Average pay by service industry in South Carolina

Average pay by service industry in South Carolina ranges from about $15,000 per employee at fitness centers to more than $100,000 at physician offices, based on annual payroll divided by employment in the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) for 2023. Across all industries the state figure is $52,961, compared with $68,342 for the U.S., so South Carolina employers pay about 77 cents for every dollar paid nationally.

That headline ratio hides large differences between industries. In some, South Carolina pays at or above the national level; in others it is far below. For a business setting pay or building a hiring budget, the industry figure is the more useful benchmark.

Payroll per employee is not the same as a wage rate. It is total annual payroll divided by the number of people on payroll in mid-March, so it mixes full-time and part-time workers and every role in the business, from front desk to senior staff. It excludes owners who are not on payroll. Read it as an average labor cost per position, not as what any one job pays.

The table below covers 26 common service industries, ranked by South Carolina payroll per employee. The last column shows average staff per location, which helps explain some of the differences: larger practices tend to employ more specialized, higher-paid people.

Health care practices and hands-on personal and automotive services pay closest to national levels. Offices of dentists ($64,050) and home health agencies ($40,813) pay slightly more per employee than their national counterparts. Physician offices (96 percent), physical therapy practices (99 percent), barber shops (98 percent), auto body shops (97 percent) and general auto repair (93 percent) are all within 10 percent of the U.S. figure.

These are labor markets where skilled staff are licensed, mobile and in short supply nationwide. A dental hygienist, a physical therapist or a collision technician can work almost anywhere, so South Carolina employers have to pay close to what employers in other states offer. Salons appear above the U.S. level in this data, especially nail salons at 137 percent, but these are small industries in South Carolina (897 nail salon employees statewide), and many stylists and technicians work as booth renters or contractors who do not show up in payroll at all.

Office-based professional services show the widest gap. Offices of lawyers pay $89,262 per employee in South Carolina against $125,752 nationally, 71 percent. Advertising agencies are at 72 percent, tax preparation at 74 percent, CPA firms at 75 percent and real estate brokerages at 78 percent. Caterers (76 percent), fitness centers (76 percent) and janitorial services (80 percent) also trail.

Part of the professional services gap is market structure. National averages include large firms in New York, Washington, Chicago and California that pay much higher salaries; South Carolina law and accounting firms are smaller, averaging about 6 to 7 employees per location. For a South Carolina firm, the relevant competition for staff is usually other firms in the same metro area, plus remote employers who now hire across state lines. That second group is why the national figure is still worth watching.

At the sector level, South Carolina's health care sector pays 91 percent of the national figure, while information (54 percent) and arts, entertainment and recreation (52 percent) are furthest behind. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which averages employment across all 12 months and covers more than 95 percent of U.S. jobs, shows a similar pattern for 2024.

QCEW averages run higher than CBP figures because they are a year later and measure pay differently, but the ratios line up. Across all private industries, QCEW puts South Carolina at $60,720 in 2024 average annual pay versus $75,850 nationally, 80 percent. In health care the ratio is 94 percent, and in other services, which includes salons and auto repair, it is 91 percent.

Yes, and by more than many businesses expect. Using the same CBP method, payroll per employee across all industries was $56,623 in the six Lowcountry counties around Charleston, $54,044 in the seven Upstate counties around Greenville and Spartanburg, and $42,878 in Horry and Georgetown counties, where hospitality makes up a large share of jobs.

The gaps are wider inside specific sectors. Professional, scientific and technical firms pay $92,880 per employee in Charleston County and $92,579 in Greenville County, but $63,217 across the Grand Strand. Health care pays $71,362 per employee in Charleston County against $55,680 across the Upstate. A Greenville practice benchmarking against a Charleston salary survey, or the reverse, can be off by 20 percent or more.

Use the industry figure as a sanity check on total labor cost, not as a pay scale for a single role. If your payroll per employee is well below the state figure for your industry, you may be relying heavily on part-time staff or may have trouble keeping people. If it is well above, check whether senior people are spending time on work that a less expensive role, or a well-built process, could handle.

Remember that payroll is only part of what a position costs. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026 found that benefits made up 30.0 percent of total compensation for private industry workers, so a position with $50,000 in pay costs an employer roughly $71,000 in total.

Monvell's operations and consulting work looks at where staff time goes across intake, scheduling, follow-up and billing, so a business can see which tasks justify another hire and which can be handled by automation instead.

• Compare like with like: the right benchmark is your industry code, not the all-industry average.
• Check employees per location as well as pay; a 15-person practice and a 3-person practice will have different averages.
• For specific roles such as receptionists, use occupational wage data (BLS OEWS) alongside these industry figures.
• Add benefits and payroll taxes before comparing the cost of a hire with outsourcing or automation.

We used the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns 2023 county file (cbp23co.txt). For each 6-digit NAICS code listed, and for 2-digit service sectors, we summed annual payroll and March employment across all South Carolina county records, including the statewide record for establishments not assigned to a county, and did the same across all U.S. counties for the national figure. Payroll per employee is annual payroll (reported in thousands) times 1,000, divided by employment. Employees per location is employment divided by establishments. Regional figures sum the same payroll and employment fields for the counties in each region, as described in our regional profiles.

For the cross-check we used the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages 2024 annual average files for South Carolina (area 45000) and the U.S. (US000), private ownership, 2-digit sectors, using the published average annual pay. CBP counts employment in the pay period including March 12, while QCEW averages monthly employment and covers unemployment-insurance-covered jobs, so levels differ. CBP values include noise added for confidentiality; small industries such as nail salons and barber shops in South Carolina should be read as approximate. Neither source includes self-employed owners or contractors.