Calculator · BLS OEWS 2025 wages
Labour cost estimator
Most cost guides hand you a range with no working. This one starts from what the trade actually earns in your metro area and shows every step, so you can change an assumption and watch the number move.
Calculating…
What the same trade earns across metros
| Metro area | Median wage | vs national |
|---|
Median hourly wage paid to workers in this occupation, BLS OEWS 2025. This gap is the single biggest reason the same job costs different amounts in different cities.
Common questions
- Where do the wages come from?
- Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025 release. These are median hourly wages paid to workers in each metro area, by occupation. They are survey figures from employers, not prices quoted to homeowners.
- Why multiply the wage by two or three?
- The wage is what the worker is paid. What you are billed also covers payroll taxes, workers compensation, liability insurance, vehicles, fuel, tools, office time, warranty reserve and profit. Two to three times the base wage is the usual working assumption for small residential contractors. It is an assumption, not a measured figure, which is why you can change it here.
- Is this a quote?
- No. It is a defensible floor for the labour portion, computed from public wage data. Permits, disposal, code upgrades, access difficulty, roof pitch, season and emergency call-out premiums are not in it and can move a real invoice well outside this range. Get a written bid from a licensed local contractor.
- My metro is not listed. What should I do?
- Pick the nearest listed metro, or use the United States figure. Wages track local labour markets closely, so a neighbouring metro is usually a better proxy than the national median. Where a specific occupation has no published figure for a metro, this tool falls back to the national number and says so.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics — median hourly wages by metro area and occupation, 2025 release
- How the numbers are built — what this calculation can and cannot see
Wage figures were pulled from the BLS public API and stored on 15 August 2026. OEWS is released annually, so these figures are refreshed once a year. Everything here is a calculated estimate, not a quote. All calculation happens in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere.