Sitework subcontractors often perform the broadest scope on a commercial project — clearing, grading, utilities, paving prep, and erosion control — which creates a diverse overhead profile that blends elements of civil, excavation, and utility contractor overhead.
These benchmarks are drawn from SPM's work with commercial sitework 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 Sitework Contractors: Sitework contractors bidding self-perform vs. subcontract decisions constantly. The overhead cost of self-performing clearing, grading, utilities, and paving prep is different from subcontracting each scope. Overhead rate benchmarking for sitework should reflect your specific self-perform percentage — a sitework contractor who subcontracts 60% of their scope has different overhead norms than one who self-performs 90%.
Sitework contractors managing clearing, grading, utilities, and paving prep simultaneously need supervisors and PMs who understand all of those scopes. That breadth-of-supervision overhead is real but often hard to benchmark against single-trade contractors.
SWPPP compliance, stormwater management documentation, environmental permit coordination, and agency inspection management create overhead that single-trade contractors don't carry. This overhead should be tracked separately and factored into bid pricing for environmentally sensitive sites.
As the self-perform percentage of your work changes, your overhead rate changes. Moving from 70% self-perform to 50% self-perform reduces direct labor but may not reduce overhead at the same rate — spiking overhead as a percentage of remaining direct revenue.
SPM builds scope-specific cost code structures in ControlQore for sitework clients — tracking overhead allocation by scope type (clearing, grading, utilities, paving). Overhead rate analysis by scope type reveals which portions of your sitework scope carry higher or lower overhead burdens.
SWPPP documentation, environmental coordination, and agency management costs are tracked as a dedicated overhead category in ControlQore for sitework clients. This visibility supports accurate bid pricing on environmentally complex sites.
When Executive clients are evaluating changes to their self-perform vs. subcontract mix, SPM models the overhead rate impact of the change — showing whether the margin improvement from a changed scope mix justifies any overhead rate shift that comes with it.
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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