BidSparq Research · updated October 5, 2026

The Federal Labor Rate Benchmark

Name: The Federal Labor Rate Benchmark
Creator: BidSparq
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What does the U.S. government actually pay per hour? We benchmarked 369,935 hourly labor rates published on federal GSA Schedules to show the going rate for the most common contract roles , so you can price your bid against the real market, not a guess.

$124/hr

overall median published rate

$90-$166

middle 50% of all rates (25th-75th pct)

253

roles with enough rates to benchmark

Median hourly rate by role

The most commonly-priced roles on federal schedules. Bar = median; range = 25th-75th percentile.

Project Manager$145/hr
$118-$175 · 3,495
Program Manager$178/hr
$149-$210 · 2,660
Subject Matter Expert$202/hr
$160-$246 · 1,125
Subject Matter Expert II$194/hr
$154-$240 · 1,094
Project Manager II$149/hr
$124-$172 · 1,077
Subject Matter Expert I$163/hr
$134-$206 · 1,065
Project Manager I$127/hr
$103-$151 · 1,006
Technical Writer$90/hr
$74-$109 · 908
Subject Matter Expert III$220/hr
$176-$273 · 893
Project Manager III$165/hr
$141-$190 · 733
Consultant$150/hr
$121-$180 · 715
Program Manager II$171/hr
$140-$207 · 662
Program Manager I$150/hr
$118-$183 · 661
Analyst II$100/hr
$84-$118 · 585
Analyst I$84/hr
$68-$97 · 579
Business Analyst$112/hr
$92-$137 · 577
Senior Project Manager$167/hr
$141-$194 · 545
Administrative Assistant$61/hr
$51-$72 · 539
Senior Consultant$180/hr
$151-$228 · 532
Systems Engineer$126/hr
$109-$155 · 524
Consultant II$148/hr
$119-$182 · 493
Analyst III$121/hr
$103-$138 · 488
Database Administrator$118/hr
$100-$139 · 486
Analyst$103/hr
$85-$123 · 482
Business Analyst II$116/hr
$96-$135 · 480
Program Manager III$189/hr
$159-$230 · 470
Consultant I$127/hr
$101-$151 · 459
Business Analyst I$95/hr
$80-$112 · 445
Technical Writer II$91/hr
$78-$107 · 415
Network Engineer$121/hr
$103-$143 · 413

How to read these numbers

These are fully-loaded ceiling rates: the hourly price a contractor may bill on a GSA Schedule, including overhead, G&A, and fee. They are not take-home wages, and they are not directly comparable to commercial salary surveys (which is why we don't frame this as a “pay gap”). Use them to sanity-check where your own GSA rate sits versus the published market for the same role before you submit.

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Methodology

Based on 369,935 hourly labor rates published on U.S. federal GSA Schedule / contract vehicles (the GSA CALC+ dataset BidSparq ingests). Percentiles (25th / median / 75th) are computed per labor category for the most common roles (those with at least 100 published rates, so the numbers are stable); 253 categories meet that bar. IMPORTANT: these are fully-loaded ceiling rates a contractor may bill on a schedule: they include overhead, G&A, and fee, so they are NOT take-home wages and are NOT directly comparable to BLS commercial wages. Use them to sanity-check where your own GSA rate sits versus the published market for the same role.

Verify this yourself

Every rate in this report is public. Open the source and check us.

GSA CALC+: the Contract-Awarded Labor Category tool that publishes every GSA Schedule labor rate.

Key stats from this report

Each answered on its own page with the current figure, source, and sample size.

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