Top Metros for Construction Managers: New York Ranks Highest as Bay Area Pays More

Across the top ten metros for construction managers, LaborCove’s data shows that no single metric explains the rankings. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara stand out for particularly high median salaries, yet New York-Newark-Jersey City leads the ranking with a higher Geography Score despite a lower median salary than San Francisco. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands have the largest employment counts among the listed metros but lower Geography Scores than several smaller markets. The national projected employment growth rate of 8.7% for construction managers provides general context that the occupation is expected to expand overall. Within that context, the top metros combine different levels of pay, employment size, and Geography Scores, giving candidates several distinct numerical profiles to compare rather than a single obvious choice.

The national median annual salary for construction managers is $114,990. Several of the top-ranked metros have median salaries above this national figure. For example, New York-Newark-Jersey City has a median salary of $158,000, while San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is higher still at $166,030. Boston-Cambridge-Newton reports a median of $156,470, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue comes in at $159,430. Among the ten listed metros, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands show median salaries of $103,550 and $103,530, respectively. Both are below the national median of $114,990 but still fall within the top ten of LaborCove’s metro ranking by Geography Score. This contrast shows that a metro can earn a high ranking even when its median salary is below the national median. Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, at rank #10, has a median salary of $129,990, which is above the national figure but paired with a lower Geography Score than the higher-ranked metros. Together, these numbers show that the salary dimension and the LaborCove ranking do not always move in lockstep.

Looking just at the highest reported median salaries, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont leads this group at $166,030, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara at $163,040 and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue at $159,430. All three sit above New York-Newark-Jersey City’s $158,000 median. Despite not having the highest median salary, New York-Newark-Jersey City holds the #1 rank with a Geography Score of 76.45. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, despite its higher median salary, is ranked #2 with a Geography Score of 65.64. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, also with a higher median salary than New York, is ranked #4 with a Geography Score of 60.84. These relationships make it clear that the highest-paying metros do not automatically secure the top positions in LaborCove’s Geography Score ranking. Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury illustrates this point in another way. Its median salary of $129,990 is higher than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington’s $103,550 and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands’ $103,530, yet it ranks #10, below both Dallas (#5) and Houston (#9) in the Geography Score results supplied here.

National employment for construction managers is 380,360, while the largest single metro employment count reported in this data is 17,110. Within the top ten metros, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has an employment count of 17,110, and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands reports 16,500. Both are larger than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s employment of 12,120. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, with 13,850 construction managers, has a larger employment count than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s 12,120 and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 10,120. In contrast, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara shows an employment count of 1,850, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue reports 4,010. These figures indicate substantial variation in employment size even among metros that appear together in the top ten by Geography Score. Employment data for Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury is not supplied, so no employment comparisons can be made for that metro. Where employment numbers are available, the data allows construction managers to distinguish between larger and smaller markets in terms of current job counts, while remembering that employment counts describe the number of existing jobs rather than job openings or hiring activity.

LaborCove’s Geography Score provides a single numerical value used to rank metros. In the data for construction managers, New York-Newark-Jersey City holds the highest Geography Score among the listed metros at 76.45. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont follows at 65.64, and Boston-Cambridge-Newton is close behind at 64.39. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington have Geography Scores of 60.84 and 60.11, respectively, placing them above Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (59.96) and Chicago-Naperville-Elgin (59.09). Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, at 58.90, and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, at 57.89, round out the lower portion of the top ten ahead of Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury’s 53.04. Because the Geography Score is a composite measure, metros with different combinations of salary and employment can still achieve similar scores. For example, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has a Geography Score of 60.11 with a median salary of $103,550 and employment of 17,110, while San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has a close Geography Score of 60.84 with a higher median salary of $163,040 and a smaller employment count of 1,850.

The national projected employment growth rate of 8.7% for construction managers indicates that, at the national level, the occupation is expected to expand. However, the data supplied here does not include separate projected growth rates for individual metros, so the national projection should be interpreted only as broad context instead of a metro-level forecast. Within that national context, the top ten metros differ on salary, employment, and Geography Score. For instance, construction managers comparing New York-Newark-Jersey City and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington can see that New York has a higher median salary of $158,000 compared with $103,550 in Dallas, while Dallas has a larger reported employment count of 17,110 versus 12,120 in New York. Similar comparisons can be made among San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, all of which show median salaries above the national median of $114,990. Because LaborCove’s rankings are data-driven but not personalized, construction managers can use the numbers as a structured starting point. Comparing each metro’s median salary, employment count, and Geography Score side by side helps clarify the quantitative tradeoffs among the best-ranked markets for this occupation.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for construction managers use authoritative labor‑market data, including Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations from May 2025 for salary and employment, combined with LaborCove’s own Geography Score methodology. The Geography Score is a composite indicator that allows metros to be ranked relative to one another. National figures such as the median salary, employment, and projected employment growth rate describe the occupation across the United States as a whole. The 8.7% projected employment growth rate for construction managers is a national projection and is not a forecast for any individual state or metro area. Because individual priorities differ, these rankings should be interpreted as one structured view of the labor market rather than prescriptive guidance. Construction managers can use the reported salaries, employment counts, and Geography Scores as inputs to their own decisions, alongside factors such as personal circumstances and preferences that fall outside the scope of LaborCove’s data.