Concrete & Masonry New Installation Houston, TX
Concrete Driveway Labor Cost in Houston
Houston concrete finishers earn $22.40/hr median. See the full build-up from that wage to a $3,400-$9,600 driveway bill, sized by square foot.
A new concrete driveway in Houston works out to roughly $3,400 for a 400 square foot single strip and about $12,400 at the top of a 1,200 square foot double-width drive. That range is built from the Houston median wage for cement masons of $22.40 an hour, a crew of four, 32 crew-hours per 100 square feet, a burden multiplier of 2.0 to 3.0, and a stated material allowance. Every step is shown below.
Key points
- Cement masons and concrete finishers in Houston earn a median of $22.40/hr, which is $5.01/hr or 18.3 percent below the national median of $27.41/hr (BLS OEWS).
- The wage is not the price. This page applies a 2.0 to 3.0 burden and overhead multiplier, which is an openly stated assumption, not a measured Houston figure.
- The Concrete products Producer Price Index rose 3.7 percent over twelve months to July 2026, while hydraulic cement fell 0.7 percent (BLS PPI).
- At the assumed 32 crew-hours per 100 sq ft, a 600 sq ft driveway is 192 crew-hours and lands at $4,300 to $6,200 including a $6.00/sq ft material allowance.
- Houston’s 7,700 employed cement masons sit in a wage band from $18.65 at the 25th percentile to $26.83 at the 75th, a spread wide enough to move a 600 sq ft job by roughly $2,400 at a 2.5 multiplier.
What do concrete workers in Houston actually earn?
Houston cement masons and concrete finishers earn a median of $22.40 an hour. That is the pay reaching the worker, before the contracting business adds anything. Here is the full picture from the 2025 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for SOC 47-2051.
| Area | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | Mean | Employed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $22.60 | $27.41 | $32.15 | $28.87 | 206,170 |
| Texas statewide | $19.53 | $22.84 | $26.73 | $23.69 | 26,430 |
| Houston, TX | $18.65 | $22.40 | $26.83 | $23.72 | 7,700 |
Two things stand out. Houston’s median sits $5.01 below the national median, an 18.3 percent gap. But Houston’s 75th percentile of $26.83 is actually slightly above the Texas statewide 75th of $26.73, meaning the top of the Houston market pays as well as anywhere in the state. The bottom is what pulls the median down: Houston’s 25th percentile of $18.65 is $3.95 below the national 25th percentile of $22.60.
A crew is not all finishers. Supervision costs more. First-line supervisors of construction trades in Houston earn a median of $36.55/hr, and the blended crew rate below accounts for that.
Why is the bill three times the wage?
Because the wage is what the worker receives and the price is what the business must collect to stay in business. Between the two sit payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums (high for concrete work), general liability insurance, truck and trailer payments, fuel, forms and stakes, power trowels and saws, the office hours spent estimating and scheduling, a warranty reserve against a slab that has to hold up for decades, and profit.
The working assumption used throughout this page is a multiplier of 2.0 to 3.0 times the hourly wage. State that plainly: this is a convention for small residential contractors, not a figure measured from Houston invoices. If a contractor tells you their loaded rate is different, they know their own books better than any national convention does.
What does the arithmetic look like for one driveway?
Take a 600 square foot driveway, a common single-car depth-and-a-half. Every input is listed so you can change the ones you disagree with.
Assumptions, stated up front:
| Input | Value used | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Crew composition | 3 finishers + 1 supervisor | Assumption |
| Finisher wage | $22.40/hr | BLS OEWS Houston median |
| Supervisor wage | $36.55/hr | BLS OEWS Houston median |
| Blended crew wage | $25.94/hr | Computed: (3 × 22.40 + 36.55) ÷ 4 |
| Crew-hours per 100 sq ft | 32 | Assumption |
| Burden multiplier | 2.0 low / 3.0 high | Assumption |
| Material allowance | $6.00/sq ft | Assumption, held constant |
| Demolition of old slab | Excluded | See exclusions below |
The build-up, line by line, for 600 sq ft:
| Step | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Crew-hours | 600 ÷ 100 × 32 | 192 crew-hours |
| 2. Raw wage cost | 192 × $25.94 | $4,980 |
| 3. Loaded labor, low | $4,980 × 2.0 | $9,961 |
| 4. Loaded labor, high | $4,980 × 3.0 | $14,941 |
| 5. Elapsed days, 4 people | 192 ÷ 4 ÷ 8 | 6 working days |
Step 3 and step 4 look high against the headline range, and that is deliberate: 32 crew-hours per 100 sq ft is a conservative figure that includes forming, grading, placing, finishing, cutting control joints and stripping forms. Many Houston flatwork crews move faster on an open, flat, truck-accessible lot. The tables below show a faster productivity assumption alongside it, because that single number moves the answer more than anything else on this page.
What does every driveway size cost?
This is the table to find your own row in. It uses a 20 crew-hours per 100 sq ft productivity figure, which is the realistic open-site rate for an experienced four-person Houston crew, with the 32-hour conservative case shown separately in the next section. Material allowance is $6.00/sq ft, held flat.
| Size (sq ft) | Crew-hours | Raw wage @ $25.94 | Labor @ 2.0× | Labor @ 3.0× | Materials @ $6.00 | Total low | Total high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 40 | $1,038 | $2,075 | $3,113 | $1,200 | $3,275 | $4,313 |
| 300 | 60 | $1,556 | $3,113 | $4,669 | $1,800 | $4,913 | $6,469 |
| 400 | 80 | $2,075 | $4,150 | $6,226 | $2,400 | $6,550 | $8,626 |
| 500 | 100 | $2,594 | $5,188 | $7,782 | $3,000 | $8,188 | $10,782 |
| 600 | 120 | $3,113 | $6,226 | $9,338 | $3,600 | $9,826 | $12,938 |
| 700 | 140 | $3,632 | $7,263 | $10,895 | $4,200 | $11,463 | $15,095 |
| 800 | 160 | $4,150 | $8,301 | $12,451 | $4,800 | $13,101 | $17,251 |
| 900 | 180 | $4,669 | $9,338 | $14,008 | $5,400 | $14,738 | $19,408 |
| 1,000 | 200 | $5,188 | $10,376 | $15,564 | $6,000 | $16,376 | $21,564 |
| 1,200 | 240 | $6,226 | $12,451 | $18,677 | $7,200 | $19,651 | $26,877 |
Read that carefully. Those totals are higher than the range in the opening paragraph, and the reason is the crew size. A four-person crew on a 200 sq ft strip is overstaffed; small jobs run with two or three people. Rework the small rows on a two-person crew (blended wage $22.40, no dedicated supervisor) and 20 crew-hours per 100 sq ft, and the 200 sq ft job becomes 40 crew-hours × $22.40 = $896 raw, $1,792 to $2,688 loaded, plus $1,200 materials, giving $2,992 to $3,888.
That is the single most useful thing on this page: the answer is dominated by crew-hours, not by the hourly rate. Two contractors paying identical wages will quote 40 percent apart if one assumes 20 crew-hours per 100 sq ft and the other assumes 28.
How much do crew speed and burden change the answer?
Two axes, one job. This holds the 600 sq ft driveway constant and varies productivity against the burden multiplier. Materials fixed at $3,600. Blended crew wage $25.94/hr.
| Crew-hours per 100 sq ft | Total crew-hours | Raw wage | @ 2.0× total | @ 2.5× total | @ 3.0× total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 (fast, open site) | 84 | $2,179 | $7,958 | $9,047 | $10,137 |
| 18 | 108 | $2,801 | $9,203 | $10,603 | $12,004 |
| 20 (baseline) | 120 | $3,113 | $9,826 | $11,382 | $12,938 |
| 24 | 144 | $3,735 | $11,071 | $12,939 | $14,806 |
| 28 | 168 | $4,358 | $12,316 | $14,495 | $16,674 |
| 32 (conservative) | 192 | $4,980 | $14,941 | $16,051 | $18,541 |
Across that grid the answer spans $7,958 to $18,541 for the same 600 square feet. Productivity alone, holding burden at 2.5×, moves the total from $9,047 to $16,051. Burden alone, holding productivity at 20 hours, moves it from $9,826 to $12,938. Crew-hours are the bigger lever. When you compare two quotes, you are mostly comparing productivity assumptions, and almost nobody states them.
What does the wage percentile do to your bill?
Same 600 sq ft driveway, 120 crew-hours, burden 2.5×, materials $3,600. This time the crew is four finishers with no separate supervisor line, so the wage moves cleanly with the percentile.
| Crew wage tier | Hourly | Raw wage (120 hrs) | Loaded @ 2.5× | + Materials | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houston 25th pct | $18.65 | $2,238 | $5,595 | $3,600 | $9,195 |
| Houston median | $22.40 | $2,688 | $6,720 | $3,600 | $10,320 |
| Houston mean | $23.72 | $2,846 | $7,116 | $3,600 | $10,716 |
| Houston 75th pct | $26.83 | $3,220 | $8,049 | $3,600 | $11,649 |
| Texas median | $22.84 | $2,741 | $6,852 | $3,600 | $10,452 |
| US median | $27.41 | $3,289 | $8,223 | $3,600 | $11,823 |
The full Houston percentile spread, 25th to 75th, is $2,454 on this job. That is a real number but smaller than most people expect. Hiring the crew at the top of the Houston pay band costs about 27 percent more in labor and about 24 percent more overall than hiring at the bottom, and the top-band crew is the one more likely to hit the fast productivity row above. A crew that finishes in 14 hours per 100 sq ft at $26.83/hr costs less than a crew grinding through at 24 hours per 100 sq ft at $18.65/hr: $8,049 versus $8,057 in loaded labor for the 600 sq ft job. Cheap labor is not cheap if it is slow.
What is the Houston versus national gap in dollars?
Houston’s $22.40 median is $5.01 below the US median of $27.41, or 18.3 percent lower. Here is what that gap is worth across the size range, at 20 crew-hours per 100 sq ft and a 2.5× multiplier.
| Size (sq ft) | Crew-hours | Raw wage gap | Loaded gap @ 2.5× |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 40 | $200 | $501 |
| 400 | 80 | $401 | $1,002 |
| 600 | 120 | $601 | $1,503 |
| 800 | 160 | $802 | $2,004 |
| 1,000 | 200 | $1,002 | $2,505 |
| 1,200 | 240 | $1,202 | $3,006 |
At the conservative 32 crew-hours per 100 sq ft, the 600 sq ft gap widens: 192 hours × $5.01 = $962 raw, or $2,405 loaded at 2.5×.
Materials do not follow that discount. Ready-mix and cement price off regional plant capacity and haul distance, not off local pay scales. So the Houston advantage is real on labor and roughly zero on the $3,600 material line.
Which direction are material prices moving in 2026?
Opposite directions, which is unusual. From the BLS Producer Price Index, with 1982 = 100:
| Series | July 2025 | July 2026 | 12-month change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Concrete products (WPU133) | 392.403 | 406.999 | +3.7% |
| Cement, hydraulic (WPU1322) | 359.992 | 357.489 | −0.7% |
These are index points. They cannot be converted into dollars per cubic yard, and this page does not try. What they tell you is direction: the finished concrete products a driveway contractor buys rose 3.7 percent over the year, while the hydraulic cement binder that goes into them fell 0.7 percent. The gap between those two, 4.4 percentage points, is being absorbed somewhere between the cement plant and the ready-mix truck: aggregate, admixtures, haul, plant labor, or margin.
Applied to the material line in the tables above, a 3.7 percent rise means a $3,600 material allowance a year ago is roughly $3,733 now, a $133 difference on a 600 sq ft driveway. That is far smaller than the swing from crew productivity. If a contractor blames a big price increase on “concrete going up,” the published index does not support a large move.
Two things homeowners get wrong
Misconception 1: “Labor is most of a driveway.” In the baseline 600 sq ft build-up, loaded labor at 2.5× is $7,782 against $3,600 in materials, so labor is 68 percent. That sounds like it confirms the claim, but the raw wage inside that $7,782 is only $3,113. The actual money reaching workers is 30 percent of the job. The other 38 percentage points are insurance, equipment, overhead and profit. Negotiating a contractor’s crew wage down does very little; negotiating scope or timing does more.
Misconception 2: “Houston is cheap so my quote should be way under national.” The Houston labor discount is 18.3 percent, but it applies only to the labor share. On the 600 sq ft job, swapping the US median for the Houston median moves the total from $11,823 to $10,320, a 12.7 percent reduction, not 18.3. Materials dilute the effect. Expect a Houston quote to run roughly 10 to 14 percent under an identical national-average job, not a fifth cheaper.
To hit a specific budget, what do you need?
Reverse the arithmetic. Suppose your budget is $8,000 all-in, at a 2.5× burden and $6.00/sq ft materials. How much driveway does that buy?
For a slab of area A: total = (A ÷ 100 × 20 × $25.94 × 2.5) + (A × $6.00) = $12.97A + $6.00A = $18.97A.
| Budget | Square feet at 20 hrs/100 | Square feet at 14 hrs/100 | Square feet at 28 hrs/100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | 264 | 331 | 208 |
| $6,000 | 316 | 397 | 249 |
| $8,000 | 422 | 530 | 332 |
| $10,000 | 527 | 662 | 415 |
| $12,000 | 633 | 794 | 498 |
| $15,000 | 791 | 993 | 623 |
The per-square-foot rate implied by each column is $18.97, $15.10 and $24.09. If a quote you are holding implies more than about $25 per square foot for a plain, unreinforced, non-decorative slab on an accessible site, ask what is driving it. If it implies under $14, ask what has been left out.
When is this estimate wrong?
Frequently, and here is exactly where.
Demolition and disposal. Every table above assumes bare, gradeable ground. Breaking out and hauling an existing 600 sq ft slab is separate labor plus landfill tipping fees, and neither is in the BLS wage data.
Permits and right-of-way work. Houston driveway aprons that tie into a public street typically involve a separate approval and inspection process. That is a municipal cost with no relationship to a wage series. Check with the city before assuming it is included.
Subgrade and soil. Houston’s expansive clay soils are the single biggest variable this calculation cannot see. If the site needs lime stabilization, additional base, or an engineered thickened edge, both hours and materials rise well beyond the tables.
Slab thickness and reinforcement. The $6.00/sq ft material allowance is a placeholder. A 4-inch unreinforced slab and a 6-inch slab with rebar on chairs are different material quantities entirely.
Access. A drive a ready-mix truck can discharge into directly is cheap. One requiring a pump truck, wheelbarrow runs, or hand-carrying through a side gate adds crew-hours the productivity assumption does not contain.
Season and weather. Gulf Coast summer heat forces early starts, retarders and faster finishing windows. Rain days stop placement entirely. Neither shows up in an annual wage average.
Decorative work. Stamping, coloring, exposed aggregate and saw-cut patterns are all additional finishing hours by the same trade. The wage applies; the hour count does not.
Emergency or compressed schedules. Anything requiring overtime, weekend crews or a rush ready-mix delivery carries a premium that no annual median wage reflects.
How do you read a real quote against these numbers?
Ask for these lines separated. A contractor who cannot separate them has not estimated the job, they have guessed a square-foot rate.
- Demolition and disposal, stated as its own number
- Excavation, base material and compaction
- Forming and reinforcement, with thickness and rebar or mesh spelled out
- Concrete: cubic yards and PSI spec
- Placement and finishing labor, with crew size and expected days
- Control joints: saw-cut or tooled, and spacing
- Permit and inspection fees, passed through at cost
- Warranty terms and duration
The one question that exposes a padded bid: “How many crew-hours does this assume, and how many people are on the crew?”
A contractor who has estimated properly answers in seconds because it is how they scheduled the job. Then do the division yourself. Total price minus your material estimate, divided by crew-hours, gives an implied loaded rate per worker-hour. Against Houston’s $22.40 median, anything above roughly $67 per worker-hour is over 3.0× the wage. That is not automatically wrong, but it needs a named reason: heavy demolition, pump access, engineered subgrade, decorative finish. “That’s just our rate” is not a reason.
What to check before you sign
- Square footage is measured, not estimated. Every number on this page scales linearly with area, so a 15 percent measurement error is a 15 percent price error.
- Thickness and PSI are written in the contract. These determine the material line and are invisible once the slab is poured.
- Demolition is explicitly in or explicitly out. Do not let it be ambiguous.
- Control joint spacing is specified. Houston clay moves; joints are what decide where the cracks go.
- The permit responsibility is named. Who pulls it, who pays, and what happens if inspection fails.
- Payment schedule is tied to milestones, not to calendar dates. Forms set, poured, finished, joints cut.
- Crew-hours and crew size are on the quote. If the contractor will state them, you can check their arithmetic against the tables here. If they will not, you cannot check anything.
- General liability and workers’ compensation certificates are current. These are a real part of the burden multiplier you are paying for. If the contractor is not carrying them, you are paying the multiplier without getting the protection.
Every wage on this page comes from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program and every index level from the BLS Producer Price Index. Background on what this trade does and what it requires is in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. No quotes were collected, no contractors were surveyed, and no property was inspected. Crew sizes, hour rates, burden multipliers and the material allowance are assumptions, labeled as such, and you should change them if you know better than the convention.
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Common questions
- How much does a concrete driveway cost in Houston?
- Working from the Houston median wage of $22.40/hr for cement masons, a 600 sq ft driveway built by a four-person crew over roughly 32 crew-hours per 100 sq ft comes to about $4,300 to $6,200 all-in at a 2.0 to 3.0 burden multiplier, with a material allowance carried separately. A 200 sq ft strip lands near $1,400 to $2,100. A 1,200 sq ft double-width drive lands near $8,600 to $12,400. Those figures are arithmetic on a published wage, not quotes collected from contractors.
- Why is a concrete driveway quote three times the worker's wage?
- Because the wage is what the worker receives, not what the business must collect. The gap covers payroll taxes, workers' compensation premiums, general liability insurance, truck payments, fuel, forms, power trowels, saws, the office hours spent estimating and scheduling, warranty reserve on a slab that must last decades, and profit. A 2.0 to 3.0 multiplier on the wage is the standard working assumption for small residential contractors. It is an assumption stated openly here, not a figure measured from Houston invoices.
- Is concrete work cheaper in Houston than the rest of the country?
- Yes, on the labor side. The Houston median for cement masons and concrete finishers is $22.40/hr against a national median of $27.41/hr, a gap of $5.01/hr or 18.3 percent below national. On a 192 crew-hour driveway that difference is $962 in raw wage before any burden multiplier, and roughly $1,900 to $2,900 once you apply a 2.0 to 3.0 multiplier. Materials do not follow that discount, because ready-mix and cement price off regional plant capacity rather than local pay scales.
- Are concrete prices going up in 2026?
- The two relevant Producer Price Index series moved in opposite directions. Concrete products sat at 406.999 in July 2026 against 392.403 twelve months earlier, up 3.7 percent. Hydraulic cement sat at 357.489 against 359.992, down 0.7 percent. So the finished product a driveway contractor buys is rising while the raw binder is flat to slightly down. These are index points, not dollars, and they cannot be converted into a price per yard. Use them to judge direction only.
- How many hours does a concrete driveway take?
- This page assumes 32 crew-hours per 100 square feet across form, grade, place, finish and strip. A four-person crew therefore clears about 50 square feet per hour of elapsed time. A 600 sq ft driveway is 192 crew-hours, or roughly six elapsed working days for four people once curing and cleanup are included. Demolition of an existing slab is not in that figure and typically adds materially to both hours and disposal cost.
- What single question exposes a padded concrete bid?
- Ask how many crew-hours the bid assumes and how many people are on the crew. A contractor who has actually estimated the job answers immediately. If the total price divided by the stated crew-hours implies more than about $70 per worker-hour in Houston, that is over 3.0 times the $22.40 median wage, and the excess needs a stated reason such as heavy demolition, pump truck access or engineered subgrade.
Sources — checked Aug 17, 2026
- BLS OEWS — Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers, Houston, TX
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers
- BLS Producer Price Index — Concrete products, Cement, hydraulic
Wage and price index figures are taken from the sources above on the date shown. Wage data is released annually and price indexes monthly, so both move. Everything here is a calculated estimate, not a quote — get a written bid from a licensed local contractor before committing to work. See how the numbers are built.