Cost Guides · Wage Data
How Much Do General Contractors Make? The Federal Wage Number, Explained
How much do general contractors make, straight from the federal wage table: the occupation BLS actually tracks, the full percentile spread, the crew-lead comparison, and the states that pay the most.
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How much do general contractors make, by the federal wage table
How much do general contractors make? The federal wage survey does not use that title, so the answer starts with a substitution. BLS files the work under Construction Managers, occupation 11-9021. The May 2025 release counts 380,360 of them earning a $59.79 mean hourly wage, $124,360 a year. The median, the better number to argue from, is $55.28 an hour and $114,990 a year.
Read the scope line first. OEWS samples employers about payroll. It skips the self employed, so a GC who owns the business is not in this table. This is what a firm pays an employed Construction Manager, not an owner-operator.
Why “general contractor” and “Construction Manager” are not quite the same job
BLS defines Construction Managers as workers who plan, direct, and coordinate construction activities, the GC role on paper. The survey sees the employee side only: a project manager on staff, not the owner who bids the jobs. Treat this row as the labor floor, not a ceiling on what the business pays.
The spread is the story, not the average
A single mean hides more than it shows. Here is the full percentile table, national, May 2025.
| Percentile | Hourly wage | Annual wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $33.50 | $69,690 |
| 25th | $42.57 | $88,550 |
| Median | $55.28 | $114,990 |
| 75th | $72.91 | $151,640 |
| 90th | $91.08 | $189,440 |
A Construction Manager at the 90th percentile earns nearly three times one at the 10th. A single “average GC salary” headline flattens that into one misleading figure.
Crew lead versus general contractor: the pay gap
The step from swinging a hammer to running the job is worth checking against the same table. First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades earned a $41.56 mean, $38.42 median hourly wage.
| Occupation | Employment | Hourly mean | Hourly median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction Managers (11-9021) | 380,360 | $59.79 | $55.28 |
| First-Line Supervisors, Construction Trades (47-1011) | 812,210 | $41.56 | $38.42 |
The gap runs about $17 an hour at the median, close to $35,000 a year: the premium for running the whole job instead of leading the crew on it.
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Where general contractors earn the most
Geography moves a Construction Manager’s pay a long way. These are state hourly means, pulled state by state rather than scaled down from the national figure.
| State | Hourly mean | Against national |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $76.69 | plus $16.90 |
| Washington | $76.39 | plus $16.60 |
| Massachusetts | $74.95 | plus $15.16 |
| National | $59.79 | baseline |
| Arkansas | $42.75 | minus $17.04 |
Metro areas spread even wider: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California tops the list at $80.88 an hour.
How to use these numbers to price your own rate
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Anchor on the median, not the mean
The median, $55.28 an hour, sits closer to a typical GC employee’s pay. The mean gets pulled up by the high earners at the top of the range.
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Add back what OEWS leaves out
This table prices the labor of running a job, not the business of owning one. Layer in the margin and overhead an employee never carries.
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Check it against your crew leads
Compare your billed rate to the $38.42 supervisor median. If you sit close to it, you are pricing your time like a crew lead, not a GC.
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Bake the real rate into every estimate
Management time is a line item, not a rounding error folded into materials. Price it so it survives a client’s redline.
SimplyWise Cost Estimator for pricing your own time
SimplyWise Cost Estimator turns a job-site photo into an itemized estimate in about 6 seconds. Material, labor, and fee lines are editable, so management time gets its own line instead of disappearing into the total. Send a branded quote the client signs to approve. $29.99/mo or $239.99/yr, about $20/mo annual, with a 7-day free trial.
Keep reading
- Contractor Hourly Labor Rates by Trade: the same wage table, every crew role.
- How Much Do Roofers Make: the same BLS approach, one trade down.
- How to Start a General Contracting Business: the cost of the company behind the title.
Sources
Federal wage data
- BLS OEWS, May 2025 national estimates, occupation 11-9021 “Construction Managers”: employment, mean, median, and percentile wages. Retrieved from download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe/oe.data.0.Current, captured 2026-10-09.
- BLS OEWS, May 2025, occupation 47-1011 “First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers”: employment, mean, median. Same file, captured 2026-10-09.
- BLS OEWS, May 2025 state and metro estimates, occupation 11-9021, hourly mean. Same file, areatypes S and M, captured 2026-10-09.
What we could not verify
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook’s 2024 to 2034 growth projection for Construction Managers: bls.gov/ooh/management/construction-managers.htm returned HTTP 403 with an “Access Denied” page body on 2026-10-09, so no projection figure appears here.
SimplyWise product facts
- SimplyWise Cost Estimator on the App Store, 4.8 rating, verified 2026-10-09.
How much do general contractors make: common questions
The wage number
How much do general contractors make an hour?
The closest federal occupation, Construction Managers, earned a $55.28 median and $59.79 mean hourly wage in May 2025 (BLS OEWS). The middle half of the occupation runs from $42.57 to $72.91 an hour.
How much do general contractors make a year?
Construction Managers earned a $114,990 median and $124,360 mean annual wage in the same release. The range runs from $69,690 at the 10th percentile to $189,440 at the 90th.
What the number leaves out
Does this wage include what a GC takes home as the business owner?
No. OEWS excludes the self employed entirely. A GC who owns the company and draws profit, not a wage, does not appear in this table. Treat the figure as the labor floor, not the business ceiling.
Which states pay general contractors the most?
New York leads at a $76.69 hourly mean, with Washington at $76.39. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California is the highest-paying metro at $80.88 an hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
Pricing your own rate
Can I measure a job site with my phone camera instead of a tape?
On a Pro iPhone, yes: the room scan uses LiDAR to capture measurements. On any phone, SimplyWise Cost Estimator turns a job-site photo into an itemized estimate in about 6 seconds, and you can describe the project using your voice, dimensions included.
Does SimplyWise Cost Estimator help me price my own labor into a bid?
Yes. Draft estimates carry material, labor, and fee line items, each with a unit and price, so management time gets its own visible line. Pricing is $29.99/mo or $239.99/yr, with a 7-day free trial.
Put a real number on the general contractor’s line item.
Snap a photo and get an itemized estimate with editable lines, management time included. Free to try, then $29.99/mo or $239.99/yr after a 7-day trial.