What Concrete Finishers Earn in Nashville, and What You Pay

A concrete finisher in Nashville earns a median of $23.47 an hour, per the 2025 BLS wage survey. Applying the standard 2 to 3 times burden and overhead multiplier that small residential contractors work from, that same hour bills to you at roughly $47 to $70. A 400 square foot patio with a 3-worker crew and 24 hours on site computes to about $4,225 in labor plus materials.

Key points

• Nashville’s median wage for cement masons and concrete finishers is $23.47/hr, against a national median of $27.41/hr, a gap of $3.94 or 14.4 percent.
• The middle half of Nashville’s 1,490 finishers earn between $22.49 and $26.85 an hour, a tighter band than the national $22.60 to $32.15 spread.
• At a 2.5x burden multiplier, one Nashville finisher-hour bills at $58.68; a 3-worker crew bills $176.03 per hour on site.
• The BLS Producer Price Index for concrete products rose 3.7 percent in the twelve months to July 2026, while hydraulic cement fell 0.7 percent.
• Nashville crew supervisors earn a median $37.90/hr, 61.5 percent above the finisher median, which is why a working foreman changes your bill.

What do concrete finishers actually earn in Nashville?

Here are the wages, straight from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics series for cement masons and concrete finishers, 2025 survey year. These are wages paid to workers. Not one figure on this table is a price you will be quoted.

Geography	25th pct	Median	75th pct	Mean	Employed
United States	$22.60	$27.41	$32.15	$28.87	206,170
Tennessee (statewide)	$20.92	$23.04	$25.38	$23.41	3,920
Nashville, TN	$22.49	$23.47	$26.85	$24.48	1,490

Two things stand out. Nashville pays $0.43 more at the median than Tennessee as a whole, and $1.57 more at the 25th percentile, so the metro sits above the rest of the state. And Nashville’s 1,490 finishers are 38 percent of the state’s 3,920, which is a heavy concentration in one metro.

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for this trade describes what the work involves and what the entry route looks like. Worth reading if you want to judge whether the person on your job has the experience the bid implies.

How far behind the national wage is Nashville?

Every percentile in Nashville sits below the national figure, but the gap widens sharply as you go up the scale.

Percentile	National	Nashville	Dollar gap	Percent below
25th	$22.60	$22.49	-$0.11	-0.5%
Median	$27.41	$23.47	-$3.94	-14.4%
75th	$32.15	$26.85	-$5.30	-16.5%
Mean	$28.87	$24.48	-$4.39	-15.2%

Read that bottom-to-top. At the entry end Nashville is essentially at parity, 11 cents off the national 25th percentile. At the experienced end the metro is $5.30 an hour behind. Nashville’s whole wage distribution is compressed: the metro’s 25th-to-75th spread is $4.36 against the national $9.55, less than half as wide.

That matters when you read bids. In a market where the experienced ceiling is only $4.36 above the entry floor, a contractor cannot justify a premium labor rate by claiming a premium crew nearly as far as one in a high-spread market could. The wage data will not support a labor line built on a $40 an hour finisher, because the 75th percentile in this metro is $26.85.

What does a Nashville concrete finisher hour cost you?

The wage is not the price. What you are billed is the wage multiplied by a burden and overhead factor that covers payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums, general liability insurance, the truck, fuel, hand tools and power tools, office and estimating time, warranty reserve, and the contractor’s profit. None of that is optional and none of it shows up in the wage number.

The multiplier is an assumption, not a measurement. BLS publishes the wage. It does not publish what your contractor marks it up to. The 2 to 3 times range below is the usual working assumption for small residential contractors, and every number derived from it inherits that uncertainty. If you take one thing from this page, take the multiplier and go ask your bidder what theirs is.

Multiplier	$22.49 (25th)	$23.47 (median)	$26.85 (75th)	$37.90 (supervisor)
2.0x	$44.98	$46.94	$53.70	$75.80
2.25x	$50.60	$52.81	$60.41	$85.28
2.5x	$56.23	$58.68	$67.13	$94.75
2.75x	$61.85	$64.54	$73.84	$104.23
3.0x	$67.47	$70.41	$80.55	$113.70

Find your bid’s implied hourly rate in that grid. If a contractor’s itemised labor line divides out to $95 an hour for a two-finisher crew, the grid says that is a supervisor’s rate applied to non-supervisory work, and you should ask why.

Supervisor wages come from the same Nashville OEWS release: first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers earn a median $37.90 an hour, 61.5 percent above the finisher median. A working foreman on a small residential job is often the owner, and the owner’s hour is legitimately more expensive. It is only a problem when every hour on the invoice is billed at the foreman rate.

What does a real concrete job compute to?

Here is a full build-up for a single job so you can see every input. Assumptions stated first, because they are what changes the answer.

Assumptions

• Job: 400 sq ft flatwork patio, tear-out and replace, 4 inch slab
• Crew: 3 workers, all billed at the Nashville median $23.47/hr
• Time on site: 8 hours per day, 3 days = 24 crew-hours per worker
• Burden and overhead multiplier: 2.5x (assumption, not measured)
• Material allowance: $6.00 per square foot, covering ready-mix, forms, reinforcement, sealer
• Excludes: permits, disposal fees, code upgrades, difficult access

The arithmetic

Line	Calculation	Result
Base wage per worker-hour	BLS Nashville median	$23.47
Billed rate per worker-hour	$23.47 × 2.5	$58.68
Crew hourly cost	$58.68 × 3 workers	$176.03
Total worker-hours	3 workers × 24 hours	72
Labor total	$58.68 × 72	$4,224.60
Material allowance	400 sq ft × $6.00	$2,400.00
Job total before extras	$4,224.60 + $2,400.00	$6,624.60

Labor is 63.8 percent of that total. That ratio moves fast with the material allowance, which is why the next table sweeps both axes.

What does my size of job compute to?

This is the table to scan for your own row. Every figure uses the Nashville median wage of $23.47, a 2.5x multiplier, and the $6.00 per square foot material allowance. Crew size and hours scale with the job as noted.

Sq ft	Crew	Hours each	Worker-hours	Labor	Materials	Total	Cost/sq ft
100	2	8	16	$938.80	$600	$1,538.80	$15.39
150	2	10	20	$1,173.50	$900	$2,073.50	$13.82
200	2	14	28	$1,642.90	$1,200	$2,842.90	$14.21
300	3	16	48	$2,816.40	$1,800	$4,616.40	$15.39
400	3	24	72	$4,224.60	$2,400	$6,624.60	$16.56
500	3	28	84	$4,928.70	$3,000	$7,928.70	$15.86
600	4	24	96	$5,632.80	$3,600	$9,232.80	$15.39
800	4	30	120	$7,041.00	$4,800	$11,841.00	$14.80
1,000	4	36	144	$8,449.20	$6,000	$14,449.20	$14.45
1,200	5	34	170	$9,975.60	$7,200	$17,175.60	$14.31

The cost per square foot column is the useful one. It does not fall in a straight line, because crew size steps up in whole people. The 400 sq ft row is the worst value on the table at $16.56 per square foot, because it needs three workers but does not keep them busy enough to spread the mobilisation. If your job is near 400 sq ft, ask whether extending it to 500 costs you much per foot. On this arithmetic it does not.

How does the burden multiplier change the answer?

Two axes: job size and the multiplier you assume. Totals include the same $6.00 per square foot material allowance, which does not move with the multiplier.

Sq ft	2.0x	2.25x	2.5x	2.75x	3.0x
100	$1,351.04	$1,444.92	$1,538.80	$1,632.68	$1,726.56
200	$2,514.32	$2,678.61	$2,842.90	$3,007.19	$3,171.48
400	$5,780.16	$6,202.38	$6,624.60	$7,046.82	$7,469.04
600	$8,106.24	$8,669.52	$9,232.80	$9,796.08	$10,359.36
800	$10,433.28	$11,137.14	$11,841.00	$12,544.86	$13,248.72
1,000	$12,759.36	$13,604.28	$14,449.20	$15,294.12	$16,139.04

On a 1,000 sq ft job the multiplier alone swings the total by $3,379.68, which is 23.5 percent of the mid-case. That single unknown moves your bill more than any wage percentile does. Two honest contractors using the same crew and the same hours can quote $3,400 apart and both be telling the truth.

Now the reverse calculation. Suppose you have a fixed number in mind and want to know what job size it buys, holding the median wage, the 2.5x multiplier and the $6.00 material allowance constant at roughly $15.39 per square foot from the well-scaled rows:

Your budget	Approximate sq ft it buys
$2,000	130
$4,000	260
$6,000	390
$8,000	520
$10,000	650
$15,000	975

Treat those as arithmetic on stated assumptions, not as a quote. The right use is the opposite direction: if a bidder says $10,000 buys you 400 square feet, this table says the labor and material math does not get there on Nashville wages, and something else in the bid needs explaining.

Are material prices actually rising?

Concrete products are. Cement is not. From the BLS Producer Price Index:

Series	July 2026	July 2025	12-month change
Concrete products (WPU133)	406.999	392.403	+3.7%
Cement, hydraulic (WPU1322)	357.489	359.992	-0.7%

These are index points on a 1982 = 100 base. They are not dollars and cannot be converted into dollars. What they tell you is direction and rate of change, nothing more.

The practical use: if a contractor tells you their price jumped because cement went up, the federal series says hydraulic cement declined 0.7 percent over the year. Concrete products, which is the finished ready-mix and precast category, did rise 3.7 percent. So a modest increase in the materials line is supported by the data and a large one attributed to cement specifically is not.

Applying that 3.7 percent to a $6.00 per square foot material allowance gives $6.22 this year against $6.00 a year ago, or $88 more on a 400 square foot job. That is the scale of it. Materials inflation is not what makes bids differ by thousands.

What does this calculation not see?

Everything below is real money and none of it is in any table above.

• Permits. Metro Nashville permit requirements and fees for flatwork, footings and anything structural are set locally and are not in federal wage data. Check with the local codes department before assuming a job needs no permit.
• Disposal. Tearing out an existing slab produces heavy debris. Dump fees are charged by weight, and a 400 square foot 4 inch slab is roughly 5 cubic yards of rubble. Not in the labor math.
• Code upgrades. Frost depth, footing depth, reinforcement schedules and setback requirements can force a redesign mid-job.
• Access. If the mixer truck cannot reach the pour and the concrete has to be wheelbarrowed or pumped, hours climb. Wheelbarrowing 5 cubic yards through a side gate is a different job from backing a chute over it. Pump rental is a separate line.
• Slope and grade. A flat, well-drained site pours faster than one needing fill, compaction or a retaining edge.
• Season. Cold weather pours need blankets, accelerators or heated enclosures. Hot weather pours need retarders, earlier starts and more finishers on the surface at once. Both add hours the base table does not carry.
• Emergency call-out. Anything urgent carries a premium the OEWS median does not describe. The median is a survey of ordinary employment, not of after-hours work.
• Subsurface surprises. Buried utilities, old footings, tree roots and soft soil are found after demolition starts, not before the bid.

Two things homeowners get wrong

Misconception 1: the wage is close to the price. It is not, and the gap is larger than most people guess. Nashville’s median finisher earns $23.47 an hour. At the mid-range 2.5x assumption the billed hour is $58.68, which is $35.21 of burden, overhead and profit on top of the wage. Anyone reasoning from “concrete guys make about $23, so a 3-day job with 3 guys should cost about $1,690” is off by roughly $2,500 on labor alone before a single bag of material.

Misconception 2: a higher labor rate buys a better finisher. In Nashville the spread does not support that story very far. The gap from the 25th percentile to the 75th is $22.49 to $26.85, a range of $4.36 an hour. Over the 72 worker-hours in the 400 sq ft example, moving the entire crew from the 25th to the 75th percentile adds $4.36 × 72 × 2.5 = $784.80 to the job. That is real, but it is 11.8 percent of the $6,624.60 total. A bid that is 60 percent higher than another is not explained by crew wage quality. Something else is different: scope, materials, subcontracting, or margin.

How do I read a real quote against these numbers?

A quote you can check has these itemised separately:

1. Labor hours and crew size, stated as numbers. Not “labor: $4,200”. You need hours × people to divide out an implied rate.
2. Concrete volume in cubic yards, with the mix specified. Volume is verifiable against your square footage and slab thickness.
3. Demolition and disposal, separate from the pour. Different work, different equipment, often different dump fees.
4. Forms, reinforcement and finishing materials as a line, not folded into “materials”.
5. Permits and inspection fees, shown at cost or clearly marked as a pass-through with markup.
6. Excavation, grading and base preparation, which is where hidden hours live.

The single question that exposes a padded bid: “How many worker-hours is this, and how many people for how many days?” Every honest contractor knows this, because they scheduled the crew. Divide their labor dollars by their worker-hours and compare the result to the multiplier table above. If the implied rate lands above $70 an hour for ordinary finishing work, the wage data says that is above 3x the Nashville median and needs a reason. A legitimate reason exists sometimes: heavy supervisor involvement at $37.90 base, specialty finishing, or difficult access. Vagueness in response to that question is the signal, not the number itself.

A bidder who will not break out hours is asking you to accept the total on trust. You do not have to.

What to check before you sign

• Ask for the worker-hour count and the crew size, and divide the labor line by it. Compare against the multiplier table.
• Ask what their burden and overhead multiplier is. Most will not use that phrase; ask what the billed rate covers beyond the paycheck.
• Confirm in writing who pulls the permit and who pays the fee.
• Confirm disposal is included and whether it is capped at a tonnage.
• Get the concrete volume in cubic yards and check it: square feet × slab thickness in feet ÷ 27, plus roughly 10 percent for waste and over-excavation.
• Confirm what happens if subsurface conditions differ from expectations, and what the change-order rate is per hour.
• Check that the mix specification, reinforcement and finish are named, not left as “standard”.
• Confirm the cure and protection plan if the pour falls in cold or very hot weather.
• Verify liability insurance and workers’ compensation coverage. You are paying for it in the multiplier, so make sure it exists.

Every dollar figure on this page is arithmetic performed on published BLS wage data and stated assumptions. This site inspects no properties, collects no quotes and surveys no contractors. The wages are federal, the multiplier is an assumption, and the material allowance is a placeholder you should replace with the real number from your own bid.

Read next

• Cement Prices Climbed: What That Adds to a Concrete Patio
• Concrete Driveway Labor Cost in Houston
• Handyman Hourly Rates, Compared Across 10 US Metros
• What a Landscaping Crew Costs per Hour in Miami

Also worth reading: What Floor Installers Earn in St. Louis, and What You Pay

Also worth reading: Concrete Patio Replacement Cost in Phoenix