Why Executive Hires Are Taking Longer: Inside the VP and Director of Construction Talent Gap
- by: Erica Berry
- in Construction
A VP of Construction search in Kansas City took 28 days to fill in 2026, the longest of any placement in this year’s data, across any role or market. A Director of Construction search in Tampa took 24. Both are outliers even against a backdrop where leadership roles already move slower than the rest of the org chart. For builders planning to fill a VP or Director seat this year, the data suggests it’s worth budgeting more than just a bigger salary line, it’s worth budgeting more time.
This piece looks specifically at why executive construction searches are stretching out, using 2026 placement data across VP of Construction and Director of Construction roles, and what the gap between the fastest and slowest fills in each role reveals about pricing these searches correctly from the start.
The Executive Gap, By the Numbers
Across all ten roles in this year’s dataset, the average time-to-fill was 8.7 days. VP of Construction and Director of Construction searches both ran well above that line—10.8 days and 11.1 days on average, respectively—making them the two slowest-filling roles in the entire dataset, ahead of Project Manager (10.1 days) and every field-level role.
The gap widens further at the extremes. Of the 15 combined VP and Director placements in this data, 4 took 15 days or longer to fill, nearly 27%. Across the other 107 placements spanning every other role, only 11 took that long, about 10%. An executive search in this data was roughly two and a half times more likely to drag past the two-week mark than a search for any other role.
| Role | Avg. Time to Fill | Avg. Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Director of Construction | 11.1 days | $129,778 |
| VP of Construction | 10.8 days | $212,000 |
| Project Manager | 10.1 days | $116,658 |
| Commercial PM | 9.3 days | $140,500 |
| Estimator | 8.6 days | $100,412 |
| HVAC Estimator | 8.1 days | $116,375 |
| Multifamily Superintendent | 8.0 days | $105,062 |
| Foreman | 7.8 days | $100,675 |
| Superintendent | 7.7 days | $114,796 |
| Electrical Superintendent | 7.0 days | $119,500 |
Inside the VP of Construction Search
VP of Construction pay in this data ranges from $167,000 to $283,500, the widest dollar spread of any role, and the time-to-fill numbers track a similarly wide range, from 5 days to 28.
| Market | Salary | Time to Fill |
|---|---|---|
| Orlando, FL | $177,000 | 5 days |
| Houston, TX | $216,500 | 6 days |
| Boston, MA | $283,500 | 7 days |
| Tampa, FL | $188,000 | 7 days |
| Miami, FL | $240,000 | 12 days |
| Kansas City, MO | $167,000 | 28 days |
The pattern here is hard to miss: the fastest VP fills happened at salaries from the middle to the top of the range, while the single slowest fill in the entire dataset belonged to the market offering the lowest VP salary of the six. Boston’s VP search closed in a week despite carrying the highest price tag in the dataset at $283,500, while Kansas City’s search, priced $116,500 below Boston, took four times as long.
Inside the Director of Construction Search
Director of Construction pay is far tighter than VP pay, running from $120,500 to $148,500, but the time-to-fill spread is nearly as dramatic, and in this role, the data offers an especially clean comparison because two Director searches closed in the same market.
| Market | Salary | Time to Fill |
|---|---|---|
| Indianapolis, IN | $128,000 | 5 days |
| Miami, FL | $148,500 | 6 days |
| Raleigh, NC | $128,500 | 7 days |
| Las Vegas, NV | $121,000 | 7 days |
| Denver, CO | $137,500 | 8 days |
| Atlanta, GA | $131,500 | 9 days |
| Atlanta, GA | $126,000 | 17 days |
| Nashville, TN | $120,500 | 17 days |
| Tampa, FL | $126,500 | 24 days |
The Atlanta Comparison
Two Director of Construction roles filled in Atlanta this year at nearly identical scope, and the outcomes split sharply on pay. The search offering $131,500 closed in 9 days. The search offering $126,000, just $5,500 less, took 17 days, nearly double the time. Same market, same role, same candidate pool, and a modest gap in salary lined up with a dramatically different search timeline.
Tampa’s Director search tells a similar story from the slow end: at $126,500, it priced below the $129,778 average for this role and took 24 days to fill, the second-longest search in the dataset behind only Kansas City’s VP search. Nashville’s Director search, priced lowest of the nine at $120,500, took 17 days, tied with the underpriced Atlanta search.
The Pay-to-Speed Connection
No single data point proves that underpricing causes a slow search. Plenty of factors affect how fast an executive role fills, including how narrow the candidate slate is and how many rounds an organization runs before making an offer. But the pattern across both roles points the same direction consistently enough to be worth a builder’s attention: in this data, every VP and Director search that closed in a week or less was priced at or above the average for its role, and every search that stretched past two weeks was priced at or below it.
That’s a meaningful signal for budgeting purposes. At the executive level, the pool of qualified candidates is small enough that even a modest gap below market rate can take a search out of contention for the strongest candidates, the ones fielding multiple offers and able to be selective. A slower search doesn’t just cost recruiting time; it risks losing the candidate to a faster-moving, better-priced offer somewhere else.
Why Executive Searches Move Slower to Begin With
Pay isn’t the only factor stretching these timelines. A few structural realities are specific to VP and Director-level hiring in construction:
The candidate pool is inherently smaller. There are far fewer professionals with the P&L ownership, multi-project oversight, and executive-level relationship experience these roles require, compared to the much larger pool of Superintendents, Foremen, and Estimators.
The interview process has more stakeholders. Executive hires typically involve more rounds, more decision-makers, and more scheduling friction than a field-role hire; every added round adds days to the timeline independent of pay.
Relocation is more often on the table. Executive candidates are more likely to be recruited from outside the immediate market, adding negotiation time around relocation packages, timelines, and family considerations that rarely factor into field-role searches.
Counteroffers and competing processes are more common. A strong VP or Director candidate is more likely to already be in conversation with other companies, which extends negotiation and decision windows on both sides.
What This Means for Your 2026 Executive Hiring Plan
For builders with a VP or Director of Construction search on the calendar this year, the data points to two practical adjustments. First, price the role at or above the average for that title in your market from the outset, rather than opening low and planning to negotiate up the searches in this data that opened competitively closed in a week, while the ones that opened below market average stretched past two weeks and, in one case, past four. Second, build extra timeline buffer into project staffing plans for executive searches specifically; treating a VP or Director search on the same clock as a Superintendent or Project Manager search sets an expectation this data doesn’t support.
The cost of moving slowly on an executive search rarely shows up as a single line item, but it’s real: a project running without confirmed leadership for an extra two or three weeks, a strong candidate who accepts a faster-moving offer elsewhere, or a search that has to be reopened after a candidate falls through late in the process. Pricing the role right from the start remains the clearest lever a builder has to close that gap.
