Concrete subcontractors operate labor-intensive businesses with forming equipment overhead and material coordination costs that vary significantly by scope. Here is what normal overhead looks like for concrete contractors at every revenue level.
These benchmarks are drawn from SPM's work with commercial concrete contractors and industry data. Calculate your actual overhead rate — total G&A expenses divided by total revenue for the trailing 12 months — and compare to your revenue band below.
How to use this data: If you're above the top of the range, specific categories need review. If you're below the bottom, you may be underinvesting in systems and staff. Use the benchmark as a target range, not a single number.
Trade note for Concrete Contractors: Concrete overhead varies significantly by scope. Flatwork contractors carry lower equipment overhead than structural or tilt-up contractors. Mixing flatwork and structural in the same operation creates blended overhead that can be difficult to benchmark without separating by scope type.
Gang forms, shoring, and bracing represent significant capital. When forming costs are carried in overhead rather than allocated to the jobs using them, overhead inflates and job margins are understated.
Ready-mix scheduling, admixture management, and pour coordination labor often gets coded to overhead rather than to the jobs requiring it. For high-volume concrete contractors, this miscode is material.
Concrete pumps and specialized placing equipment used on specific jobs should be allocated to those jobs. When they sit in overhead, high-pump jobs look more profitable than they are.
SPM builds separate cost code structures for flatwork, structural, and specialty concrete in ControlQore so overhead benchmarks can be compared at the scope level — not blended across project types with different cost structures.
Forming and placing equipment costs are allocated to specific jobs via internal rates in ControlQore. Equipment overhead drops out of G&A and into direct job cost where it belongs.
Your overhead rate is tracked monthly and compared to the concrete contractor benchmark for your specific revenue band. When it drifts above range, SPM identifies whether the driver is equipment, labor overhead, or administrative costs.
Find out in a free 30-minute call. Josh will tell you straight where your overhead rate stands and what to do about it.
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