CRI-2026Q4Contract Rate Index · Rev. 2026-Q4

Contract Staffing Rate Card 2026: Bill Rates for IT, ERP and Finance Roles

Hourly bill rates for 22 roles, by level and metro, free as a PDF and XLSX.

Download the Rate Card ↓

The twelve national medians are right below. The full card is one work email away.

VP of IT in a navy blazer and a controller in a light blue shirt look down at a thick stack of blank printed sheets with an orange highlighter on top, at a walnut table in a bright open-plan finance office

KORE1’s 2026 contract staffing rate card lists hourly bill rates by role, level and metro, free as a PDF and XLSX. Nationally, a mid software engineer bills a median $108 an hour and a mid controller $127.

Last updated: October 21, 2026

Prepared by the KORE1 editorial team from the KORE1 Contract Rate Index, version 2026-Q4

Most contract budgets start with a guess. Someone remembers last year’s number, adds a few dollars and hopes the vendor quote lands close. It rarely does. Here’s the fix. This card swaps the guess for a published index, built from KORE1’s own W2 placements where we have enough of them and from BLS wages everywhere else, with every cell labeled so you know which is which.

It’s built for IT and finance budget owners locking 2027 contract spend, so the twelve national medians sit on this page and cost nothing. No form, no call. The full card adds every role, level and metro, as a PDF for the budget deck and an XLSX you can filter. Still weighing models? Our contract staffing page explains how KORE1 places W2 contractors, and our IT staffing services hub covers the roles you would hire, from help desk to controller.

The headline sheet

Contract Staffing Rate Card 2026: 12 National Role Medians

This is sheet 1 of the 27-sheet PDF. Every figure is a bill rate in dollars per hour, what an employer pays through a staffing firm.

CRI-2026Q4Bill rate characteristics Rev. 2026-Q4 · Effective 2026-10-16
Contract bill rates for twelve roles, United States national, KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4
RoleLevelLow1MedianHigh13 months2
Unit$ / hr$ / hr$ / hr$
Help desk / IT supportIT and infrastructureLevel 2$44$49$56$25,400
Systems administratorIT and infrastructureMid$70$79$90$40,900
Network engineerIT and infrastructureMid$95$106$120$55,300
Security analyst / engineerIT and infrastructureMid$90$102$116$53,300
Software engineerSoftware and dataMid$96$108$122$56,100
Data engineer / database developerSoftware and dataMid$98$110$122$57,200
ERP / NetSuite / Salesforce consultantERP and business systemsMid$75$84$95$43,700
Business systems analystERP and business systemsMid$75$84$95$43,700
Business analystERP and business systemsMid$71$81$93$42,000
IT project / program managerERP and business systemsMid$72$81$93$42,200
Accountant / senior accountantAccounting and financeSenior$77$87$94$45,300
Controller / accounting managerAccounting and financeMid$112$127$148$66,100
  • 1Low and High are the 25th and 75th percentile bill rates.
  • 2The median at 40 hours a week for 13 weeks, 520 hours.
  • 3All twelve rows are modeled from BLS OEWS May 2025 national wages, a 24% employer burden and the bill bands KORE1 observes. Observed cells are in the download.
Sheet 1 of 27 in the PDFBill rates only

Read it left to right. A mid ERP or NetSuite consultant bills a median $84 an hour, about $43,700 for a 13-week engagement. A mid controller bills $127, and the high end for that seat reaches $148. That’s a real spread. Your own metro is in the download. Or get a contract cost estimate for any metro without the download.

Free download

Download the Full 2026 Contract Rate Card

Enter a work email and you get both files, with every role, level and metro and the 3-month and 6-month cost of each. Both are free.

Ordering information
  • PDF

    27 sheets, about 460 KB

    The headline table, every role and level nationally, one sheet per role with every metro, then the method and revision notes.

  • XLSX

    5 tabs, about 90 KB

    All 1,365 cells in a filterable table, the 15 KORE1 observed cells with placement counts, a national summary and the method.

Bill rates only. Contractor pay is not in either file.

Where should we send it?

    Work email, please. We use your details to respond to this request. See our privacy policy.

    Hiring manager in round glasses and a grey sweater writes on a blank notepad at a standing desk by a window, a closed laptop, an orange mug and a stack of blank paper beside him
    Budgeting

    How to Use the Rate Card to Budget a Contract Req

    Four moves. Most people stop after the second, and that’s where the surprises start.

    1. Find the seat.

      Pick the role and the level you would really hire. In Seattle a mid software engineer and a senior one are $30 an hour apart at the median, and the card keeps them on separate lines. Don’t blur them. The Bay Area rows are laid out in the Bay Area bill rate page.

    2. Read your metro, not the country.

      National medians suit remote roles, but for an onsite seat use the city, because the same mid software engineer bills a median $108 nationally and $128 in Seattle. Metro matters.

    3. Let the card do the multiplying.

      Three-month and six-month cost are already in the table at 40 hours a week. Price a mid software engineer in Seattle for 26 weeks and it comes to $132,800. Done.

    4. Leave room at both ends.

      Low and High mark the usual spread for the seat. Plan on the median, then decide how much of the gap up to High you can absorb if the skill is scarce, the start date is close or the req has already been open for a while.

    Run it the other way too. Take a vendor quote, find the row it should sit on and see how far off it is. Our guides to IT staffing agency pricing and tech contractor hourly rates go deeper on both sides of that comparison, which helps when you’re pressure-testing a quote against the card.

    Inside the number

    What Is Inside a Bill Rate?

    A bill rate is not a pay rate with a number added on top. Not even close. It’s the full cost of putting a W2 contractor in the seat, and the part quotes skip most often is the burden.

    “First off, it’s not a markup. Secondly, there’s a margin in there. And thirdly, there’s a bunch of other costs that you’re not thinking of.”

    Devin Hornick, Partner, KORE1

    We model burden at 24% in every example. It stands in for the employer-side cost of a W2 worker, starting with payroll taxes. For 2026 that’s Social Security at 6.2% up to $184,500 of wages and Medicare at 1.45% (IRS Publication 15), plus federal unemployment tax at 6.0% on the first $7,000, which falls to 0.6% net for employers that get the full state credit (IRS Topic 759). Workers’ compensation and insurance sit on top, along with paid leave, which in California means state paid sick leave.

    Here’s why that matters when you compare quotes. A quoted markup often leaves the burden out. Two vendors can quote different percentages for the same dollars, so ask what the number covers before you compare it. Ask first. Our contractor burden rate page lists every line.

    Worked exampleNot an index cell
    • Contractor pay$100.00 an hour
    • Employer burden, 24%+ $24.00
    • Loaded cost$124.00
    • Typical bill rateabout $150 to $160

    Devin Hornick’s example. The gap between loaded cost and bill rate covers recruiting, weekly payroll and account management, plus the firm’s margin.

    Reading the cells

    Observed vs Modeled: How to Read Each Cell

    Every cell in the download carries one of two labels. Know which one you are looking at before you quote it to your CFO.

    Observed

    KORE1 placements

    Bill rates from our own W2 contract and contract-to-hire placements that started 2023 to 2026, published only when a cell has five or more placements. Most KORE1 placements are in Southern California. The label says so.

    • Cells15
    • Placements180
    • Roles13
    Modeled

    BLS wages, KORE1 bands

    Where we lack five recent placements, the cell starts from the BLS OEWS May 2025 wage for that occupation and metro, adds a 24% burden and applies the bill-to-cost range we observe on our own placements.

    • Cells1,350
    • Markets22 metros + national
    • Burden24%

    Where both exist, they can line up. Our 39 help desk placements, all levels and mostly in Southern California, bill a median $49 an hour. The modeled national Level 2 figure is $49 too. Same number, two methods.

    They don’t always. Our 21 project manager placements bill a median $116, while the modeled national mid-level figure is $81. A Southern California sample and a national model aren’t the same market, so check the label first. Read it twice. The rate card methodology lists every source and exclusion.

    22

    roles in the card, from help desk to controller

    1,365

    cells, each labeled observed or modeled

    180

    KORE1 placements behind the 15 observed cells, started 2023 to 2026

    24%

    employer burden built into every modeled cell

    From the KORE1 Contract Rate Index, version 2026-Q4, effective October 16, 2026. Method at kore1.com/contract-rate-methodology.

    Procurement lead in a cream cardigan rests a pen between two blank printed pages while a recruiter in a white shirt rests his chin on his hand at a small round table
    Why publish

    Why Publish Contract Rates at All?

    Because a rate you can check beats a rate you have to ask for. Devin Hornick, a KORE1 partner, gives the test for any staffing vendor. Look for “a firm who’s willing to show you how they make their money and not hide anything.”

    We’d like to pass it. So the method, the sample sizes and the exclusions are public, and the card labels every cell as observed or modeled, which gives you real placement data set out as structured rate data you can plan with instead of a number somebody quoted on a call.

    Keep going

    More Contract Rate Data From KORE1

    The card is one view of the index. These pages show the other cuts.

    Revision history

    When Do the Rates Update?

    Quarterly. This is version 2026-Q4, effective October 16, 2026, and the next update lands in January 2027.

    • Rev. 2026-Q4Effective October 16, 2026. First release of the downloadable card, 1,365 cells across 22 roles.
    • NextJanuary 2027, with new placements and the latest BLS release folded in.

    Cite this card

    KORE1. KORE1 Contract Rate Index, version 2026-Q4 (effective October 16, 2026). https://www.kore1.com/contract-rate-card-2026/

    Questions

    Common Questions

    What does a contract help desk technician cost per hour in 2026?

    A Level 2 help desk technician on a W2 contract typically bills $44 to $56 an hour nationally through a staffing firm, with a median of $49. Three months at 40 hours a week runs about $25,400 and six months about $50,700. Modeled from BLS OEWS May 2025 wages, a 24% burden and KORE1’s observed bill bands. Our own 39 help desk placements, mostly in Southern California, bill a median $49 too.

    How much does a contract software engineer cost?

    $108 an hour is the national median for a mid-level contract software engineer, and the typical range runs $96 to $122. That works out to about $56,100 for three months and $112,200 for six at 40 hours a week. Metro changes the answer, and the same seat bills a median $128 in Seattle.

    What should I budget for a contract controller?

    In short, a mid-level controller on a W2 contract typically bills $112 to $148 an hour nationally, with a median of $127. Three months runs about $66,100 and six months about $132,300. The spread from Low to High is $36 an hour, so spell out the scope of the seat before you compare quotes. Scope first.

    Is the contract rate card really free?

    Yes, the contract rate card is free, and a work email gets you both the PDF and the XLSX. We also ask for your name, company, the role you’re hiring, your metro and a start timeline, so we know who is planning contract spend and a recruiter can follow up if your request fits.

    Does the rate card show what contractors are paid?

    No, the card publishes bill rates only, which is what the employer pays through the staffing firm. A bill rate already includes the contractor’s wages, payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, insurance and the firm’s costs, so to compare it against a pay rate you add the burden first. In Devin Hornick’s example, $100 an hour in pay plus a 24% burden is $124 loaded.

    Next step

    Want a Firm Number for One Role?

    A rate card gives you the range. A recruiter gives you the quote. Tell us the role, the metro and the start date.

    Talk to a Recruiter →

    Not yet? Download the rate card first.

    Related
    Top IT Staffing Firms Badge by ITReviews.co