Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services ·NAICS 541511

NAICS 541511 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Custom Computer Programming Services - Industry Benchmarks

$124,254/yr average annual pay, with 1,848 SBA loans on record for NAICS 541511.

3.9%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin
1.0M
Workers employed
$124,254/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$854M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 541511

California leads Custom Computer Programming 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)
1.0M
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$124,254/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$854M
SBA lending, FY20–26

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

Custom Computer Programming 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 Custom Computer Programming Services

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

68,051 establishments employ 1,012,250 workers (14.9/location) at $124,254/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Virginia.

Custom Computer Programming Services sits in the 97th percentile for employment among 6-digit NAICS industries with reported data.

Employment

1,012,250

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$124,254/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

68,051

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment decreased by 32,294; establishment count increased by 13. 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)
$125.8B
Avg Employees per Establishment
14.9

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 182,743
Texas 95,646
Virginia 74,778
New York 49,409
New Jersey 49,196
Florida 45,971
Illinois 43,213
Georgia 42,463
Pennsylvania 37,308
Maryland 36,724

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

1,848

Total Loan Volume

$854M

Avg Loan Size

$462K

Jobs Supported

21,079

Program Breakdown

7(a) 1,777 (96%)
504 71 (4%)

Top SBA Lender

Newtek Bank, National Association

204 loans in this industry

New Business Share

15.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
246
2021
190
2022
199
2023
266
2024
392
2025
496
2026
59

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

How profitable is Custom Computer Programming Services?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 541511 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 Custom Computer Programming Services?
68,051 business establishments. Together they employ 1,012,250 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Custom Computer Programming Services?
$124,254/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 14.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Custom Computer Programming Services employment?
California leads with 182,743 workers. Texas (95,646) and Virginia (74,778) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Custom Computer Programming Services receive?
Custom Computer Programming Services businesses received 1,848 SBA loans totaling $854 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $462K. These loans supported 21,079 jobs at origination. Most lending (96%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.

Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers

Two IRS/Census peer sets for Custom Computer Programming Services, both at NAICS level 6 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.

According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Custom Computer Programming Services ranks #26 of 801 U.S. industries at the 6-digit NAICS level by total employment.

Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services · Rankings

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 541511 · 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.