The Level Index, by trade
Electrical contractor financial benchmarks
The honest benchmark for electrical contractors, built from citable public sources. Electrician wages come from BLS, margin brackets from public electrical-contractor filings (IES Holdings), and the reality-check from CFMA. Level layers its blended contractor data on top.
20.3%
Gross margin (field)
IES C&I segment, FY2025; consolidated 25.5% blends in manufacturing
$62,350
Median electrician wage
BLS OEWS, SOC 47-2111, May 2024
6.3%
Net margin (before tax)
all-contractor, CFMA; top quartile ~11.9%
742,580
Electricians employed
US, one of the largest trades (BLS)
The nuance most 'electrical margin' numbers miss
Field electrical contracting is the THIN end of a public electrical company, not the fat end. The margin is in manufacturing.
IES Holdings reports four segments. Its Commercial & Industrial arm, the one that looks like a traditional commercial electrical subcontractor, carries the lowest GROSS margin of the four in FY2025 at 20.3% (11.0% operating). Its Residential arm is thinner still on operating margin at 8.0%, so both field-contracting segments sit at the bottom. The eye-popping 34.4% gross in Infrastructure Solutions is NOT field electrical work at all; it is engineered power-products and switchgear manufacturing plus data-center power infrastructure, bid on engineered value rather than competed as a subcontract. So the headline 25.5% company margin is propped up by non-contracting businesses. Strip those out and field electrical contracting sits at the bottom, just like the subcontract-construction arm at every other public MEP.
Commercial electrical subcontracting is a thin-margin, working-capital business. The margin lives in service work and specialized scopes, not in being the electrical sub on a big build.
Source: IES Holdings FY2025 10-K
How to read this: Level measured a blended pool across six trades, so the numbers below are drawn from named public sources specific to electrical contractors (SEC filings, BLS, CFMA, industry research), each tagged by confidence tier. Level's own cross-trade benchmarks (further down) apply across trades and are labeled as such. Every Tier A and B row links its primary source so you, or an AI, can verify it.
Field electrical work is the thin end of a public electrical company; the fat margin is manufacturing.
IES Holdings operating margin by segment, FY2025
Source / sample: IES Holdings FY2025 10-K segment operating margin
IES reports four segments. The two that are actual field electrical contracting, Commercial & Industrial (11.0% operating) and Residential (8.0% operating), sit at the bottom; Residential is the thinnest on operating margin, C&I the thinnest on gross (20.3%). The eye-popping 23.8% is Infrastructure Solutions, which is engineered power-products and switchgear manufacturing, not field work. So the headline 25.5% company margin is propped up by non-contracting businesses. Read the segment, not the blend.
Source: IES Holdings FY2025 10-K
Electrical service work runs higher margin than project and new-construction work.
Gross margin by job type (directional, industry sources)
Source / sample: Directional: AceWatt, RunClockwork (2026)
Operator sources put residential electrical service around 50 to 65% gross versus roughly 20 to 35% on commercial or new-construction bid work. The public data agrees on direction: IES's field-contracting segments (C&I 20.3% gross, Residential thinner on operating margin) sit below its manufacturing arm. Service is billable-labor-heavy; project work is competed on price. Directional industry figures.
Source: AceWatt, RunClockwork 2026 (directional)
The electrician wage runs about $19 to $51 an hour, one of the widest spreads in the trades.
Electrician hourly wage percentiles (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
Source / sample: BLS OEWS May 2024, SOC 47-2111 (n=742,580)
Employee wages, not fully-loaded cost; add roughly 30% for taxes, workers' comp, and benefits. Electricians are one of the largest construction trades by headcount, and the P10-to-P90 spread is wide, so a master electrician's true loaded cost can be more than double a helper's. Cost each role at its burdened rate, not a blended average.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics, May 2024, SOC 47-2111
Electrical benchmarks, by source
Public electrical field-contracting gross margin
Tier A~20%
IES Holdings (IESC) Commercial & Industrial segment 20.3% FY2025. The consolidated 25.5% is higher only because it blends in switchgear/power-equipment manufacturing (34.4% gross), which is not field electrical work.
Source: SEC 10-K filing (IESC)
Electrician median wage (SOC 47-2111)
Tier A$62,350/yr
Median hourly $29.98; 10th pct $39,430, 90th $106,030. One of the largest construction trades by headcount.
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2024
Diversified MEP operating margin (EMCOR)
Tier Aoperating ~10%
EMCOR's consolidated operating margin ~10.1%, FY2025 (EMCOR is a large diversified mechanical and electrical contractor).
Source: SEC 10-K filing (EME) FY2025
All-contractor net profit before tax
Tier B6.3% (top quartile ~11.9%)
The reality-check on what a healthy contractor nets.
Source: CFMA 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker (n=1,290)
Electrical margin by job type
Tier Cservice higher than project; net ~10-18%
Directional; service/repair carries higher gross margin than project work.
Tier A = public-company SEC filings or BLS government data (highest confidence, permanent URL). Tier B = trade-association or research-firm survey (CFMA, IBISWorld). Tier C = industry publications, directional only. Public-company figures are large scaled operators and read as an upper reference, not a typical private contractor. Where sources conflict, both are shown, never averaged.
What the public electrical contractors actually earn
IES Holdings' consolidated 25.5% gross margin blends field electrical contracting with power-equipment manufacturing. The segment breakout shows the actual electrical-contracting read is the thinnest of the four.
| Company / scope | Gross | Operating | Net | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IES Holdings (IESC)Commercial & Industrial segment, FY2025 | 20.3% | 11.0% | n/d | The traditional commercial electrical-CONTRACTING read, the thinnest segment. |
| IES Holdings (IESC)Communications segment, FY2025 | 23.2% | 14.6% | n/d | Data-center / network install, riding data-center demand. |
| IES Holdings (IESC)Infrastructure Solutions segment, FY2025 | 34.4% | 23.8% | n/d | NOT field electrical: engineered power products / switchgear MANUFACTURING. |
| EMCOR (EME)US Electrical Construction segment, FY2025 | n/d | 12.1% | n/d | Large diversified electrical construction arm. |
n/d = not disclosed at that cut. IES segment operating margins exclude ~$52M unallocated corporate SG&A, so they slightly overstate fully-loaded segment profitability. Gross margins are clean.
The Level lens, reported vs. real margin
The service call looked like a 50% margin. After the fully-burdened electrician and the truck, it is closer to 28%.
Where a residential electrical service call's apparent margin goes
Source / sample: Level analysis; labor anchored to BLS SOC 47-2111 wage + statutory burden
Reproduce it on your own book: start from the quoted gross margin, subtract the fully-burdened electrician hours (BLS SOC 47-2111 median $29.98/hr times about 1.3 for taxes, workers' comp, and benefits), then the truck, drive, and dispatch time the job never gets charged for, then the callback rate on that job type. The gap between the quoted margin and what lands is where service work quietly loses margin on jobs that look profitable on the invoice.
Public-company anchors used
IES Holdings (IESC), EMCOR (EME). These are large, publicly traded operators; their audited 10-K figures are hard, verifiable reference points, not a stand-in for a typical private electrical shop, which runs on different economics.
Level's cross-trade benchmarks (apply to electrical too)
These come from Level's own analysis of 2,200+ contractors across six trades. They are cash and sales-process metrics that do not vary much by trade, so they apply to electrical contractors as much as any other. Shown as the blended measure they are, not a per-trade split.
n=464 (blended). Effective cash conversion across the blended 6-trade pool; top decile 96.0%.
n=733 (blended). 1 day with progress billing included; 7 days among post-completion invoicers.
n=794 (blended). On decided quotes; 38.1% across all quotes.
n=430 (blended). Blended across trades; 91% of jobs carry revenue with no cost data attached.
Every Tier A and B figure above links its primary source, and the full tiered dataset for all six trades (public-company actuals, BLS wages, CFMA and market figures, each with its source URL) is downloadable and free to cite with attribution. Download the per-trade benchmark facts (JSON).
See where your electrical numbers land
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Frequently asked questions
What is a good profit margin for an electrical contractor?
It depends on whether you mean gross or net, and on commercial vs residential work. The best hard reference points are public-company actuals: ~20% (IES Holdings (IESC) Commercial & Industrial segment 20.3% FY2025. The consolidated 25.5% is higher only because it blends in switchgear/power-equipment manufacturing (34.4% gross), which is not field electrical work.). CFMA puts all-contractor net profit before tax around 6.3%, with the top quartile near 11.9%. Small private shops vary widely, so use the tiered sources on this page rather than a single number.
Where does this electrical benchmark data come from?
External, citable sources specific to electrical contractors: public-company SEC 10-K filings, BLS wage data, CFMA's Construction Financial Benchmarker, and industry research, each tagged by confidence tier with a source link. Level layers its own blended analysis of 2,200+ contractors (collection rate, billing speed, quote conversion) on top, labeled as a cross-trade measure, because Level measured a blended pool and does not split its own dataset by trade.
Is electrical service work higher margin than project work?
Generally yes. Service and repair carries more billable diagnostic labor and less pass-through material than project or new-construction work, so it runs higher gross margin (directional, industry coaching sources). The public data corroborates the flip side: the traditional commercial electrical-contracting segment at IES (Commercial & Industrial) is its thinnest at 20.3% gross / 11.0% operating in FY2025, consistent with subcontract project work being the low-margin end.
Why is IES Holdings' margin higher than a normal electrical contractor's?
Because IES is not just an electrical contractor. Its highest-margin segment, Infrastructure Solutions at 34.4% gross, is engineered power-products and switchgear manufacturing plus data-center power infrastructure, not field electrical contracting. The segment that actually resembles a commercial electrical subcontractor, Commercial & Industrial, sits at 20.3% gross. Read the segment, not the consolidated blend.