GSA Labor Rates: Who Earns Most and Who Competes Most

You submitted a competitive bid. You thought your rates were reasonable. Then you lost on price to a vendor you had never heard of. If that sounds familiar, the problem is not your proposal quality. It is that GSA labor rate data is public but nearly impossible to navigate without the right tools. This post puts the numbers directly in front of you.

• Senior executive roles top $300/hr: the highest-paying GSA labor categories span consulting, coaching, and executive leadership.
• Project Manager is the most-competed category: 2,240 vendors publish rates for this single title.
• Median rates vary by more than 4x: from $90/hr for Technical Writer to $364/hr for Senior Executive Consultant.
• Competition does not always follow pay: some of the busiest categories sit at mid-range rates, not the top.
• Knowing incumbent rates changes your strategy: pricing blindly without benchmark data leaves margin on the table or prices you out entirely.
• The August 2026 CALC+ dataset covers 326,061 published rates from 6,819 vendors across the GSA Multiple Award Schedule.

The short answer

GSA labor rates range from $90/hr to $364/hr depending on category, with Senior Executive Consultant commanding the highest median and Project Manager drawing competition from 2,240 vendors, based on the GSA CALC+ Schedule pricing dataset, snapshot August 10, 2026: 326,061 published labor rates from 6,819 vendors, as published by GSA. The data below ranks both dimensions in full. Use the pay ranking to calibrate your ceiling in premium categories, and use the competition ranking to judge how much precision your rate strategy needs in crowded ones.

Highest-paying GSA Schedule labor categories

If your firm holds senior consulting or executive titles on its Schedule, the median rates below suggest meaningful pricing power that many contractors leave on the table. All categories below met a minimum threshold of 10 distinct vendors publishing a rate. Figures reflect published schedule rates, not negotiated contract outcomes.

• #1 Senior Executive Consultant: $364/hr median across 12 vendors and 40 published rates
• #2 Executive Coach: $355/hr median across 27 vendors and 41 published rates
• #3 Executive Vice President: $343/hr median across 15 vendors and 20 published rates
• #4 Executive Consultant II: $342/hr median across 15 vendors and 21 published rates
• #5 Managing Partner: $326/hr median across 15 vendors and 20 published rates
• #6 Subject Matter Expert (SME) IV: $321/hr median across 14 vendors and 18 published rates
• #7 Senior Partner: $312/hr median across 12 vendors and 16 published rates
• #8 Executive Management Consultant: $302/hr median across 12 vendors and 21 published rates
• #9 Executive: $302/hr median across 19 vendors and 25 published rates
• #10 Senior Executive: $295/hr median across 14 vendors and 17 published rates
• #11 Senior Vice President: $295/hr median across 24 vendors and 33 published rates
• #12 SME V: $294/hr median across 16 vendors and 24 published rates

Most-competed GSA Schedule labor categories

In crowded categories, pricing within a few dollars of the median is not enough. You need to know which vendors hold incumbent positions and what vehicles they are already on. The categories below carry the highest vendor counts in the CALC+ dataset. Project Manager alone has more than three times the vendor count of the next busiest SME title.

• #1 Project Manager: 2,240 vendors, $145/hr median across 3,121 published rates
• #2 Program Manager: 1,608 vendors, $178/hr median across 2,356 published rates
• #3 Subject Matter Expert: 677 vendors, $202/hr median across 1,008 published rates
• #4 Project Manager II: 675 vendors, $148/hr median across 949 published rates
• #5 Subject Matter Expert II: 667 vendors, $192/hr median across 968 published rates
• #6 Subject Matter Expert I: 635 vendors, $163/hr median across 937 published rates
• #7 Project Manager I: 625 vendors, $125/hr median across 885 published rates
• #8 Technical Writer: 573 vendors, $90/hr median across 795 published rates
• #9 Subject Matter Expert III: 553 vendors, $217/hr median across 792 published rates
• #10 Project Manager III: 449 vendors, $165/hr median across 650 published rates

What the gap between pay and competition reveals

The highest-paying categories are not the most-competed ones, and that gap is where pricing strategy lives. Senior Executive Consultant pays $364/hr median but has only 12 vendors. Project Manager pays $145/hr median but has 2,240. Premium executive categories offer meaningful pricing power with far less crowding. For crowded mid-tier roles, the differentiator shifts from rate to incumbency and vehicle alignment. A management consulting firm or IT services company holding senior titles on its Schedule pricelist is operating in a fundamentally different competitive environment than one bidding primarily on project management support.

How to use this data in your next bid

Map every labor category in your scope of work to the benchmarks above, then run a gap analysis on your published rates before you finalize a proposal. In a category like Program Manager where 1,608 vendors compete at a $178/hr median, a rate 20% above median without justification is a scoring liability. In a category like Executive Coach where only 27 vendors publish rates at a $355/hr median, pricing conservatively may cost you margin you could have kept. Semantic matching and a 0-100 fit score can surface which live solicitations align to your specific Schedule categories rather than relying on keyword searches alone, so you know the exact competitive context before you price. BidSparq's RFP intelligence platform also surfaces incumbent and contract vehicle data alongside each opportunity, giving you the rate landscape and the competitive context in one view.

GSA Schedule benchmarking is one piece of a broader procurement picture. BidSparq indexes 21,800+ bid sources spanning federal, state, local, and commercial vehicles, so the rate intelligence you build here extends well beyond the Schedule. Alongside semantic matching, fit scoring, and incumbent and vehicle intel, the platform also extracts compliance requirements directly from solicitation documents, flagging eligibility criteria before you commit time to a pursuit.

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FAQ

Where does this GSA labor rate data come from?

All figures in this post come from the GSA CALC+ Schedule pricing dataset, snapshot August 10, 2026: 326,061 published labor rates from 6,819 vendors, as published by GSA. The dataset reflects rates that vendors have published on their GSA Multiple Award Schedules and is updated as modifications are processed through the system.

Why is Project Manager so much more competed than other categories?

Project Manager is one of the most broadly defined labor categories in the GSA Schedule system, which means it attracts vendors across nearly every service area from IT to management consulting to professional services. The combination of broad applicability, well-understood qualifications, and steady demand across agencies makes it the single most saturated category in the dataset, with 2,240 vendors and 3,121 published rates.

How do I find open GSA solicitations that match my Schedule labor categories?

A bid discovery platform that matches solicitations by meaning rather than keyword alone will surface relevant opportunities faster than manual searching. Look for a tool that applies semantic matching across a broad source pool, scores each opportunity 0 to 100 for fit against your specific capabilities, identifies incumbent contractors and the vehicles they hold, and extracts compliance requirements from the solicitation document itself so you can qualify out early when eligibility criteria do not align. Those four capabilities together give you a complete competitive picture before you commit to a pursuit.