01 — MethodologyHow to read these numbersFederal wage figures on this page come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — the May 2025 estimates, the most recent published as of August 2026 — pulled directly from the BLS public data API and cross-checked against the percentile tables the US Department of Labor serves through CareerOneStop. Ten-year demand figures come from BLS Employment Projections 2024–34. Posted-pay figures come from Indeed occupation salary pages updated 9–10 August 2026.Four of the six roles map cleanly to a federal occupation code: construction managers (11-9021), first-line supervisors of construction trades (47-1011), cost estimators (13-1051), and electrical and electronic engineering technologists and technicians (17-3023). We also read the water-specific industry cuts — NAICS 2371 utility system construction and NAICS 2213 water, sewage and other systems — because a construction manager in water pay differently than the all-industry average. Two roles, process mechanical superintendent and startup/commissioning lead, have no federal code at all; their bands are triangulated from adjacent codes and posted ranges, and each card says so.Market context — the retirement wave, the licensing ladder, and the capital pipeline — comes from EPA’s water sector workforce page, EPA’s 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey (2023) and 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (released 2024), the AWWA 2026 State of the Water Industry report, and the Virginia Board for Waterworks and Wastewater Works Operators. Bands are rounded to the nearest $5,000 and stated as spreads, because the honest answer to “what does this pay” is a range.What these figures are — and are notThese are market benchmarks, not iRecruit placement data. Every dollar figure traces to a named public source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025 estimates, the most recent published as of August 2026), BLS Employment Projections 2024–34, wage percentiles served through CareerOneStop by the US Department of Labor, and Indeed posted-job salary pages updated 9–10 August 2026. BLS reports base wages only — no per diem, truck allowance, completion bonus, or overtime, all of which are material on plant work. Job-board averages are drawn from postings rather than filled offers, and thin-sample cities move a great deal. Two of the six roles here have no BLS occupation code at all, so their bands are read off adjacent codes and posted ranges rather than measured directly. Treat every spread as a planning range, not an offer letter.02 — At a glanceThe benchmarks at a glanceThe whole guide in one screen. Each row jumps to the full section.01Water/wastewater construction PM$115–165k; BLS median $120,440 in utility system construction, $132,600 at water and sewage utilitiesPM02Plant superintendent$105–150k; BLS construction supervisors median $79,590 in NAICS 2371, national 90th percentile $128,260Supt03Process mechanical superintendent$110–155k; pipefitters top out at a $108,420 90th percentile, and process leads price above general supersMech supt04Startup / commissioning lead$120–175k; Indeed commissioning managers average $119,953 with a $173,464 top of rangeStartup05Estimator$100–145k; BLS estimators average $107,350 in utility system construction vs $85,390 all-industryEstimatorFour anchors worth carrying into a comp conversation: the BLS median for construction managers in utility system construction is $120,440, the national 75th percentile for that code is $151,640, estimators inside utility system construction average $107,350 against $85,390 across all industries, and the top decile of licensed water and wastewater operators earns $91,060 against a $60,020 median.
03 — Benchmarks2026 pay bands, role by roleEach band is a planning range built from the federal percentile that fits the role plus the posted-pay evidence around it. Where a role has no BLS occupation code, the card says so and names what it was triangulated from instead. All figures are base pay; per diem and completion bonuses sit on top.$115–165kWater/wastewater construction PMBLS OEWS puts construction managers (11-9021) at a $120,440 median inside utility system construction and a $132,600 median at water and sewage utilities, against a $114,990 national median and a $151,640 75th percentile.$105–150kPlant superintendentBLS first-line construction supervisors (47-1011) run a $79,590 median inside utility system construction and $128,260 at the national 90th percentile. Indeed’s construction superintendent average is $105,075 across 21.4k postings.$110–155kProcess mechanical superintendentNo BLS code exists for this title. Anchors: plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters (47-2152) reach a $108,420 90th percentile, construction supervisors reach $128,260, and process leads on treatment work price above both.$75–115kI&C technicianBLS electrical and electronic engineering technicians (17-3023) post a $78,190 median, $97,650 75th and $115,700 90th percentile, with a $79,940 median inside utility system construction. Indeed instrument techs average $33.16/hr.$120–175kStartup / commissioning leadNo BLS code. Indeed’s commissioning manager average is $119,953 against an $82,950–$173,464 posted range across 1.2k postings; commissioning engineers average $115,884 on a similar sample (updated Aug 2026).$100–145kEstimatorBLS cost estimators (13-1051) average $107,350 inside utility system construction against $85,390 across all industries — one of the few places a water-adjacent premium shows up plainly in federal data.Sources: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates, retrieved via the BLS public data API; wage percentiles and 2024–34 employment projections cross-checked on CareerOneStop (US Department of Labor); Indeed occupation salary pages updated 9–10 August 2026 (retrieved Aug 2026).The operator-licensing interface, and why it sets your startup dateConstruction leadership is not licensed, but the plant you hand over is. State boards run their own ladders — commonly four ascending grades or classes — with the credential required keyed to facility size and complexity: Virginia, for example, licenses wastewater works operators across four classes and waterworks operators across four as well. That ladder is priced. BLS puts water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators (51-8031) at a $60,020 median nationally, with the 90th percentile at $91,060 — and in the highest-paying states the top decile runs further still, to $123,380 in California and $106,270 in Washington. Programs that discover late that no one on site holds a high enough grade to sign for startup lose weeks, not days. 04 — Cost driversPremiums: the six deltas that actually move an offerTitles are a poor guide to pay in this market; credentials, industry, and percentile position do most of the work. Each delta below is the gap between two figures published by the same source, so it can be checked rather than taken on trust.+$31kTop-decile operator credentialBLS 51-8031: $91,060 at the 90th percentile against a $60,020 median. The gap is grade, plant complexity, and geography — and it is what a startup team is bidding against.+$22kEstimating inside utility system constructionBLS 13-1051 averages $107,350 in NAICS 2371 versus $85,390 across all industries. Water and sewer estimating carries a visible federal premium; general commercial estimating does not.+$16kOwner and utility-side construction managementBLS 11-9021 averages $140,260 at water, sewage and other systems (NAICS 2213) against $124,360 all-industry — utilities pay up for people who can hold a program from the owner’s chair.+$37kMoving from median to top-quartile PMBLS 11-9021 national percentiles: $114,990 median, $151,640 at the 75th. On plant work the jump usually tracks process scope and successful startups, not headcount managed.+$54kCommissioning at the top of the posted rangeIndeed’s commissioning manager range runs $82,950 to $173,464 against a $119,953 average, and Houston posts at $152,690 — the widest spread of any role on this page.+$38kI&C technician at the top of bandBLS 17-3023: $115,700 at the 90th percentile against a $78,190 median. SCADA, PLC, and process-instrument depth is what separates the two ends on treatment work.The pattern across all six: the money follows scarce, verifiable capability — a licence grade, a process-scope track record, a successful startup — rather than title inflation. That is also why posted ranges on this work are so wide: employers are pricing an unknown until someone proves which end of the band they belong in. 05 — VariationBy region: the same title, $50,000 apartConstruction-manager bands below are the BLS median to 75th percentile for occupation 11-9021 in each state; operator figures are BLS medians for 51-8031. The geography of construction pay and the geography of operator pay do not always move together, which is exactly where staffing plans go wrong.Pacific Northwest (WA)$155–178kConstruction managers median $155,070, 75th $177,990. Operators median $80,800, about 35% above the national median (BLS OEWS, May 2025).California$133–168kCM median $133,160. Operators lead the country: $81,770 median and a $123,380 90th percentile — the licensing ladder is fully priced here.Northeast (NY, MA)$145–197kNY construction managers median $155,360 with a $197,010 75th percentile; MA median $145,010. Operators lag badly: NY $63,990, MA $68,550.Mountain West and Upper Midwest (CO, MN)$123–156kCO CM median $124,830, MN $123,400. Operators at $74,200 and $74,670 — the tightest plant-to-field pay gap in this set.Southeast (GA, FL)$111–162kGA CM median $110,810; FL $113,130 with a $162,170 75th percentile. Operators sit low: GA $48,930, FL $59,030.Texas and the Gulf Coast$101–132kCM median $101,470, lowest in this set; operators $49,460. Yet Indeed puts Houston commissioning managers at $152,690 — industrial competition.Read the two columns together. Washington and California pay operators 35–36% above the national median while Texas and Georgia pay them roughly 18–19% below it, and the construction-manager spread runs from $101,470 in Texas to $155,360 in New York. A national band is useful for budgeting a program; it is close to useless for writing a specific offer. 06 — TrendThe retirement wave is not a talking pointEPA states plainly that roughly one-third of the water sector workforce is eligible to retire in the next 10 years. The projections data shows what that looks like arithmetically. BLS expects employment of water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators to fall 7% between 2024 and 2034, from 132,400 to 123,800 — and still projects 10,700 openings a year. Almost none of that is growth. It is replacement demand: people leaving an occupation faster than the occupation shrinks.The construction side runs the opposite way and competes for the same people. BLS projects construction managers to grow 9% to 598,400 by 2034, with 46,800 annual openings, while first-line construction supervisors add 74,400 openings a year. Cost estimators, meanwhile, are projected to shrink 4% to 212,100 — which makes the $107,350 average inside utility system construction look less like a premium and more like a scarcity signal.The capital pipeline is what turns a demographic problem into a schedule problem. EPA’s 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey (2023) put 20-year drinking-water need at $625 billion, including $107 billion in treatment; the 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (released 2024) documented $630.1 billion more. AWWA’s 2026 State of the Water Industry report names aging infrastructure the sector’s most pressing challenge, followed by sustainable funding and long-term supply reliability, and notes the five-year outlook has fallen to its lowest level in nearly a decade. 07 — WorkforceWhat this means when you staff a plant programTreatment work concentrates scarce skills onto one site: heavy process concrete, process mechanical, electrical and I&C, and a startup team that has to hand a working plant to licensed operators. The pay data says where the pressure sits — the widest posted spread on this page belongs to commissioning, the clearest federal premium belongs to water-specific estimating, and the deepest structural shortage belongs to the licensed operator population that startup depends on. Budgeting to a national median for any of those three is how a schedule slips before the first pour.iRecruit is building its candidate network across water and wastewater construction — project managers, plant and process mechanical superintendents, I&C technicians, startup and commissioning leads, and estimators — assembling candidate density ahead of demand rather than after a program is already late. We screen for process scope, licence grade awareness, and startup history, and we shortlist against the bands on this page so that a comp conversation starts from public data rather than a guess.For the hiring side of this market, see the Water Infrastructure practice. 08 — FAQFrequently asked questions What does a water or wastewater construction project manager make in 2026?+BLS OEWS puts construction managers at a $120,440 median inside utility system construction and $132,600 at water and sewage utilities, against a $114,990 national median. The 75th percentile for the occupation is $151,640, which is where experienced plant PMs typically land.Do you need an operator licence to run water plant construction?+No — construction leadership is not licensed, but startup and handover depend on operators who are. State boards run ascending grades or classes keyed to facility size and complexity; Virginia, for instance, licenses wastewater works operators across four classes. BLS puts the operator 90th percentile at $91,060 against a $60,020 median.How much does startup and commissioning work pay?+Indeed’s commissioning manager average is $119,953, on a posted range of $82,950 to $173,464; commissioning engineers average $115,884. There is no BLS occupation code for the role, so posted ranges are the best public evidence available.Which states pay water construction leadership the most?+On BLS construction-manager medians (11-9021, OEWS May 2025), New York ($155,360) and Washington ($155,070) lead, followed by Massachusetts ($145,010), Alaska ($139,190) and New Jersey ($138,230), with California next at $133,160 — against a $114,990 national median. Texas is lowest of the states reviewed here at $101,470.Is the water workforce retirement wave actually showing up in the numbers?+Yes. EPA says roughly one-third of the water sector workforce is retirement-eligible within 10 years, and BLS projects operator employment to fall 7% by 2034 while still generating 10,700 openings a year — almost pure replacement demand rather than growth. Water talent, mapped before demandThe retirement wave hits your startup date before it hits your operating budget. iRecruit is building its network of water and wastewater construction leaders ahead of demand. Tell us which roles your next program will need.Scope a search →Candidates — register with us →
