06.23.2008 — If you want to charge the highest hourly rates for your IT or CE installation services, you'd better move your custom installation business to Wyoming.

If you are looking for a city that needs integrators, try Akron, Ohio or West Palm Beach, Fla.

Those are just some of the results revealed by OnForce's State of the IT Industry Report (pdf link).

OnForce is an online marketplace where integrators can bid on projects from businesses or homeowners or even specialty retailers seeking to subcontracting out specific jobs.

The first-ever report is an analysis of the nearly 750,000 work orders completed via the system in the first quarter of 2008. The company touts 12,000 registered installers and reported doing more than 25,000 consumer electronics installations last year.

Here is a sampling of the results:

Hourly Rates by State: Wyoming, Vermont and Alaska top the list with nearly twice the national average rate. Oklahoma is the least lucrative state in terms of hourly rates. (The hourly rate itself is not revealed in the study, but the ranks are determined using a formula.)

Paul Nadjarian, vice president of marketing, says there is a direct correlation between hourly rates and general population density. He says the fluctuation of rates being charged by integrators for IT or CE service is primarily driven by how busy an integrator is.

"If an integrator is not as busy, he is likely lowering his hourly rate to fill open time and keep his people busy," he says.

Volume by State and City: No surprise here, with California, Florida, Texas and New York topping the list of states with the highest number of requests for service.

New York City tops the list of the highest volume cities. Meanwhile, West Palm Beach, Fla. reports the highest volume by individual zip code.

City-by-City Hourly Rates: Akron, Ohio tops the list. Why? The general view is that there is an imbalance between the number of integrators vs. demand.

Highest Hourly Rates by Service: Installations of Voice-over-IP, wiring and cabling, and consumer electronics top the list of the highest hourly rates.

Nadjarian says its not a coincidence that those three categories each grew by more than 150 percent in one year in terms of OnForce volume.

Breaking down CE services only, mounting a projector was the highest hourly rate.

Right now, OnForce does have a category entitled "complete system" that captures data about integrated systems, but it will soon be separating its IT services from its CE services in the system.

Subsequently, it will be able to offer even more details on specific work orders in the consumer electronics space alone.