Job Placement · Construction Management · VP Construction
A VP of construction decides which sectors the firm builds in and how much it self-performs. Both decisions are constrained by a craft market where AGC found 81% of firms with electrician openings struggling to fill them. BEG recruits against those constraints, on Tier V milestone billing at $22,640 to $27,168.
See your exact placement price - no call required
See pricing before you talk to anyone. No demo gate, no obligation, and no co-employment.
TL;DR
The VP of construction seat is a portfolio decision dressed as an operations job. Which sectors, how much self-perform, what contract risk, which geographies. BLS shows the sector choice alone moving the management cost base: construction manager medians run $126,690 in nonresidential building, $124,430 in heavy and civil, $104,100 with specialty trade contractors and $98,390 in residential. Any self-perform ambition is then constrained by a craft market where AGC found 81% of firms with electrician openings reporting difficulty. BEG runs this as a Tier V search at $22,640 to $27,168 on fixed milestones.
The Constraints, Not The Ambition
Sector economics, craft availability and bonding capacity. A VP who plans growth without all three in front of them is writing an ambition, not a strategy.
The Four Executive Decisions
Four choices that set the shape of the business. Each is reversible only slowly, which is why the interview should be about judgement they have already exercised rather than plans they describe.
| Decision | What it constrains | What we ask for evidence of |
|---|---|---|
| Which sectors to build in | The management cost base, the client type, the payment behaviour and the risk profile all at once. | A sector they took the firm into, or out of, and what the first year actually looked like. |
| How much to self-perform | Margin capture against fixed labour cost, gated by whether those crafts can be recruited at all. | A self-perform trade they started or stopped, and the honest arithmetic behind the decision. |
| What contract risk to accept | Which delivery methods and terms the firm will bid, and which it will walk away from. | A pursuit they declined on terms alone, and how they handled the internal reaction. |
| What the surety will support | The ceiling on single-job size and total backlog, regardless of how much work is available. | A conversation with a surety that did not go well, and what changed afterwards. |
If the seat runs a portfolio and a client book rather than the business, the project executive search is the right tier and the right brief. If it sits on the owner side of the table, see director of construction. Everything in the vertical is on the construction management placement service page.
Executive Fees That Do Not Follow The Package
Retained construction executive search is commonly priced at around a third of first-year compensation, which at this level frequently exceeds $70,000 and is not finally known until an incentive structure is agreed months into the process. BEG charges a Tier V milestone fee of $22,640 to $27,168, fixed in writing before we approach a single candidate. For a contractor whose own bids are priced to the dollar, being able to budget the search the same way is not a trivial difference. It is also the point at which the incentive problem disappears: nobody on our side benefits from the package going up.
What The Craft Market Does To A Growth Plan
Every construction growth plan eventually runs into people. Associated Builders and Contractors estimated in January 2026 that the industry needs to attract about 349,000 net new workers during 2026 to meet demand, and projected 456,000 for 2027 as spending growth resumes. Against that backdrop, a VP who proposes doubling self-perform capacity in a trade where four in five firms already cannot hire is proposing something the labour market will decide for them. The value of the right hire here is mostly the plans they do not make, which is difficult to measure and expensive to miss. The isolved placement average is 23 to 35 days.
Filling The Executive Seat
Three routes. They differ on who employs the executive, what the fee does during the negotiation, and how much of the process you can see.
| Option | Who employs the VP | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retained construction search firm | You | Retainer plus a percentage of first-year compensation, commonly around a third | You want a formal national market map and the fee is not the deciding factor. |
| Promote a project executive | You, already | No fee, and a portfolio seat to backfill that is itself hard to fill | They have already declined revenue for a defensible reason and survived the internal conversation. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier V milestone fee of $22,640 to $27,168, fixed before sourcing | You want the cost known during planning and a defined replacement term behind the appointment. |
We are not the size of the national executive search firms competing on this term and have no interest in pretending to be. BEG is a permanent placement firm, not a staffing agency: we do not employ construction professionals, do not supply interim executives and do not bill by the day. The commitments are a fee fixed before sourcing, a 45-day replacement guarantee and 50% off a repeat search for the same seat. For the field leadership this seat depends on, see superintendent.
FAQ
Which sectors the business builds in, how much work it self-performs, what risk it will take on a contract, and which geographies it operates in. Those four decisions set the cost base and the risk profile of the whole company, and they are made far above any individual project.
Substantially. BLS reports May 2025 construction manager medians of $126,690 in nonresidential building construction, $124,430 in heavy and civil engineering construction, $104,100 with specialty trade contractors and $98,390 in residential building construction. A firm moving from residential into nonresidential inherits a management cost base roughly 29% higher.
BLS puts the largest employers as self-employed workers at 38%, specialty trade contractors at 17%, nonresidential building construction at 15%, residential building construction at 9% and heavy and civil engineering construction at 8%. That self-employed share is the number most executives underestimate when planning a recruitment strategy.
Directly. AGC of America’s 2026 workforce survey found electricians the most widely reported hard-to-fill craft, with 81% of firms that had openings reporting difficulty, followed by mechanics at 79%, HVAC technicians at 77% and concrete workers at 76%. A self-perform plan in any of those trades is a recruitment plan first.
Associated Builders and Contractors estimated in January 2026 that the construction industry needs to attract about 349,000 net new workers in 2026 to meet demand for construction services, and projected 456,000 in 2027 as construction spending growth resumes. Those are industry-wide figures, not a forecast for any single firm.
This is a Tier V executive search at $22,640 to $27,168 on milestone billing, agreed before sourcing. Retained construction executive search is commonly priced at around a third of first-year compensation, which at this level frequently exceeds $70,000 and is not finally known until the package settles.
Sometimes, and the test is whether they have ever made a decision that reduced revenue. A project executive is rewarded for keeping the business busy. A VP has to be willing to decline a whole sector or a whole client for reasons that will not be popular internally for at least a year.
BLS puts the lowest 10% of construction managers under $69,690 and the highest 10% over $189,440. A VP sits above the published occupational range in most firms, which is precisely why a percentage-based search fee behaves so unpredictably at this level.
Hiring a sector specialist to run a diversified business, or a generalist to lead a move into a sector that requires depth. Both are avoidable in scoping. We ask what proportion of revenue is expected to come from each sector in three years and recruit against that, not against the current mix.
It sets the ceiling on everything else. A VP who does not understand how the surety views single-job concentration, work-in-progress schedules and the firm’s balance sheet will eventually propose growth the bonding will not support. Candidates who have rebuilt a surety relationship after a bad year are worth more than their resume suggests.
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 the search is confidential by default and paced by ownership or board involvement rather than by candidate availability.
No. BEG places permanent executives employed directly by the hiring company. We do not employ construction professionals, do not supply interim executives and do not bill by the day, and we will tell you when one of those is what you actually need.
Mapping the executive line? See project executive, director of construction, senior project manager and estimator, or all construction management placement.
More construction placement
Ready?
Answer a few questions, get your exact number in about 90 seconds. No call required, no commitment.
See your exact placement price - no call required
