Construction Manager Salary (2026), outlook and how to become one

Construction Managers earn a median of $114,990 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). That is 126% above the $50,980 median for all US occupations. That works out at $55.28/hr. The middle half earn between $88,550 and $151,640. The top 10% earn $189,440 or more.

The median hourly wage for construction managers is $55.28 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). On a full-year basis the $114,990 annual median works out to about $9,580 a month before tax.

BLS does not publish a starting salary. The nearest measure is the low end of the pay range: the lowest-paid 10% of construction managers earn less than $69,690 a year and the bottom quarter less than $88,550 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). New workers often start near that end, but where a particular job starts depends on the employer, the state and the credentials you bring, so read these as the bottom of the range rather than a guaranteed entry wage.

Yes, more often than not. The median is $114,990, so more than half of construction managers earn over $100,000 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In 44 states the median itself is above $100,000: New York ($155,360), Washington ($155,070), Massachusetts ($145,010), Alaska ($139,190), and 40 more.

The highest state medians for Construction Managers are New York ($155,360), Washington ($155,070), Massachusetts ($145,010) (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Adjusted for local prices using BEA Regional Price Parities, Washington moves to the top at $144,908.

BLS does not split construction managers' pay by specialty or employer, but its range shows how far the top end runs: the highest-paid 10% earn more than $189,440, against a median of $114,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location moves pay the most in the published data: the best-paying states are New York ($155,360), Washington ($155,070), Massachusetts ($145,010). BLS also counts 3 specialty careers inside this occupation (data center construction manager, owner's representative, preconstruction manager), which share its federal pay figures.

Yes. BLS reports a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education for Construction Managers, and O*NET rates the preparation needed as considerable preparation. BLS also lists moderate-term on-the-job training as typical on-the-job training. In O*NET's survey of people already doing the job, 40.0% hold bachelor's degree.

Yes, strongly. Employment is projected to grow 9.1% over 2025–2035, more than double the 3.5% projected for all occupations (BLS EP, 2025–2035). BLS still projects about 49,700 openings a year, mostly from workers retiring or moving to other work.

Construction managers plan, coordinate, budget, and supervise construction projects from start to finish. A core O*NET task: inspect or review projects to monitor compliance with building and safety codes or other regulations. Employers most often ask for Analytical or scientific software, Computer aided design CAD software, Data base user interface and query software.

Most work more than 40. In O*NET's survey of people in the job, 74% of construction managers usually work more than 40 hours a week, 26% work exactly 40 and 0% work fewer. 40% say their schedule is regular and 60% irregular. Source: O*NET 31.0 Database, Work Context.

O*NET scores Construction Managers highest on the Enterprising, Conventional and Realistic interest areas, so the work mixes leading, persuading, selling and making decisions with organising, following procedures and working precisely with data. On NueCareer's MBTI-to-interest mapping that lines up most closely with ESTJ personalities. Personality is a fit signal, not a gate. The free NueCareer quiz scores your own profile against all 1,731 careers in the bank.

4 years for a bachelor's degree, plus up to a year working under an experienced manager. An associate degree combined with work experience is typical for managers of small projects, and qualifying on experience alone means many years in a construction speciality such as carpentry or masonry. If you will be contracting rather than managing, California's contractor licence separately requires four full years of journey-level or supervisory experience within the previous ten, and the CCM requires 48 months of responsible-in-charge experience.

Yes, and it is issued by the state you work in, not nationally. What states license is contracting, not construction management as such. BLS records only that some states require construction managers to be licensed and refers candidates to their state licensing board, which is unusually vague for the Handbook and reflects a genuinely patchy picture. Contractor licensing, by contrast, is well defined and differs in ways that matter: the classifications available, the years and kind of experience accepted, whether a trade examination is required for the classification you want, the bond and workers' compensation requirements, and the dollar threshold below which no licence is needed at all. California sets that threshold at $1,000 in combined labour and materials across one or more contracts on a project, and prohibits splitting work to fall under it.

The California Contractor Licence Examinations and the CCM exam (Certified Construction Manager Examination). Two examinations are required as a condition of licensure: a Law and Business examination and a trade examination in the classification applied for. A trade examination is not required for the C-61 Limited Specialty classification, and a waiver of one or both examinations may be granted under certain conditions determined during application review.

Women make up 8.5% of construction managers, against 47.1% of all employed people: a heavily male-dominated occupation. 27.3% are 55 or older, close to the 23.2% across all jobs. The median worker is 45.2 years old (all workers: 42.1). Source: BLS Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages.