Zweig Group announces updates to its compensation data platform, Zweig Insights, as well as the release of the 2025 Salary Report of AEC Firms.
Zweig Group, the leading provider of consulting services, research, and education for the AEC industry, has announced the release of its updated compensation data platform, Zweig Insights, as well as the 2025 Salary Report of AEC Firms. This report is based on a comprehensive salary survey of hundreds of industry individuals and firms, and is presented in three separate regional editions: North and South Atlantic, Central, and Pacific and Mountain.
Here are some key findings from the report:
- Salaries have increased across the board. On average, firms raised salaries by approximately 5.9 percent. We observed significant salary increase differences in engineering roles and architecture roles. Individuals with engineering roles saw an across the board increase of 8.84 percent compared to their counterparts in architecture roles who experienced much lower increases across the board of only 1.05 percent. The most notable differences came at the associate/department manager level where those in engineering roles saw an increase of 8.43 percent and those in architecture roles actually saw a decrease of 3.85 percent.
- Regional differences. Firms in all regions of the U.S. saw fairly consistent salary trends. Firms in the Eastern region of the U.S. saw the highest increase at 5.87 percent followed by firms in the Central U.S. at 5.49 percent. Firms in the West region saw the lowest rate of increase at 4.35 percent. Employees in all departments for the Central and Eastern region firms saw salary increases across the board. The same cannot be said for firms in the West region. Roles in the “other technical” job category saw the biggest regional difference. Within that category, designers in the Central and East regions saw a salary increase of more than 10 percent whereas designers in the West region did not see a salary increase last year.
- A focus on growth. Observations from the 2025 compensation data highlight the differences in salary increases for fast-growing firms (firms that achieve an annual revenue growth rate of 20 percent or more) and all other firms. Fast-growth firms’ salaries increased by an average of 8.2 percent compared to 4.9 percent for stable firms (firms with unchanged revenue growth for three years) and 3.17 percent for slow growth (firms with 1 percent to 19 percent annual revenue growth rate). For firm leaders who have to deal with complaints that growing only means working more hours and working harder, they can point to the data that it actually leads to higher salary increases. Fast-growth firms invested in administrative and non-technical roles over top management roles. Administrative and non-technical roles saw an average increase of 12 percent whereas top management at these firms saw a salary decrease of 3.19 percent.
The updated compensation data platform, Zweig Insights, and 2025 Salary Report of AEC Firms include the most up-to-date and comprehensive compensation data for AEC firms operating in any region of the U.S. Based on data gathered between January 2024 and December 2024, from a broad sampling of engineering and architecture firms in the U.S., these reports are an industry standard for firm leaders and human resources directors looking to benchmark their staff's compensation. Click here for the full report or to learn more.
