The public data is a year late. We track what moves before it.
Public wage surveys publish annually and land months after the offer market they describe. We hold a standing read on the disciplines and markets our clients hire in, built from the full federal labor stack, the trade press, and the conversations we run week over week. What follows is the instrument, then the record it produces.
What we track.
Named, with the grain we hold it at, how far back it runs, and how often it refreshes. The specific joins behind any one engagement stay internal, for the same reason your competitor's read stays internal too.
- 01
Metro labor force and unemployment
393 metro areas
Since 2019 · Monthly
- 02
Occupational wages
1,081 occupations × 580 areas
Since 2024 · Annual, on release
- 03
Openings, hires, quits
Construction, national
Since 2001 · Monthly
- 04
Wage growth and cost of living
Employment cost index · CPI · regional price parity
Since 2019 · Quarterly / monthly
- 05
Building permits
387 metro areas
Since 2019 · Monthly
- 06
Degree completions
Engineering and construction programs, by metro
Since 2019 · Annual
- 07
Supply pipeline
Births → high-school graduates → engineering degrees, by state
In build · Annual
- 08
Policy capital
30 federal + 56 state tax credits, tagged to the disciplines they pull
Since 2025 · On enactment
- 09
Trade-press events
Awards, expansions, project wins, leadership changes
Since 2019 · Weekly
- 10
Leadership moves
Named moves between firms
Since 2025 · Continuous
- 11
Leadership conversations
Sentiment, mobility risk, what was offered
Since 2025 · Continuous
- 3,302
- Industry-ranked construction and design firm records under tracking
- 110,067
- Job postings harvested and normalized to a common title taxonomy
- 1,576
- Leadership moves logged: who left where, for where
- 708
- Structured leadership conversations on record · 2025–2026
- 79
- Metropolitan markets under active coverage
Live counts · refreshed on each source's publication cycle · as of August 2026
What the industry believes. What the data says.
Four beliefs we hear in nearly every first conversation, each set against the public record. Sources named; figures dated.
- 01
The belief
“A talent shortage means everyone's hiring.”
The record
Construction openings are down 22% and hires down 23% against 2019 — but quits are down 24%, to their lowest since 2016. The market didn't cool. It stopped moving.
The people you need aren't unemployed and aren't applying. They're sitting still.
U.S. construction (NAICS 23), seasonally adjusted · trailing 12 months to June 2026 vs 2019 · U.S. Department of Labor, job openings and labor turnover survey
- 02
The belief
“Construction is slowing, so hiring pressure should ease.”
The record
It is — almost everywhere. Manufacturing construction fell 22% year over year. Data centers went the other way: an all-time high of $59.3bn, up 23%. Office spend looks up 4.7% — strip out data centers and it's down 11.5%.
The one category still growing is the one competing hardest for your electrical and mechanical people.
U.S. Census C30, private construction put-in-place, seasonally adjusted annual rate · May 2026
- 03
The belief
“The pipeline recovers when the market turns.”
The record
U.S. high school graduates peaked in 2025 and are projected to fall about 13% through 2041. The cohort that would join your firm in 2035 is already born and already counted.
The pool is fixed. How many of them become engineers isn't — and that's decided years before they ever reach you.
WICHE, Knocking at the College Door · projections of U.S. high school graduates through 2041
- 04
The belief
“The H-1B door closed.”
The record
It didn't — roughly 97% of petitions are approved, near a record high. What changed is price and sorting. A $100k payment now applies to new petitions for workers entering from outside the US (national-interest exceptions apply; a federal court ruled it unlawful in June 2026 and it is being collected pending appeal). And since the March 2026 lottery, a Level I wage registrant gets one entry against a Level IV's four.
Sponsoring an entry-level engineer stopped being a cost question and became a selection question — and entry-level is the tier the lottery now deprioritizes.
USCIS H-1B registration and selection · weighted selection effective February 2026 · fee status as of July 2026
What you're offering is not what they're hearing.
Across five axes, what employers describe themselves as offering and what people describe themselves as wanting use the same words to mean different things. It is not a values gap. It is a translation gap, and it costs companies offers they think they are winning.
Drawn from 708 structured leadership conversations · 2025–2026 · axes refreshed monthly
What employers report offering
Base salary anchored to prior survey + annual cost-of-living adjustment.
What people report wanting
Total cash visible per pay period — base, regular bonus cadence, sign-on, retention.
The misread
Employers treat band as the answer. People increasingly treat band as a starting point and read cadence, transparency, and review timing as the actual signal.
The Market Intelligence Report.
One metro, one occupation, one quarter: wages against cost of living, openings and quits against 2019, permits and degree completions, the firms hiring against you, and the leadership moves in that market since the last quarter. Every figure cited; every delta dated.
It is what a read looks like on paper. Most engagements begin with one. What we do