AASHTO Releases Annual Salary Survey and HR Metrics Report

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials issued its combined Salary Survey and HR Metrics Report, the trade group's annual benchmark for state transportation-agency compensation.

The AASHTO Journal announced the release this month through its news outlet. The package pairs a classification-by-classification salary survey with an HR metrics companion covering turnover, retirement eligibility, and benefits costs. AASHTO represents all 50 state departments of transportation plus the District of Columbia, with associate memberships covering Puerto Rico and several federal agencies.

Together, the two reports form the standard reference for state DOT human-resources leaders. The data covers engineering, maintenance, planning, administrative, and technical-classified series — a workforce that touches nearly every state-funded infrastructure project in the country.

What does the release actually say?

The short AASHTO Journal announcement names the report but does not publish specific figures from the latest edition. No median salary movement, no vacancy-rate shift, and no year-over-year change appear in the headline release. Members access the full report through AASHTO's publications portal.

Practically, what this change means for a state-DOT HR director is straightforward: the benchmark has landed, but the granular detail stays gated. Agencies now hold the national reference point against which they measure classification structures for the next budget cycle.

How state DOTs use the data

State transportation agencies compete daily for engineering and technical talent against private firms, general contractors, and federal employers. The AASHTO salary survey is, for many state DOTs, the only consistent cross-state comparison available. Without it, agencies fall back on local private-sector surveys that rarely cover specialized transportation-engineer classifications or maintenance-supervisor series.

The HR metrics volume adds what the salary survey alone cannot capture:

• Average years of service by division
• Retirement eligibility ratios across classification series
• Vacancy duration and time-to-fill benchmarks
• Benefits-cost percentages of total payroll
• Recruitment-pipeline volume by role

For a state-DOT employee reading their own market position, the two reports together signal which states pay near the national median and which states have pulled away from it in either direction.

Where the fuller numbers will surface

State DOTs typically publish their own workforce summaries in the months following the AASHTO release. Those documents translate the national benchmark into state-specific decisions: pay-band adjustments, classification-restructure proposals, and recruitment-bonus programs for hard-to-fill series.

The granular story — median salaries by classification, regional pay differentials between high-cost coastal states and lower-cost interior states, benefits-cost trends by agency size — surfaces only when agencies release summaries independently or when reporters obtain copies. Until then, HR leaders hold the reference. The market signal arrives one state at a time.