Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services ·NAICS 54131

NAICS 54131 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Architectural Services - Industry Benchmarks

$98,717/yr average annual pay, with 936 SBA loans on record for NAICS 54131.

3.9%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin
189K
Workers employed
$98,717/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$433M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 54131

California leads Architectural Services activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector runs a 3.9% net margin.

3.9%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
189K
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$98,717/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$433M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Use Architectural Services's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.

Architectural Services is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.

Source: IRS SOI (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023

Benchmarking Insights for Architectural Services

Architectural Services sits inside Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, a sector that runs a 3.9% net margin overall.

22,805 establishments employ 189,468 workers (8.3/location) at $98,717/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by New York and Texas.

Employment

189,468

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$98,717/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

22,805

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 7,386; establishment count increased by 186. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

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Workforce scale

Financial Detail

Annual Payroll (Total)
$18.7B
Avg Employees per Establishment
8.3

Sub-Industries

Industry Profit Margin
Architectural Services

NAICS 541310

 N/A

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 28,989
New York 17,536
Texas 16,005
Florida 9,849
Illinois 8,573
Massachusetts 7,518
Pennsylvania 6,527
Washington 6,439
Ohio 5,529
Colorado 5,495

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

936

Total Loan Volume

$433M

Avg Loan Size

$462K

Jobs Supported

6,776

Program Breakdown

7(a) 776 (83%)
504 160 (17%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

62 loans in this industry

New Business Share

11.0% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
106
2021
130
2022
123
2023
137
2024
191
2025
226
2026
23

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

How profitable is Architectural Services?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 54131 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector runs a 3.9% net margin (IRS SOI 2013 C corp).
How many businesses are in Architectural Services?
22,805 business establishments. Together they employ 189,468 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Architectural Services?
$98,717/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 8.3 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Architectural Services employment?
California leads with 28,989 workers. New York (17,536) and Texas (16,005) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Architectural Services receive?
Architectural Services businesses received 936 SBA loans totaling $433 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $462K. These loans supported 6,776 jobs at origination. Most lending (83%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.

Comparable industry benchmarks

These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.

How this ranks: Its Census employment total exceeds 77% of that same 551-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.

Closest workforce scale

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.

Benchmarking Architectural Services

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.

Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023

NAICS 54131 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023

Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.