Projects and Infrastructure Partners 2026: Made Late, Hired Instead

Asked how long to make partner in projects and infrastructure, Sartori & Partners data give a median of 11.0 years from the first year of practice, against 10.0 years for the market, across 314 projects promotions in the last 5 years. The delay sits at the finish. Only 66.9% of projects partners had the title within 12 years, against 75.4% across all practices. Firms make up the shortfall by hiring. Between June 2025 and May 2026 they promoted 0.54 projects lawyers to partner for each lateral partner they brought in over the same months, against 0.79 market-wide. The outside market has not grown to match: projects lateral partner moves held flat (+16.5%) on settled 12-month windows, from 182 to 212. For a firm adding projects partners, the home track is the slower source, and the quicker one is no deeper than a year ago.

The projects track opens at the market's pace and closes behind it. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, the quickest quarter of projects partners promoted over the last 5 years made it by 9.0 years, level with the market's 9.0 years. The slowest quarter needed 13.0 years or more, against 12.0 years for all practices. Within 8 years, 15.6% of projects partners held the title, against 23.2%. Within 12 years the figure was 66.9%, against 75.4%, a gap of 8.5 points. The average told the same story: 11.7 years in projects, 11.1 years in the market.

Construction, which 14.9% of projects movers also practice, shows the gap is not built into infrastructure work. Construction partners were promoted in a median 10.0 years, and 75.6% had the title within 12 years, slightly ahead of the market. Within 8 years the construction figure was 26.0%, 1.7 times the projects rate of 15.6%.

A late finish has a cost a partnership can count. A senior projects associate waits longer for the vote than peers in most other groups, and every extra year is a year in which another firm can offer the title. Firms that want home-grown projects partners need to tell their candidates early whether they are on track and when the decision falls.

Promotion is the smaller of the two routes into a projects partnership. Sartori & Partners figures count 113 projects lawyers promoted to partner between June 2025 and May 2026, 3.8% of the 2,955 partner promotions recorded across all practices in those months. Set against the lateral partners projects groups hired in the same window, that is 0.54 promotions per hire, or roughly one partner made at home for every two bought. The whole market promoted 2,955 lawyers and hired 3,749 lateral partners, a ratio of 0.79.

The practices next to projects lean on promotion more. Construction promotes 0.68 partners per lateral partner hire. Banking and finance, which 46.7% of projects movers also practice, promotes 0.57. Projects sits below both.

Read beside the slow finish, the ratio is less a taste for outsiders than a matter of timing. When the home cohort reaches the partner vote later than the market's, a seat that a client team needs this year is filled from outside. A projects group that plans its partner count should therefore budget at least as many lateral hires as promotions, at 0.54 made for each one bought.

The buy side of the equation has not grown in any clear way. Projects lateral partner moves held flat (+16.5%) on settled 12-month windows, from 182 to 212, a gap that counts of this size can show by chance. Across all practices, partner moves rose 8.4% over the same windows, from 3,558 to 3,858. Projects lateral moves of every title held flat (+1.3%), from 530 to 537.

Some of the partners bought are lawyers taking the title for the first time. In the latest 12 months, 15.1% of projects lateral moves came with a higher title than the one left, against 12.9% across the market. A counsel or senior associate who is still years from the vote at home can find it sooner at a rival.

A steady pool of sitting projects partners, set against a home track that finishes late, means every firm short of partners draws on the same names. A firm that counts on the lateral market to cover a slow home track should expect much the same short field as a year ago, and should start a search before the seat is empty.

Projects partner hiring is concentrated. The ten firms below took 26.9% of projects lateral partner moves in the latest 12 months, while the market's ten most active partner hirers took 13.5% of all partner moves. The work is concentrated by place too. Houston drew 9.6% of projects lateral moves, and its share in projects is 409% of its share in the whole market. London took 13.6%, at 147% of its market share.

A firm outside this group is bidding against buyers who return to the market year after year. Its edge is the candidate the active hirers overlook: a counsel at a firm with a slow track, in Houston or London, who would rather take the title now than wait.

First, treat the slow finish as the planning fact. With 66.9% of projects partners promoted within 12 years, against 75.4% market-wide, a firm cannot count on its own associates to fill every new seat on time. Second, budget the lateral line openly. At 0.54 promotions per lateral partner hire, projects groups already buy about twice as many partners as they make, and they buy in a partner market that held flat (+16.5%) in a year. Third, shorten the wait for the associates worth keeping. Only 15.6% of projects partners got there within 8 years, against 23.2% across the market; a firm that brings its strongest candidates to the vote sooner keeps them out of the lateral pool that its rivals are buying from.