02
How long the desk stays empty, and where hiring has stopped working
An estimating seat on the Gulf Coast stays open for a quarter. Executive search firms that place estimators report searches of 60 to 90 days, and one of them puts "close to three months" as the current norm (recruiter hiring report, October 2025[4]). The US median to fill any role is about 45 days (Society for Human Resource Management, 2025 Recruiting Benchmarking Report[5]). An estimator search runs roughly double that, and the bids do not wait.
The national data shows the same pattern without a day count. Construction job openings hit 251,000 in August 2026, up 18% on the year, while the hiring rate fell to the lowest August reading in the 26-year history of the series (BLS JOLTS, 29 September 2026[23]; AGC Data DIGest, 2 October 2026[24]). Employers are posting and not landing. Indeed's tracker shows the stock of open construction postings rising while brand-new postings are down, which is what a market looks like when roles sit unfilled (Indeed Hiring Lab, September 2026[8]).
Exhibit 3
Estimating is a top-three hiring problem everywhere AGC measures it
Share of firms with estimating openings that cannot fill them, 2026 survey
Federal and heavy construction
Firms $50M to $500M revenue
Fig. 3 · Source: AGC and NCCER Workforce Survey, released 3 September 2026
[30] (n = 1,830; Texas n = 70); AGC 2025 Workforce Survey, Texas results
[28] (n = 71)
The Associated General Contractors of America asked 1,830 firms in July and August 2026 which jobs they could not fill. Estimating came third nationally, behind superintendents and project managers, at 72% of firms with an estimating opening, and it has sat in a 72 to 78% band for three straight surveys (AGC Workforce Survey, 2026[25], 2025[26] and 2024[27]). The Texas cut is the one that moved. In 2025, 48% of Texas firms with an estimating opening said they could not fill it. In 2026 it was 80%, the hardest salaried role to fill in the state, ahead of superintendents and engineers, and 38% of Texas firms named competition from data center projects as the reason, double the national share (AGC Workforce Survey, Texas results, 2026[3] and 2025[28]).
The seats stay empty because the people who filled them are leaving. The median US cost estimator was 45.5 years old in 2025, up from 43.5 two years earlier, against 42.1 for the workforce as a whole. Just under 31% are 55 or older, up from under 26% in 2023 (BLS Current Population Survey, 2025[6] and 2023[29]). BLS attributes every projected opening in the occupation to replacement, none to growth (BLS Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035[2]). The arithmetic of that retirement wave is laid out in The Shortage of Estimators.
The trades where hiring has stopped working
Three public measures point to the same two trades: craft hiring difficulty, Gulf Coast craft demand, and the trade labels on open estimator requisitions.
AGC's 2026 craft data puts electricians at 81% hard to fill, the worst of any craft, and pipefitters and welders at 76% (AGC and NCCER Workforce Survey, September 2026[30]). The most recent published count of what the Louisiana corridor needs by trade is the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance's November 2023 survey, taken before most of the projects in Exhibit 2 broke ground. It put the region's two-year need at 2,200 pipefitters and welders, 2,000 electricians, 700 millwrights and 500 instrument technicians (GBRIA, as reported in The Advocate, 2 November 2023[31]). On the Houston job boards in October 2026, electrical and instrumentation was the most frequent trade label on open estimator roles, and the open lead estimator roles at Kiewit were piping, electrical, and civil and structural (Houston estimator listings[12]; Kiewit careers, Houston[13]).
Exhibit 4
The hiring scorecard, by trade
Three public measures, one reading per trade
| Trade | Craft hiring difficulty (AGC, September 2026) | Louisiana corridor craft demand (GBRIA two-year need, November 2023) | Trade-labeled estimator openings, Houston, October 2026 | Reading |
|---|
| Electrical and instrumentation | 81% (electricians) | 2,000 electricians, 500 instrument technicians | Most frequent trade label on the board; lead electrical role open at Kiewit | Hiring has stopped working |
| Piping and mechanical | 76% (pipefitters and welders) | 2,200 pipefitters and welders | Lead piping role open at Kiewit | Hiring has stopped working |
| Structural steel and misc iron | Not surveyed separately | 700 millwrights (nearest proxy) | Lead civil and structural role open at Kiewit | Strained |
Fig. 4 · Source: AGC and NCCER 2026 Workforce Survey
[30]; Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance via The Advocate, 2 November 2023
[31]; Houston estimator listings
[12], 15 October 2026; Kiewit careers, Houston
[13], 16 October 2026. The reading column combines the three measures to its left
A trade whose field workforce is the hardest to find is a trade whose contractors are bidding the most work with the thinnest bench, and the person pricing that work from the package is scarce in the same way. Recruiters describe MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) estimators as a severe shortage category, and heavy civil and MEP estimators as the ones commanding the biggest premiums (recruiter regional gaps study, August 2026[32]). Where the work is data center electrical, the squeeze is sharper still, as set out in The Data Center Boom Has A Problem.
If your open seat is an electrical and instrumentation estimator, the search will run a quarter and the bids will not pause for it. See how an E&I package gets counted, measured and priced while the chair is empty.
See The E&I Estimation Page →03
Paying more has not filled the chair
The obvious fix is a raise, and contractors have tried it. In AGC's 2026 survey more than eight in ten firms raised salaried base pay, and 53% raised it by more than the year before (AGC Workforce Survey, September 2026[25]). The seats are still open.
The pay numbers show why a raise alone does not work. The median US cost estimator earned $78,740 in May 2025, up 10.6% in three years (BLS OEWS, May 2025[1] and May 2022[33]). Over the same three years construction hourly pay rose 14.3%, so nationally an estimator's raise did not keep up with the trades on site (BLS Current Employment Statistics via FRED[34]). Texas did better, with the state mean up 17.8%, and the Gulf Coast metros are mostly ahead of the country: Baton Rouge at $84,710 is 8% above the national median, New Orleans sits at $81,170, and Corpus Christi at $79,550 has the fastest three-year growth of the six at roughly 22%. Houston sits at $78,200, almost exactly the national figure, and Lake Charles is the one corridor where pay has gone sideways, at $74,570 (BLS OEWS, May 2025[1]).
Exhibit 5
What a cost estimator earns on the Gulf Coast
Median annual pay by corridor, May 2025, and the change over the window shown on each row
Baton Rouge
$84,710
about +14% in three years
Houston
$78,200
see note on Houston below
Beaumont and Port Arthur
$77,420
about +17% from May 2021
Lake Charles
$74,570
flat from May 2021
For comparisonConstruction hourly pay for all trades rose 14.3% over the same May 2022 to May 2025 window, against 10.6% for the US cost estimator median (BLS Current Employment Statistics via FRED[34]; BLS OEWS[1]).
Fig. 5 · Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
[1] and earlier years; metro changes compare the May 2025 median with the earliest BLS metro median in the window named on each row, annualized from the hourly figure. Houston: the BLS metro tables carry a Houston mean rather than a median for the earlier years, and the Houston mean rose 5.3% from May 2022 to May 2023, the latest Houston mean published. Construction hourly pay from BLS Current Employment Statistics via FRED
[34]Those medians cover every kind of cost estimator. The industrial tier is a different market. Heavy and civil engineering construction pays its estimators a median of $99,910, 27% above the all-industry figure (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, August 2026[2]). Executive search salary guides for 2026 put senior estimators at $133,000 to $225,000 base and chief estimators at $161,000 to $269,000 (executive search salary guide, 2026[35]), and two Houston recruiter postings offered $140,000 to $170,000 for a chief estimator[36] and $90,000 to $140,000 for a senior estimator[37]. In Houston the gap between the 10th and 90th percentile, $44,800 to $132,450, is wider than the national gap, which is what a market paying a premium for senior industrial people looks like (BLS OEWS, May 2025[1]).
The money the statistics cannot see is the money that decides the hire. Recruiters report signing bonuses on senior estimator placements becoming common and candidates fielding multiple offers within two weeks (executive search hiring report, 2026[38]). BLS wage data excludes sign-on money by definition, so every figure on this page understates what a contractor actually pays to land an industrial estimator in 2026.
Exhibit 6
Two tiers of the same market
What the whole occupation earns, and what the senior industrial tier is offered
| Tier | Pay, 2025 to 2026 | Source |
|---|
| All cost estimators, US median | $78,740 | BLS OEWS, May 2025[1] |
| Specialty trade contractors, median | $80,330 | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 data[2] |
| Heavy and civil engineering construction, median | $99,910 | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 data[2] |
| Senior estimator, base range | $133,000 to $225,000 | Executive search salary guide, 2026[35] |
| Chief estimator, base range | $161,000 to $269,000 | Executive search salary guide, 2026[35] |
| Houston chief estimator, posted base | $140,000 to $170,000 | Recruiter job posting, Houston, August 2025[36] |
Fig. 6 · Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (updated August 2026)
[2]; executive search salary guides and dated job postings, 2025 to 2026. BLS covers the whole occupation; recruiter ranges cover senior placements
None of it changes the arithmetic from Chapter 01. A raise moves an estimator from one desk to another. It does not add one to the pool, and the pool is 7,930 people with 8% of them leaving every year.
The Empty Seat Calculator
What the open seat on your desk has already cost in bids
Three numbers from your own desk. The defaults are a three-person desk, six packages an estimator a month, and the 75-day midpoint of the Gulf Coast search in Chapter 02
Then put a dollar figure on it. The Estimator ROI Calculator takes your team, your won bids and your submitted bids and returns what the desk costs per $1 million of work won.
Run the Estimator ROI Calculator →A raise moves an estimator between desks. It does not add one to the 7,930. See what a desk looks like when the priced estimate no longer depends on winning that bidding war.
See The Takeoff AI →04
What to do when the desk stays empty
The bid package arrives whether or not the piping estimator has been hired. A contractor on the Gulf Coast in 2026 has three ways to deal with that. Let the work slip, which is already happening: 42% of firms in AGC's 2026 survey said worker shortages delayed at least one project in the past year (AGC Workforce Survey, September 2026[39]). Load it onto the estimators still on the desk, who are already working through a 30 to 40 hour takeoff per package and are, on the median, 45 years old and being called by recruiters. Or change what the desk has to do by hand.
The third option is the one that moves the arithmetic in this report. The slowest part of a bid is the takeoff, which means reading every sheet in the package, counting what is on it, measuring it and pricing it. The Takeoff AI does that work from the package itself. It estimates from piping, P&ID (piping and instrumentation diagram), isometric, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation, plumbing, HVAC and ductwork, and structural steel and misc iron packages. On a piping package it counts every fitting, valve, flange, gasket, bolt and weld and measures the pipe by size and spec, with weld counts by diameter inch. On an electrical and instrumentation package it counts the devices, panels and fixtures, measures the conduit, cable and cable tray, and picks the instruments off the instrument index. It returns a material takeoff (MTO), a labor takeoff (LTO) and a priced bill of materials (BOM), usually in under two hours. The models behind it are trained on more than one million drawing sets for each discipline it reads, and the output runs at 95% accuracy, with every number marked and highlighted on the exact sheet it came from so the person checking it can click any count and see where it was found.
Exhibit 7
The same package, two ways
A 30 to 40 hour industrial package, done by hand and done with The Takeoff AI
| Manual takeoff and pricing | With The Takeoff AI |
|---|
| Hours per package | 30 to 40 | 2 to 3 |
| Who does the counting and measuring | The estimator, sheet by sheet | The software, every sheet at once |
| Who does the pricing | The estimator, from the firm's rates | The software, from the firm's rates, checked by the estimator |
| What the estimator does | Builds the estimate | Checks a priced estimate, every number traceable to its source |
| What an empty seat costs | A third of bid capacity on a three-person desk | A hiring problem, not a bidding problem |
Fig. 7 · Source: The Takeoff AI, 2026
[40]That changes what the estimator you still have does all day. Instead of building the estimate sheet by sheet, they check a priced one, which is the part of the job that needs twenty years of judgment. Estimators using The Takeoff AI finish in two to three hours what used to take 30 to 40, a 90 to 95% cut in estimating time per package (The Takeoff AI, 2026)[40].
That is what an empty seat looks like when it stops being a crisis. A three-estimator desk that loses one person to a competitor's signing bonus does not lose a third of its bid capacity. It keeps bidding the same calendar, with the two who remain checking priced estimates instead of building them from scratch, and the 60 to 90 day search in Chapter 02 becomes a hiring decision rather than a bid decision. It also changes who you can hire, because a junior estimator who could not have been trusted with a 300-sheet P&ID package on their own can be trusted to check one when every number traces back to its source on screen.
What comes with itEvery contractor gets a team of two customer support people and a forward-deployed engineer who customize the takeoff to the firm's own formats and work alongside the estimating team for the first three months, with six weeks of training built in, until the desk runs it on its own. Every role that touches a bid, from estimator to project manager to principal, gets a seat from day one.
A 300-sheet P&ID package is the one a junior estimator cannot be handed on their own. Send one package and see how The Takeoff AI picks every valve, instrument and line off it and hands back a priced estimate to check.
See A Priced Sample Estimate →The desk, with the seat still empty
The seats on this coast are not going to fill faster
The problem in this report is a pool of 7,930 Gulf Coast estimators that loses 8% of itself every year, searches that run a quarter, and $127 billion of piping, electrical and steel work arriving at the same time. The Takeoff AI solves it at the desk. It takes the 30 to 40 hours of counting, measuring and pricing off the estimator and returns a priced estimate in two to three hours, with every number traceable to its source on the sheet, so a contractor with an empty seat keeps bidding its full calendar and the people it still has spend their time checking work instead of building it.
See how The Takeoff AI reads a package, what it counts and measures on each discipline, and what the priced estimate looks like when it comes back.
See The Takeoff AI