Construction Job-Changers Earn $15,900 More, Pushing Contractors to Upskill
Construction workers who switched employers saw pay rise 12.9% year over year, and their median gross pay topped $59,100, compared with $43,200 for job-changers overall. Those figures come from ADP Research’s Today at Work 2026, Issue 2 (June 2026), cited in a Construction Executive column by ADP industry executive Kit Dickinson. His argument: with experienced workers holding options, upskilling people already on the payroll is one of the more practical ways to compete for skilled labor. It also pairs with our earlier coverage of the AGC/NCCER workforce survey.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Pay gap: The job-changer premium is about $15,900 in median gross pay, by our math from the ADP figures. The column urges regular pay benchmarking for hard-to-find skills or new markets, but it does not give wage-progression steps or the cost of apprenticeship or upskilling programs (source does not say).
- Retention: The column recommends mapping apprentice to craft worker to crew leader to superintendent, or field employee to project manager. ADP found workers who feel secure in their jobs were twice as likely to say they have no intention of leaving. Workers confident their education prepared them were nine times more likely to say they have the skills to advance.
- Skills inventory: Contractors moving into data centers or advanced manufacturing should audit current crews for skill gaps first. Only 29% of construction and related-trades workers use AI weekly and 20% daily, so the column suggests piloting software or BIM training with small groups before rolling it out company-wide.
