Electrician Hourly Rate Calculator for BC

Most electricians set their rate by asking what everyone else charges. That tells you what the market will pay. It does not tell you whether that rate covers your truck, your licence, your insurance and a fair wage for you. Here's how to work out your own number in about five minutes.

Why your hourly rate is not your wage

When you worked for someone else, your hourly wage was yours. Once you run your own shop, your hourly rate has to pay for everything: the truck, fuel, tools, insurance, your electrical contractor licence, WorkSafeBC, phone, office costs, and then you. On top of that, not every hour you work can be billed. Quoting, driving, picking up material, chasing invoices and doing paperwork all take time that nobody pays for directly.

Step 1: Add up what it costs to keep the doors open

List your monthly overhead. For a one-truck electrician, the main items are:

• Truck payment or lease, fuel, repairs and ICBC

• Tools and equipment, including replacements

• Liability insurance, your contractor licence from Technical Safety BC, and WorkSafeBC premiums (rates depend on your classification unit; the 2026 average base rate across all BC industries is $1.55 per $100 of payroll)

• Phone, software, office supplies and bookkeeping

• Shop or storage, if you have one

Step 2: Decide what you need to pay yourself

Pick the yearly amount you need to take home before personal tax. If you are a sole proprietor, remember that your income tax and both halves of CPP come out of this amount, so set it higher than the wage you used to earn.

Step 3: Be honest about billable hours

A full year is about 2,080 working hours. Take off holidays and stat days and you have roughly 1,870. Most owner-operators can bill around 65% to 75% of that once quoting, travel and admin are counted. Using 70% gives you about 1,310 billable hours a year.

Step 4: Do the math

Rate = (yearly overhead + your pay) ÷ billable hours. Then add a profit margin on top, so the business can save for slow months, new equipment and taxes.

Example: a one-truck electrician in the Okanagan

This is an example only, using round 2026 numbers. Your costs will be different.

• Your pay: $90,000 a year ($7,500 a month)

• Overhead: truck and fuel $1,800, insurance, licence and WorkSafeBC $700, storage $400, phone, software and office $500, tools and other $400. That is $3,800 a month, or $45,600 a year.

• Total to cover: $135,600 a year

• Billable hours: about 1,310

• Break-even labour rate: about $104 an hour

• With a 10% to 15% profit margin: about $114 to $119 an hour, before material markup

If you are charging $90 an hour on these numbers, every hour you bill is quietly costing you money, even when the schedule is full.

Try it with your own numbers in the calculator below. It is loaded with this example. It shows the monthly sales you need to cover your overhead and your pay, based on your average margin after materials.