Kentucky contractor benchmarks and market size
Everything for a Kentucky contractor in one place: bill rates and margins versus the national median, how big the roofing, HVAC, and cleaning market is here, how crowded your revenue tier is, and what skilled labor costs locally.
Key Finding
Kentucky contractors bill $1/hr below the national median
Kentucky's affordable cost of living keeps median rates below national averages. Louisville and Lexington metro contractors bill above the state median, with bourbon distillery and horse farm facility work offering niche premiums.
For a 10-tech shop, that $1/hr difference means $20K per year in lost revenue compared to the national median.
Kentucky Bill Rates
Median Bill Rate
$78/hr
75th Percentile
$100/hr
Top 10%
$124/hr
How we measure: state bill rates are modeled from Level's rate-card research across 1,770 contractors, blended across HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical, and skewed commercial. One caveat we surface openly: the underlying rate field is entered inconsistently, some firms record customer billing rates, others record loaded labor cost or base wages, so a state median blends both. Treat these as directional market estimates, not a precise per-state distribution. National operating metrics below are measured; see the contractor benchmark JSON for definitions and sample sizes.
Kentucky market size: how big is the pond?
About $2.1B in combined annual services demand across roughly 1,132 employer firms. Here is how the demand splits and how many competitors sit at each revenue tier.
Commercial Cleaning
$768.8M
work available per year
$0 residential / $768.8M commercial
500 employer firms
40 at $1-5M · 8 at $5-10M · 3 at $10-25M
HVAC
$334.2M
work available per year
$183.8M residential / $150.4M commercial
414 employer firms
111 at $1-5M · 22 at $5-10M · 11 at $10-25M
Roofing
$1.0B
work available per year
$586.8M residential / $424.9M commercial
218 employer firms
66 at $1-5M · 8 at $5-10M · 6 at $10-25M
Competitor counts are US Census employer firms (Statistics of U.S. Businesses): businesses with paid employees, which is the universe that actually competes for $1M+ contracts. It excludes the large tail of no-payroll sole proprietors (who average well under $100K/yr). Revenue-tier splits use the SUSB receipt-size tables (2017, the latest Census publishes receipts for). HVAC is reported as its analyst-estimated share of the combined plumbing+heating+AC NAICS 238220 code, since Census does not isolate HVAC.
The Kentucky housing base behind the demand
Residential roofing and HVAC demand tracks the single-family housing stock and its age. Here is the public Census picture for Kentucky, the base the market is sized on.
Single-family homes
1.4M
2.1M total housing units
Median year built
1983
Newer stock, growth plus replacement
2024 building permits
16K
8,919 single-family (new-construction signal)
Owner-occupied
1.3M
Homes with an owner who pays for the work
What drives demand here: Kentucky's humid subtropical climate pairs hot summers with cold winters and frequent severe storms, sustaining both HVAC and storm-driven roofing work.
Housing figures: US Census ACS 2024 1-year (B25001 housing units, B25024 single-family, B25035 median year built) (Census). Permits: US Census Building Permits Survey 2024 (annual state file) (Census BPS). Permits are a new-construction signal; roofing and HVAC demand is mostly replacement-driven, so read them together with housing age.
National Benchmarks
These metrics are reported nationally. Where your Kentucky business falls depends on your specific operations. See the full national breakdown.
Collection Rate
85.1%
Top quartile: 92.7%
n=464 companies
SA Gross Margin
37.9%
Top quartile: 53%
n=259 companies
Billing Speed
1 day
Raw median (incl. progress billers); ~7 days for post-completion invoicers
n=733 companies
Billing Capture
97.1%
Hours invoiced divided by hours logged on jobs, not "utilization". Top quartile: 99.6%
n=963 companies
Quote Conversion
73.9%
Top quartile: 83.2%
n=794 companies
Kentucky Bill Rate
$78/hr
Top quartile: $100/hr
48+ Kentucky contractors estimated in market
Kentucky labor market and licensing
What you will pay for skilled labor and what it takes to operate legally in Kentucky, the two inputs that decide whether the demand above is worth chasing.
| Trade | Median wage (BLS) |
|---|---|
| Roofers | $22.90/hr |
| HVAC mechanics and installers | $28.31/hr |
| Janitors and building cleaners | $14.65/hr |
Specialty-trade establishments
5,407
NAICS 238 (all specialty trades), Census 2022
Licensing
HVAC contractors must hold a state Master HVAC license from the Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction. Roofing is regulated locally, with no state roofing license.
Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024, state data, hourly median (Colorado roofer wage suppressed in the 2024 state file, so CO uses May 2023) (BLS OEWS KY; Roofers SOC 47-2181; HVAC mechanics/installers 49-9021; janitors and building cleaners 37-2011). Establishments: US Census County Business Patterns / SUSB 2022, NAICS 238 (specialty trade contractors) (Census SUSB). Licensing from state board and statute; verify current requirements before operating.
Top Trades in Kentucky
How this is estimated
National contractor-services revenue is anchored to definition-matched public figures: roofing ~$70B (US Census 2022 Economic Census, NAICS 238160 employer receipts), HVAC services ~$24B (industry research; residential is the larger share in the US), and commercial janitorial ~$60B (a commercial-only slice of the ~$80B US janitorial total). Each national total is allocated to states by that state's relative share of housing (residential) and commercial activity (commercial), then residential vs commercial is split by the national-average share for the trade. Competitor counts are US Census SUSB employer firms by revenue tier (receipt-size tables), redistributed to states by each state's relative share. This is directional market sizing; treat the numbers as estimates and read residential/commercial as an assumed split, not a measured one.
Directional market sizing, not an independent per-state survey. National totals are anchored to definition-matched published figures (contractor-services revenue, not materials markets); the state distribution is a modeled share and residential vs commercial is applied as a national-average split, not measured per state. Figures are estimates, ranges where noted.
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