01 — MethodologyHow to read these numbersThere is no federal wage code for “electrical superintendent salary” or its mechanical twin, so this guide is built on the closest thing that exists: the BLS OEWS May 2025 estimates (published May 2026) for 47-1011, first-line supervisors of construction trades, cut by the industries that employ trade superintendents. Inside electrical contractors (NAICS 238210) the series covers 79,660 supervisory jobs at a $93,500 median; inside plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors (238220), 60,520 jobs at $93,320. Both sit $13,000+ above the all-industry 47-1011 median of $79,920 that our construction superintendent salary guide uses as its floor, because the contractor cuts strip out residential foremen and extraction crews. For the senior rung we also pulled 11-9021, construction managers, in the same industries: $114,450 median at electrical contractors, $109,150 at mechanical.The title-level ladder comes from posting data retrieved September 15, 2026: Salary.com medians for electrical superintendent ($101,483), mechanical superintendent ($113,932), and MEP superintendent ($120,266), all dated September 1, 2026; ZipRecruiter national aggregates for electrical superintendent ($81,752), mechanical superintendent ($98,854), MEP and HVAC superintendent ($95,168), and traveling superintendent ($102,373), dated September 15, 2026; and Indeed, which folds all superintendent titles into one $111,015 average from 17,000 postings (updated September 7, 2026). Premiums are sourced to the GSA FY2026 per diem schedule (pulled from the GSA per diem API), OEWS industry cuts through the BLS OEWS Query System, and DCgeeks’ 2026 aggregation of data center field pay.Two artifacts matter before you read a single card. ZipRecruiter’s electrical superintendent page returns $81,752 — the identical figure, to the dollar, as its electrical foreman page — because its string-matching folds the two titles together; and its MEP superintendent page returns $95,168, identical to its generic construction superintendent figure, for the same reason. Salary.com’s structured job families do not have that problem, so where the two disagree we lead with Salary.com and show ZipRecruiter as the low read. Sources are named next to every number; where they disagree, we show the spread instead of averaging it away.What these figures are — and are notFigures as of September 2026. These are public-market benchmarks, not iRecruit placement data and not an offer range: the BLS series measures base wages for every construction supervisor at a contractor, working foremen included, and the posting figures capture advertised base only, excluding the per diem, truck, and completion-bonus value that routinely adds a fifth to an MEP superintendent package.02 — At a glanceThe benchmarks at a glanceThe whole guide in one screen. Each row jumps to the full section.01Federal spine: supervisors at electrical contractorsBLS OEWS May 2025, 47-1011 in NAICS 238210: $93,500 median across 79,660 jobs; 25th-75th band $76,550-$118,230; 90th $140,980$94K med02Electrical superintendent, postedSalary.com September 1, 2026: $101,483 median, typical range $90,344-$113,314, 90th $124,086; ZipRecruiter reads $81,752 because it folds in foremen$101K med03Mechanical superintendent, postedSalary.com September 1, 2026: $113,932 median, typical range $102,106-$128,301, 90th $141,383; ZipRecruiter $98,854, majority $72,000-$119,000$114K med04MEP superintendent, postedSalary.com September 1, 2026: $120,266 median, typical range $109,487-$132,857, 90th $144,320; the combined-scope rung on data center and fab work$120K med05Traveling, before per diemZipRecruiter September 15, 2026: $102,373 base, majority $84,500-$118,000, plus per diem benchmarked at the $178/day GSA FY2026 CONUS rate+$178/dayAnchor numbers for 2026: the federal median for a construction supervisor at an electrical contractor is $93,500 and at a mechanical contractor $93,320; posted electrical superintendents sit at $101,483, mechanical at $113,932, and MEP at $120,266 on Salary.com’s September 2026 data. The ordering is the finding: mechanical scope prices 10–20% over electrical on every posting source, and the combined MEP seat prices over both.
03 — BenchmarksThe trade superintendent ladder in 2026Six rungs, from the working foreman the aggregators mistake for a superintendent to the traveling MEP super on a mission-critical site. Posted medians describe what employers advertise to hire; incumbent field leaders at strong specialty contractors sit a band higher. Role briefs for the two anchor seats are at electrical superintendent and mechanical superintendent, and the GC-side ladder is priced in the construction superintendent salary guide.$81,752Electrical foreman, and what ZipRecruiter calls a superintendentZipRecruiter’s September 15, 2026 national average for electrical superintendent, majority $63,000-$95,000, top earners $119,000 — a figure identical to its electrical foreman page. Read it as the feeder-rung number: the licensed journeyman running a crew of 6-12, not the super running the job.$93,500Federal spine: supervisor at an electrical contractorBLS OEWS May 2025 median for 47-1011 inside NAICS 238210 ($44.95/hr), 25th percentile $76,550, 75th $118,230, 90th $140,980. The mechanical-contractor cut (238220) is nearly identical at $93,320 median and $138,720 at the 90th. Both blend foremen with superintendents, so real supers live in the top half.$101,483Electrical superintendentSalary.com’s September 1, 2026 median, typical range $90,344-$113,314, 10th percentile $80,203, 90th $124,086. The seat that owns the electrical scope on a commercial or industrial job: manpower loading, switchgear and feeder sequencing, and the energization plan.$113,932Mechanical superintendentSalary.com’s September 1, 2026 median, typical range $102,106-$128,301, 90th percentile $141,383; ZipRecruiter’s title-matched average is $98,854 with a $145,000 top decile. The premium over electrical is consistent across sources — $12,449 on Salary.com, $17,102 on ZipRecruiter — and tracks the piping, equipment-rigging, and hydronic scope a mechanical super has to sequence.$120,266MEP superintendentSalary.com’s September 1, 2026 median, typical range $109,487-$132,857, 90th percentile $144,320. The combined-scope seat that GCs and mission-critical builders hire to coordinate every trade contractor’s super. ZipRecruiter returns $95,168 for the same title — identical to its generic superintendent figure, a string-matching artifact, not a market read.$114,450Senior rung: construction managers at electrical contractorsBLS OEWS May 2025 median for 11-9021 inside NAICS 238210, 75th percentile $144,780, 90th $186,150; the mechanical-contractor cut (238220) is $109,150 median and $171,880 at the 90th. This is the general-superintendent and operations-manager tier a trade super grows into, and the 90th percentile is where multi-project field leaders at large specialty contractors actually sit.Sources: BLS OEWS May 2025 national industry-specific estimates for SOC 47-1011 and 11-9021 (NAICS 236200, 238100, 238200, 238210, 238220) via the BLS OEWS Query System; Salary.com electrical, mechanical, and MEP superintendent medians as of September 1, 2026; ZipRecruiter salary aggregates retrieved September 15, 2026; Indeed superintendent salary page updated September 7, 2026.Why the aggregators disagree by $20,000 on the same titleThree mechanisms. First, title folding: ZipRecruiter matches on strings, so “electrical superintendent” inherits the foreman pool ($81,752) and “MEP superintendent” inherits the generic super pool ($95,168), while Salary.com’s job-family model keeps the seats separate at $101,483 and $120,266. Second, Indeed’s pooling: its single superintendent page averages $111,015 across 17,000 postings that include golf-course and school-district superintendents. Third, the federal blend: OEWS 47-1011 inside contractors counts every supervisor, so its $93,500 electrical-contractor median is a floor for a true superintendent and its $118,230 75th percentile is the better proxy. Quote the source with the number, or the number is meaningless. 04 — Cost driversThe premium stack on top of baseTrade superintendent packages carry more non-wage value than almost any seat in construction, and the reindustrialization build — data centers, fabs, gigafactories — has added sector premiums on top. Six factors, each with a named source; ignore them and every comparison above misleads by 15-40%.+30-45%Data center and mission-critical scopeDCgeeks’ 2026 aggregation of Salary.com, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor puts data center superintendents 30-45% above the all-super benchmark at a $148,000 median base, with general-super rungs at $205,000-$250,000. MEP supers carry the largest share of that premium because the electrical and mechanical scopes are the commissioning-critical path; see data center construction recruiting.$211,260Semiconductor fab, the thin federal signalBLS OEWS May 2025 reports a $211,260 median for construction managers (11-9021) employed directly by semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturers (NAICS 3344), on a sample of just 70 jobs — the only federal line that isolates fab construction leadership, and one to read as a direction, not a benchmark. Posting aggregators see none of it: ZipRecruiter’s Phoenix electrical superintendent average is $81,172, $580 below the national figure, in the country’s largest fab corridor.$178/dayPer diem on traveling assignmentsThe GSA FY2026 standard CONUS rate — $110 lodging plus $68 M&IE, effective October 2025 through September 2026 — is the reference floor for traveling trade supers. Across a 48-week deployment year it is roughly $42,000 of untaxed value on top of ZipRecruiter’s $102,373 traveling-super base, and mission-critical contractors routinely pay above the GSA floor to hold MEP supers on remote sites.+$12,020Specialty contractor over general contractorOEWS May 2025 puts the 47-1011 median at $93,500 inside electrical contractors and $93,320 inside mechanical contractors, against $81,480 inside nonresidential building construction (NAICS 236200) — a 15% premium for supervising your own licensed forces rather than managing subs. The gap reverses at the top: the GC cut’s 90th percentile ($129,520) trails the electrical contractor cut ($140,980) by $11,460.+12-21%Mechanical scope over electricalMechanical superintendents out-earn electrical superintendents by $12,449 on Salary.com’s September 2026 medians (12%) and by $17,102 on ZipRecruiter’s (21%). The federal data shows no such gap at the supervisor level ($93,320 versus $93,500), which says the premium is a posting-market phenomenon: mechanical scope on industrial and process work is scarcer at the superintendent level than electrical, so employers bid for it.$800-1,500Truck and completion bonus, monthly and annualConstruction recruiter market guides (Birmingham Group, 2026; Amundson Group lists the same package components without dollar figures) report truck allowances of roughly $800-$1,500 a month or a company truck with fuel as near-universal in superintendent packages, plus completion and annual bonuses of 10-20% of base weighted toward schedule-critical work. That is $20,000-$40,000 of annual value no posting median captures.Do the arithmetic once: a $101,483 posted electrical superintendent base plus a mid-band truck allowance and a 15% completion bonus is a $130K package; make it a traveling MEP super on a data center at the $148,000 sector base with GSA per diem and it clears $210K in annual value. Night-shift energizations and occupied-facility cutovers price in the same way — as bigger bonuses and faster rotations, not as a separate line. Compare packages, never bases. 05 — VariationRegional and corridor spreadState figures below are OEWS May 2025 medians for the all-industry 47-1011 series (the contractor cuts are published nationally only) — payroll-based and consistent, and all skewing low for a true superintendent by the same blend, which makes them clean for comparing regions to each other. Posting figures are ZipRecruiter title aggregates retrieved September 15, 2026, with their folding artifact intact.Pacific Northwest$88K-$110KWashington leads every state on the 47-1011 proxy at a $109,570 median, and ZipRecruiter ranks it first for electrical ($87,795) and mechanical ($106,162) superintendent pay, each 7.4% over the national posted figure — prevailing-wage density and hyperscale construction on the Columbia River pull the whole band up.Upper Midwest and Northeast$96K-$106KIllinois ($105,750), New Jersey ($105,510), Massachusetts ($97,850), and Minnesota ($97,610) on the OEWS proxy — union specialty contractors with self-performed MEP scope keep supervisor scale elevated, and the mechanical premium is widest in these markets.Phoenix fab corridor$81K-$98K postedZipRecruiter’s Phoenix averages — $81,172 electrical, $98,153 mechanical, majority bands $62,600-$94,300 and $71,500-$118,200 — sit fractionally below national despite the largest semiconductor build in the country. The fab premium is paid through per diem, retention bonus, and the OEWS 3344 tail, none of which the aggregator sees.Columbus and the Ohio corridor$79K postedZipRecruiter’s Columbus electrical superintendent average is $78,964, majority $60,900-$91,800, 90th percentile $114,942 — 3.4% under national on a market carrying fab, data center, and battery-plant scope simultaneously. Same lesson as Phoenix: the corridor premium lives in the package, not the posted base.Sun Belt volume markets$75K-$79K proxyTexas ($74,520), Florida ($75,790), and Arizona ($78,550) sit far below the coasts on the OEWS 47-1011 proxy — and they are the data center corridors where mission-critical MEP supers price off the national $148,000 sector base, the widest proxy-to-market gap in the country.National band inside contractors$62K-$141KOEWS May 2025, 47-1011 at electrical contractors: 10th percentile $61,980, 25th $76,550, median $93,500, 75th $118,230, 90th $140,980; at plumbing and HVAC contractors: $61,200, $75,600, $93,320, $112,920, $138,720. True superintendents live almost entirely above the median of both.The corridor rows are the map’s real lesson: Phoenix, Columbus, Dallas, and northern Virginia carry the largest MEP pipelines in the country and post the most ordinary base numbers, because the premium is delivered as per diem, retention, and sector base rather than as a local wage. Where sector and geography conflict, sector wins — and increasingly it relocates the superintendent rather than repricing the city. 06 — TrendA flat federal spine under a hot MEP marketThe all-industry 47-1011 proxy moved 1.3% in a year — a $78,900 median in May 2024 (NAHB Eye on Housing analysis of OEWS) to $79,920 in May 2025 — while construction average hourly earnings rose 4.2% year over year to $41.66 by August 2026 (BLS payroll data). The contractor cuts show where the money went: supervisors at electrical and mechanical contractors now sit $13,000–$14,000 over the all-industry median, and the posted market for the actual superintendent titles runs $8,000–$27,000 above even those cuts.Demand gauges explain the pressure. ABC’s Construction Backlog Indicator read 8.5 months for August 2026 (released September 15), unchanged from a year earlier, with construction job openings near a two-year high, and the AGC 2026 Workforce Survey (1,830 respondents, July–August 2026) found 82% of firms with salaried openings, 87% of those reporting the seats as hard or harder to fill than a year ago, and 42% reporting projects delayed by staffing shortages. MEP scope is where those delays land first: on a data center the electrical and mechanical supers own the commissioning path, and on a fab they own the tool-install handoff.The long arithmetic runs the same direction. BLS projects 74,400 annual openings for 47-1011 through 2034 with 5-6% growth (O*NET, 2024-34 projections) against a 2024 base of 921,600 jobs, and the trade-contractor share of that pool — 148,850 supervisors at building equipment contractors in May 2025 — is the one that feeds every MEP super seat. Trade supers are made from foremen over five to eight years; every year of under-hiring at $81,752 foremen becomes a bidding war for $120,266 MEP supers later. 07 — WorkforceReading the numbers before you write an offerThree rules. First, never quote ZipRecruiter’s $81,752 to an electrical superintendent — it is the foreman pool wearing a superintendent label, and the structured posted market for the actual title starts at $101,483 and runs to $144,320 at the MEP 90th percentile. Second, price the scope, not the title: mechanical carries a 12–21% premium over electrical on every posting source, and the combined MEP seat carries another $6,000–$19,000 on top. Third, compare packages: truck, bonus, per diem, and sector base are $20K–$90K of annual value that no median above includes, and on mission-critical work they are the whole negotiation. How the office and field tracks in MEP fit together is mapped in our MEP careers and hiring guide.For employers, the hard rung is the $101K–$135K band where a proven electrical or mechanical super is asked to run a data center hall or a fab sub-fab for the first time — findable at the foreman rung, visible at the general-super rung, and thin in between. iRecruit is building candidate density across the trade superintendent ladder ahead of that demand, from project engineer through general superintendent; the screening question that separates the bands is which energizations or equipment sets the candidate personally sequenced, at what schedule pressure, and what their last three jobs closed out at. For a standing pipeline on a multi-year program, see embedded recruiting support and our MEP and HVAC recruiting practice.For the hiring side of this market, see the MEP & HVAC Recruiters practice. 08 — FAQFrequently asked questions How much does an electrical superintendent make in 2026?+Salary.com’s September 1, 2026 median is $101,483, typical range $90,344-$113,314, 90th percentile $124,086. The federal spine is lower: BLS OEWS May 2025 puts first-line construction supervisors at electrical contractors (NAICS 238210) at a $93,500 median, with a $118,230 75th percentile that better describes a true superintendent. ZipRecruiter’s $81,752 folds in electrical foremen.What does a mechanical superintendent make?+Salary.com’s September 1, 2026 median is $113,932, typical range $102,106-$128,301, 90th percentile $141,383; ZipRecruiter’s title-matched average is $98,854 with top earners at $145,000. That is a 12-21% premium over electrical superintendents on posting data, though BLS shows supervisors at mechanical contractors ($93,320) and electrical contractors ($93,500) at parity.How much does an MEP superintendent make?+Salary.com’s September 1, 2026 median is $120,266, typical range $109,487-$132,857, 90th percentile $144,320. On data center work the seat prices off DCgeeks’ 2026 mission-critical benchmark instead — a $148,000 median base for data center superintendents, 30-45% above the all-super figure — before per diem and completion bonus.Do electrical superintendents make more than construction superintendents?+On structured posting data, modestly: $101,483 for electrical superintendents against Salary.com’s $106,097 for a general construction superintendent and ZipRecruiter’s $95,168 for the generic title. On federal data the trade side wins clearly — OEWS May 2025 supervisors at electrical contractors ($93,500) out-earn those at nonresidential building GCs ($81,480) by $12,020, or 15%.What do traveling electrical and mechanical superintendents get paid?+ZipRecruiter’s September 15, 2026 traveling-superintendent base is $102,373, majority $84,500-$118,000, before per diem benchmarked at the GSA FY2026 standard CONUS rate of $178/day ($110 lodging, $68 M&IE). A full deployment year adds roughly $42,000 of per diem value, and mission-critical contractors routinely pay above the GSA floor to hold MEP supers on remote fab and data center sites. The two seats on the commissioning pathHiring an electrical, mechanical, or MEP superintendent? iRecruit is assembling candidate density across the trade superintendent ladder, foreman through general superintendent, ahead of data center and fab demand. Tell us the scope and we’ll shortlist.Scope a search →Candidates — register with us →
