How Much to Pay an Office Manager at a Trades Company in 2026

What does an office manager make?

It depends on which job you mean. In a trades shop, "office manager" can mean anything from a one-person front office to someone running CSRs, dispatch, billing and payroll. BLS's closest category, first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, covers about 1,436,680 people with a May 2025 median of $33.41 an hour. That's the right benchmark if your office manager supervises at least one or two other office staff.

Which BLS job matches your office manager?

Pick the benchmark by what the person will actually do, not by the title on the posting. Paying a supervisor's wage for a bookkeeping role overspends; paying a clerk's wage for someone running a five-person office loses good candidates.

Most shops with 5–20 techs are hiring a working office manager: someone who supervises a CSR or two and still does billing and payroll prep. That sits between the bookkeeper median ($25.99) and the supervisor median ($33.42), moving up as the team they run grows.

Do HVAC, plumbing and electrical shops pay office managers more?

Slightly. Building equipment contractors, the industry group for HVAC, plumbing and electrical, employ 19,080 office supervisors at a median of $34.25, a little above the specialty-trade figure of $33.42. Building finishing contractors (painting, flooring, drywall) pay $32.00, and general builders and remodelers pay $34.86.

How does office manager pay vary by state?

State medians for office supervisors run from $25.80 an hour in West Virginia to $38.21 in Washington, with New York and California close behind. Florida, Texas, Georgia and Ohio all sit near $31. Use the state median as a midpoint, then adjust for your metro and the size of the team the person will run.

Should an office manager be salaried or hourly?

Either can work, but salary alone doesn't remove overtime. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employee is exempt only if they're paid a salary at or above the level DOL enforces (the DOL fact sheet lists $684 a week) and their job meets a duties test. For an office manager that usually means the executive test (managing the office as a department and regularly directing at least two full-time employees) or the administrative test (office work tied to running the business, with real discretion on significant matters). A bookkeeper doing data entry on salary is likely still owed overtime. States can be stricter. This is general information, not legal advice; check the DOL links below or ask an employment attorney.

What does an office manager cost the business?

The example below treats an office manager on a salary equal to the specialty-trade median, $69,510 a year (about $1337 a week), and runs it through the payroll cost calculator. Benefits are higher than for an entry-level role because senior office hires often expect health coverage and a retirement match.

A good office manager pays for themselves through cash flow and owner time: invoices out the same day, receivables chased before they go 60 days, payroll and vendor bills right the first time, and the owner back in the field or selling. If your receivables are slow, the cost of waiting on money is often bigger than the salary. See the contractor bookkeeping checklist for what the role should own.

What should you automate before hiring an office manager?

Automate the repeatable paperwork first so the person you hire spends time on judgment work: collections conversations, vendor negotiations, managing the office team and catching problems early. Invoicing, payment reminders, QuickBooks sync, timesheets and appointment reminders all follow rules and can run without a person touching each one.

Next steps

Decide whether you need a manager or a bookkeeper with the office manager hiring guide, then post with the office manager job description. If the gap is really phones or the schedule, compare CSR pay and dispatcher pay first.