BidSparq Research · updated June 29, 2026

The Federal Labor Rate Benchmark

Name: The Federal Labor Rate Benchmark
Creator: BidSparq

What does the U.S. government actually pay per hour? We benchmarked 280,426 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.

$123/hr

overall median published rate

$89–$165

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

178

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$144/hr
$118–$174 · 2,727
Program Manager$176/hr
$148–$210 · 2,040
Subject Matter Expert$202/hr
$158–$247 · 855
Subject Matter Expert II$192/hr
$153–$239 · 835
Project Manager II$148/hr
$123–$171 · 827
Subject Matter Expert I$162/hr
$129–$204 · 807
Project Manager I$124/hr
$102–$150 · 762
Subject Matter Expert III$216/hr
$172–$272 · 680
Technical Writer$88/hr
$73–$105 · 678
Project Manager III$164/hr
$142–$189 · 567
Consultant$148/hr
$120–$180 · 547
Program Manager II$172/hr
$139–$206 · 505
Program Manager I$150/hr
$120–$181 · 495
Analyst II$99/hr
$85–$117 · 459
Business Analyst$112/hr
$92–$137 · 455
Analyst I$83/hr
$68–$97 · 454
Senior Project Manager$167/hr
$142–$194 · 430
Senior Consultant$178/hr
$151–$223 · 412
Systems Engineer$126/hr
$109–$156 · 408
Administrative Assistant$59/hr
$51–$72 · 394
Consultant II$147/hr
$118–$179 · 392
Analyst III$120/hr
$103–$137 · 387
Database Administrator$120/hr
$100–$139 · 380
Analyst$101/hr
$84–$123 · 374
Consultant I$123/hr
$101–$149 · 369
Program Manager III$190/hr
$159–$227 · 353
Business Analyst II$114/hr
$96–$135 · 348
Business Analyst I$94/hr
$79–$111 · 326
Network Engineer$120/hr
$99–$142 · 318
Engineer II$120/hr
$101–$142 · 312

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 280,426 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); 178 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.