How much does a staffing agency mark up an electrician?

Staffing agencies typically mark up an electrician's wage by 30 to 40%, going by what contractors tell us, and one public staffing contract lists 33% for skilled trades. On a $50-an-hour journeyman, that's $15 to $20 on top of every straight-time hour. About $6 of it is payroll tax and comp. The rest is the agency's.

There's no published survey of markups on electricians alone. Here's what does exist, and what each markup costs you. Whether it's worth paying is a separate question, answered in agency vs direct hire for electricians.

01What markup do agencies charge on electricians?

The honest answer is a range: contractors report 30 to 40%, and nobody has published a number for electricians alone.

Two things to know about that table.

First, a cooperative purchasing contract is priced for public buyers who get to see the sheet. A private quote to a short-handed contractor with a start date next Monday has no such sheet behind it.

Second, the 25 to 75% range comes from vendors, and nobody has published electrician numbers that show where most quotes land. If someone tells you "the industry average for electricians is X%," ask where it came from.

02What a 30%, 40% and 50% markup costs you

On a $50 wage, the markup is $15 to $25 a straight-time hour, $825 to $1,375 on a 50-hour week, and $10,725 to $17,875 per hand over 3 months.

Example only: say the hand makes $50 an hour, works 50-hour weeks (40 straight, 10 overtime) for 13 weeks, and the agency bills overtime at 1.5 times the bill rate. Robert Half's public staffing terms bill overtime exactly that way, so it's a fair assumption. Check yours.

Check the math on the 40% row. His week: 40 × $50 + 10 × $75 = $2,750. Your bill: 40 × $70 + 10 × $105 = $3,850. Difference: $1,100, which is 40% of $2,750. Times 13 weeks: $14,300.

Your total bill per hand for those 13 weeks: $46,475 at 30%, $50,050 at 40%, $53,625 at 50%. His gross pay is $35,750 at every markup.

Now multiply by your crew. Six hands at 40% for 13 weeks is $85,800 in markup. That's before per diem, if the agency runs it through its invoice.

03How much of the markup is payroll tax and comp?

At construction averages, roughly 12 cents of every wage dollar goes to legally required costs, so on a $50 wage about $6 an hour of the markup is cost the agency can't avoid.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks this. In private construction in June 2026, legally required benefits (Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and workers' comp) averaged $4.42 an hour on $36.13 an hour in wages. Our math: $4.42 ÷ $36.13 = 12.23% on top of wages.

Use 12.23% as a yardstick, not a quote. Electrician comp rates vary a lot by state and carrier, and Social Security and unemployment taxes stop at wage caps. For the full picture on what your own hands cost on top of wages, see how to calculate labor burden on an electrician.

The Sourcewell price sheet shows the split another way. The same firm charges 23% for payroll-only service, where it carries a worker you found and does no recruiting. Skilled trades with recruiting are 33%. So on that sheet, carrying the payroll is worth 23 points and finding the man is worth 10.

04Why agency rates feel higher right now

Agencies price to what the market will bear, and right now the market is short.

One national electrical contractor told us the rates they'd been quoted were "crazy" and guessed the shortage was why. The data backs the pressure, if not any one agency's number. In the AGC and NCCER 2026 workforce survey, 87% of contractors had hourly craft openings, and more than 8 in 10 raised base pay for hourly craft and salaried workers as much as or more than the year before. Of firms that did data center work in the past year, 49% reported more wage pressure.

When the wage goes up, a percentage markup goes up with it. A 40% markup on $45 is $18. On $55 it's $22.

05Do agency electricians make less?

On the national numbers, yes. Electricians employed by staffing firms have a lower median wage than those employed by electrical contractors.

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook lists the May 2025 median annual wage for electricians at $57,760 in employment services and $61,570 at electrical contractors. That's a $3,810 gap, about 6%, our math.

Don't read too much into why. The two groups may differ in experience, region and the kind of work they do. What it does tell you: a high bill rate doesn't mean a high wage for the man on your job. You can't know what he makes unless you ask. Backing his pay out of the bill rate walks through the formula, and the markup vs margin trap that comes with it.

06How to keep the markup honest

Get the markup and the pay rate on paper before anyone shows up. A quote that only shows a bill rate hides the one number you need.

1. Ask for the pay rate and the markup, not just the bill rate. Insight Global, a staffing firm, defines the bill rate as what you pay the agency and the pay rate as what the worker earns. Ask for both.
2. Ask whether "40%" is a markup on pay or a margin on the bill rate. On the same bill rate, those put very different money in his pocket.
3. Ask how overtime and per diem are billed. Overtime at 1.5 times the bill rate means the markup rides on every OT hour. Per diem should pass through at cost, or you should know why it doesn't.
4. Ask what happens when his wage goes up. Some agreements pass new labor costs straight through to you. One staffing firm's published terms make the client pay "all new or increased labor costs" the firm is legally required to pay.
5. Compare against hiring direct. The markup only makes sense against what it would cost you to find and carry him. Divide your one-time hiring cost by the hourly savings to get your break-even hours.

Put every answer into the agreement. What to put in an electrical staffing agreement has the full list.

If you're tired of paying a markup on every hour, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days, on your payroll.

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