What Employee Pay Implies for Freelance Rates: 25 Occupations

By Reese Calloway · Updated 2026-10-04

How we research, cite and correct our guides

The table below starts from the national median wage in 25 occupations, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for May 2025. It converts each median into an employee-equivalent billable rate: the hourly fee that would bring in that wage plus average employer benefit costs over 1,200 billable hours a year. In every row, the rate works out to about 2.48 times the median hourly wage. It translates employee pay; it does not record what freelancers charge.

Employee-equivalent rates for 25 occupations

Wages are national Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) estimates for employees in all industries, May 2025. Benefit costs come from the June 2026 Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) release. Rates are per billable hour, computed from the hourly median and rounded to the nearest dollar; tied rows are ordered by the unrounded figure. Writers and editors who quote per word or per project can translate these hourly floors with the writing-rate conversion guide.

How the rate is built from two BLS surveys

employee-equivalent billable rate = (median hourly wage × 2,080 ÷ W) ÷ 1,200

1. × 2,080 turns the hourly median into a year of full-time pay. It is the 40-hour, 52-week year BLS itself uses to state OEWS wages as annual figures.
2. ÷ W adds the benefits an employer pays on top of wages. W is wages and salaries as a share of total employer compensation costs for private-industry workers: 70.0% in June 2026, according to the ECEC release published September 9, 2026. So W = 0.700.
3. ÷ 1,200 spreads that annual amount over the hours a freelancer can bill. It starts from the same 2,080-hour paid year and removes time off (vacation, holidays, sick days) and unbilled business work such as sales, proposals, invoicing, and bookkeeping. For example, 48 working weeks of 40 hours is 1,920 hours; billing 25 of every 40 leaves 1,200. The guide to billable hours shows how to measure your own number.

Combined, the multiplier is 2,080 ÷ 0.700 ÷ 1,200 = 2.476.

Worked row, graphic designers (27-1024):

• $30.27 × 2,080 = $62,961.60 a year. BLS’s published annual median is $62,960; the $1.60 gap comes from rounding the hourly figure.
• $62,961.60 ÷ 0.700 = $89,945.14 in wages plus average benefit costs.
• $89,945.14 ÷ 1,200 = $74.95, shown as $75 per billable hour.

What the other 30% of compensation contains

Components do not add exactly because of rounding. The ECEC technical note defines legally required benefits as Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Employer Social Security and Medicare alone were 6.0% of private-industry compensation. OEWS wages exclude overtime, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses, so including supplemental pay in the gross-up does not count it twice.

Three properties of W affect how to read the table:

• It is an average. It covers full- and part-time private-industry workers, and BLS includes workers who lack access to a plan, or do not participate, in its benefit costs. For someone who had employer health and retirement coverage, benefits can be a larger share of compensation than the 30.0% average.
• It overlaps with the 2,080-hour year on paid leave. ECEC measures costs per hour worked and lists paid leave as a benefit, while a 2,080-hour year already includes paid vacation and holidays. Dividing by W therefore counts paid leave twice. Dividing by 0.775 (wages plus paid leave) removes the overlap and lowers every rate by about 10%: $146 instead of $162 for software developers, $68 instead of $75 for graphic designers. The main table keeps the W-only formula stated above.
• Its definition is changing. BLS has announced that ECEC will drop workers’ compensation costs, 0.9% of private-industry compensation in June 2026, starting with December 2026 data. At June 2026 figures, that change would raise W by less than one percentage point.

Costs and risks the rate does not cover

Business costs. ECEC counts what employers spend on pay and benefits, not the computer, software, office, business insurance, or accounting an employee uses. A freelancer pays for those out of fees. Add them per billable hour: in an illustrative case, $6,000 a year of business costs spread over 1,200 hours adds $5 to every hour.

Self-employment tax changes who pays; it is not a missing line. Employees and employers each pay 6.2% Social Security tax and 1.45% Medicare tax on wages. The employer’s 7.65% sits inside ECEC’s legally required benefits, so dividing by W already builds it into the rate. The employee’s 7.65% is withheld from the paycheck, so it was always part of the median wage. A freelancer pays both halves directly as self-employment tax: 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) on 92.35% of net earnings, with one-half deductible when figuring adjusted gross income. A freelancer who grosses the same amount as an employee’s salary therefore nets less than that employee, which is why a freelance fee belongs next to total compensation, as in this table, rather than next to salary. The Social Security part stops at the annual wage base, $184,500 for 2026.

Income taxes. Federal, state, and local income taxes apply to employees and freelancers alike and are not subtracted anywhere on this page. Every figure is pre-tax.

Unpaid gaps between clients. The 1,200-hour figure assumes paid work is available whenever you are. Eight weeks without a client at 25 hours a week removes 200 billable hours, and bringing in the same annual amount over 1,000 hours takes a rate 20% higher. Late or unpaid invoices reduce revenue further; employee wage data reflect neither risk.

Why one national median overstates beginners and understates specialists

A national median is the midpoint of every employee in the occupation: new hires and senior staff, high- and low-cost metro areas, every industry. BLS’s own guidance says people new to a field may expect wages near the 10th or 25th percentile, those with more experience and education near the 75th or 90th, and that location and industry also shift pay. Running the same formula on the 10th and 90th percentile wages shows the spread:

Wages are May 2025 national OEWS hourly percentiles. A beginner who uses the median figure is matching an employee halfway up the national distribution, not an entry-level one. A specialist whose employee peers sit near the 90th percentile would, at the median figure, be quoting far below what those peers cost an employer. OEWS also publishes state and metro-area wages, and the formula works the same way with a local median.

Rates at 1,000 and 1,400 billable hours

Only the last divisor changes:

• rate at 1,000 hours = median hourly wage × 2,080 ÷ 0.700 ÷ 1,000
• rate at 1,400 hours = median hourly wage × 2,080 ÷ 0.700 ÷ 1,400

1,000 hours is about 21 billable hours a week for 48 weeks; 1,400 is about 29. As a shortcut, multiply a 1,200-hour rate by 1.2 for 1,000 hours or by 6/7 for 1,400 hours. The table below works from unrounded values, so a shortcut applied to a rounded rate can differ by $1.

“Wages plus benefits per year” is the median hourly wage × 2,080 ÷ 0.700. To run the same arithmetic on your own hours, benefits, and business costs, use the freelance hourly rate calculator.

A translation of employee pay, not a survey of freelance prices

OEWS covers employees only; its technical note states that the survey does not include the self-employed. Nothing on this page measures what freelancers charge or what clients will pay. Each rate is a floor-style figure: roughly what it takes to replace a median employee’s pay and average benefits, before business costs, profit, and gaps are added. Client budgets can land above or below it.

To turn the floor into a quote, start from your own costs, income target and billable hours. To replace the averages here with your own benefits and expenses, build a personal salary-to-rate multiplier. To weigh a specific W-2 offer against contract work, see how much more to charge on a 1099.

This page is general information, not financial advice.

Virtual assistants

The closest occupation in the table for general virtual-assistant work is secretaries and administrative assistants (SOC 43-6014), with a May 2025 national median wage of $22.86 an hour. Its employee-equivalent billable rate in the table is $57 an hour. Executive, legal and medical assistants are separate BLS occupations with different wages, so specialized work may sit higher.

Many virtual assistants sell monthly retainers rather than single hours. Price a retainer from the same hourly floor. At $45 an hour, 20 reserved hours a month is $900. Some assistants add a premium because reserved hours cannot be sold to another client, and others offer a discount for a long commitment; either is a business choice, not a standard. Write down whether unused hours expire at month-end and what rate applies to work beyond the block, so the retainer does not grow without the price.

Sources

• BLS, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, news release USDL-26-1494, September 9, 2026 (private-industry wages and salaries at 70.0% of compensation; workers’ compensation notice).
• BLS, ECEC Table 1, employer costs by ownership, June 2026 (benefit components).
• BLS, ECEC technical note (legally required benefits; averages include workers without plan access).
• BLS, OEWS May 2025, Table 1: national employment and wage data by occupation (median hourly wages).
• BLS, OEWS technical note (wage definition, 2,080-hour year, self-employed excluded).
• BLS Public Data API, OEWS national median annual wage, May 2025 (data type 13; each link returns JSON, and the year-2025 value is the May 2025 estimate), by SOC code: 15-1252, 15-1212, 15-2051, 15-1255, 27-1014, 13-1111, 17-1011, 15-1254, 27-3042, 27-1021, 13-2011, 13-1161, 27-3041, 27-3043, 27-4032, 27-3031, 13-1151, 27-1025, 27-1024, 27-3091, 31-9011, 43-3031, 43-6014, 39-9031, 27-4021.
• BLS Public Data API, OEWS national hourly 10th percentile (data type 06) and 90th percentile (data type 10) wages, May 2025: 15-1252 10th, 15-1252 90th, 27-3043 10th, 27-3043 90th, 27-1024 10th, 27-1024 90th.
• BLS, How much could I be earning? (percentiles, experience, location, and industry).
• IRS, Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates (6.2% and 1.45% each for employer and employee; 2026 wage base).
• IRS, Topic no. 554, Self-employment tax (92.35% of net earnings; one-half deduction).
• IRS, Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes) (15.3% rate).

All figures were retrieved in late September 2026.