent figure for project managers and supervisors was 74%.
Not federally. OSHA states the Outreach Training Program is voluntary, that outreach training does not meet the training requirements contained in any OSHA standard, and that the federal government does not mandate participation. It also acknowledges that some states and local jurisdictions have enacted legislation mandating it.
Because it is the closest thing the industry has to a common baseline, and because owners and insurers write it into contracts even where the law does not. OSHA describes the 30-hour programme as intended to provide workers with some safety responsibility a greater depth and variety of training, which is a fair description of a superintendent.
OSHA specifies a minimum of 30 instructional hours: 14 required hours covering Introduction to OSHA for 1 hour, Managing Safety and Health for 2, the Focus Four hazards for 6, personal protective equipment for 2, health hazards in construction for 2 and stairways and ladders for 1, plus 12 elective hours across at least six topics and 4 optional hours.
Falls, electrocution, struck-by and caught-in or between. OSHA requires falls to be covered for a minimum of 1 hour 30 minutes within the Focus Four block because most construction fatalities are caused by fall hazards, with the remaining three topics covered for at least 30 minutes each.
OSHA states that falls are the leading cause of death in construction and that in 2024 there were 389 fatal falls to a lower level out of 1,034 construction fatalities. That is a little over a third of all construction deaths in a single category, and it is the category a superintendent has the most direct control over.
It is defined at 29 CFR 1926.32(f) as one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditions which are unsanitary, hazardous or dangerous to employees, and who has authorisation to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them. Note the second half: without the authority, a person is not a competent person no matter what they know.
From 29 CFR 1926.20(b)(2), which requires safety and health programmes to provide for frequent and regular inspections of the job sites, materials and equipment to be made by competent persons designated by the employers. The designation is the employer’s act, which is why it belongs in the hiring conversation rather than in an induction pack.
Yes. New York City is the clearest example: under its site safety training rules, supervisors including site safety managers, site safety coordinators, construction superintendents and competent persons must hold a card showing a minimum of 62 hours of safety training, against 40 hours for workers. Cards are valid for five years.
A superintendent is a Tier III search at $12,864 to $15,437, billed against milestones. Because the seat is difficult to fill, contingency fees on superintendents routinely land in the mid twenty thousands and rise further when a counteroffer forces you up, whereas the milestone figure is agreed before anyone is approached and does not move.
By asking what they have stopped. Every superintendent has a safety card; far fewer can describe a time they shut a work area down, what it cost the programme that day, and how the conversation with the project manager went afterwards. That single answer separates the people who own the site from the people who supervise it.
No. A staffing firm employs the superintendent and bills you for their time on site. BEG places a permanent superintendent whom your company employs directly, for a fee fixed before sourcing with a 45-day replacement guarantee and 50% off a repeat search for the same seat.
Building the site team? See project manager, field engineer and coordinator, assistant project manager and senior project manager, or all construction management placement.
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