New Hampshire contractor benchmarks and market size
Everything for a New Hampshire 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
New Hampshire contractors bill $23/hr above the national median
New Hampshire's tight labor market and New England cost structure push rates above the national median. No state income tax attracts contractors from neighboring Massachusetts, but demand still outpaces supply.
For a 10-tech shop, that $23/hr difference means $460K per year in additional revenue compared to the national median.
New Hampshire Bill Rates
Median Bill Rate
$102/hr
75th Percentile
$126/hr
Top 10%
$150/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.
New Hampshire market size: how big is the pond?
About $696.5M in combined annual services demand across roughly 752 employer firms. Here is how the demand splits and how many competitors sit at each revenue tier.
Commercial Cleaning
$266.5M
work available per year
$0 residential / $266.5M commercial
333 employer firms
23 at $1-5M · 6 at $5-10M · 0 at $10-25M
HVAC
$109.0M
work available per year
$59.9M residential / $49.0M commercial
288 employer firms
72 at $1-5M · 18 at $5-10M · 4 at $10-25M
Roofing
$321.1M
work available per year
$186.2M residential / $134.9M commercial
131 employer firms
43 at $1-5M · 7 at $5-10M · 3 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 New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire, the base the market is sized on.
Single-family homes
0.4M
0.7M total housing units
Median year built
1980
Newer stock, growth plus replacement
2024 building permits
5K
2,904 single-family (new-construction signal)
Owner-occupied
0.4M
Homes with an owner who pays for the work
What drives demand here: New Hampshire's long, snowy winters create heavy snow loads and ice-dam damage on roofs, and its older housing stock leans on heating-focused HVAC upgrades.
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 New Hampshire 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
New Hampshire Bill Rate
$102/hr
Top quartile: $126/hr
34+ New Hampshire contractors estimated in market
New Hampshire labor market and licensing
What you will pay for skilled labor and what it takes to operate legally in New Hampshire, the two inputs that decide whether the demand above is worth chasing.
| Trade | Median wage (BLS) |
|---|---|
| Roofers | $24.16/hr |
| HVAC mechanics and installers | $30.97/hr |
| Janitors and building cleaners | $18.20/hr |
Specialty-trade establishments
3,358
NAICS 238 (all specialty trades), Census 2022
Licensing
No state roofing or general HVAC contractor license; governed by municipal permits and Consumer Protection Act RSA 358-A. Gas fitting requires a Gas Fitter license from the Mechanical Safety and Licensing Board; refrigerant work needs EPA 608.
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 NH; 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 New Hampshire
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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