// GENERAL CONTRACTOR · SOC 11-9021
General contractor wages in the United States
The median general contractor is paid $55.28 an hour nationally. Here is the full spread behind that number, and what it means for what you should charge.
// THE NUMBERS
What BLS reports
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, national, all industries. Occupation 11-9021, Construction Managers.
The band is the 25th to 75th percentile: a quarter of people in this
occupation are paid below $42.57, a quarter above $72.91,
and the $30.34 between them is the range
most of the trade sits in.
On the occupation match: Construction Managers is a supervisory occupation. It is the closest published match to a general contractor, but it is not a licensed-GC category, so read it as indicative rather than exact.
// WAGE TO CHARGE-OUT
Why $55.28 is not your rate
Working the median wage up to something you could quote. Every line is arithmetic off a published figure, and the overhead model is the same one the calculator uses, so the two cannot drift apart.
- Median hourly wage $55.28 BLS May 2025
- Plus employer FICA at 7.65% $59.51 Social Security and Medicare, published by the IRS
- Plus overhead $74.94 28% of wage, spread across vehicle, insurance, tools, software and other
- Plus non-billable hours, then margin Your number Depends on how much of your week actually bills. That is the part only you can supply.
Where that overhead goes, on a 2,080-hour year
- Vehicle$9,000
- Insurance$7,700
- Tools$4,800
- Admin and software$5,800
- Other$4,800
These splits are starting assumptions, not published statistics. They exist so the arithmetic has a beginning; replace every one with your own figure in the calculator.
// BY STATE
Where you work changes the number
The national median is a midpoint, not a market. A general contractor median runs from $41.50 in Arkansas to $74.69 in New York, a difference of $33.19 an hour on the same job title. Median hourly wage, USD, May 2025.
All 51 rows are the BLS median hourly wage for SOC 11-9021 in that state, May 2025, retrieved 2026-08-27. Still a wage, not a charge-out rate.
// OTHER TRADES
Compare with the rest
Source for every figure: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025. Retrieved 2026-08-26. Download the full table as CSV.
// READY WHEN YOU ARE
Know your number. Now get found.
Pricing right only pays off if the right people are calling. That is the part we build.
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