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Trade Playbook
Flatwork is the production end of concrete — driveways, slabs, garage pads — and the questions are about the grind and the business: the brutal early-morning, weather-ruled schedule, why you live or die on the ready-mix truck and the base prep, builder-volume vs decorative-margin, and how to make money when everyone competes on price per square foot.
Where it starts
$18–24/hr
Labourer
Where it tops out
$80k–200k+
Flatwork business owner
Union route
OPCMIA on ICI work
Ontario figures for concrete flatwork, from the first day on site to the top of the trade. Approximate, and worth checking against current collective agreement rates and job postings in your region.
| Stage | Pay | What is going on at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| Labourer | $18–24/hr | Placing, raking, pulling forms. |
| Finisher | $28–40/hr | The skill — placing and finishing before it sets. |
| Crew lead / foreman | More | |
| Flatwork business owner | $80k–200k+ | Volume- and weather-dependent; builder relationships drive it. |
Two concrete flatwork contractors with the same ticket can be twenty dollars an hour apart because they picked different work.
Floor slabs, warehouse floors, and larger pours — ACI certifications, tighter tolerances, bigger equipment (laser screeds, ride-on trowels), higher pay.
Best for: Crews ready for spec work and equipment.
Every figure above is what concrete flatwork contractors get paid. It is not what you charge once you run a concrete flatwork business. Your rate has to carry the hours you are not on the tools, the truck, the tools themselves, WSIB, insurance, the quote you wrote and lost, and the holdback sitting in someone else's account for 60 days. Contractors who set their rate off their old hourly wage are the ones who work every weekend and still cannot say whether the year was profitable.
The step from paid by the hour to paid by the jobAdd decorative/polished as the higher-margin line (the classic escape from flatwork price competition), move into commercial/ICI flooring with the equipment and certifications, or grow crews and run the business. Foreman, estimator, and ACI-inspection roles get you off the trowel as the early mornings and the body toll add up.
Wage data, union rate sheets, and the places concrete flatwork contractors talk about money openly.
The rates above are the market. The live feed is the market this week: which builders and contractors just pulled a permit or won a contract in Ontario, what they are about to need, and who to call.
Concrete and Forming Jobs in Ontario: Who Is HiringAEC Stack handles incorporation, WSIB, insurance certificates, quoting, invoicing, and chasing the money, so a concrete flatwork business runs like one with an office behind it.
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