2025 Green Industry Outlook – Contractors

The Irrigation Association survey shows contractors gaining experience and growing, backed up by a strong crew.

This year’s results further illustrate how irrigation contractors are engaging with the market, how they’re developing their companies and how they’re looking to the future for potential. Tracking these data year over year shows a respondent group that is representative of the industry, facing issues surrounding an aging knowledge base, increasing water scarcity and, as has been a keystone of every outlook survey since 2018, issues surrounding labor. A sincere thank-you goes out to everyone who took the time to share their insights.

The survey follows another year of moderate expectations of growth for many, but one of the biggest indicators of a positive outlook lands alongside labor. Contractors this year overall felt most able to build on market opportunity when they were able to first attract and develop a steady crew, regardless of company size. Let’s get into the results.

A Look at Leadership

The majority of contractors continue to own or manage the company (65%), though that total is slightly down from last year’s survey (68%).

For the fourth year running, respondents are most often in the age range of 50-59 (32%), with other groups holding mostly steady year over year. That age cohort has continued to grow for the last few years (27% in 2023 and 28% in 2024, for example). Respondents over the age of 50 make up 60% of the total, meaning there are more in that group than all of the other groups combined. This year, only 2% of contractors are under the age of 30, which has been on a downward trend since 2023 (7%, and then 5% in 2024). If you’re under the age of 40, you’re still often the owner or management (32%) but you’re much more likely to be working in installation or maintenance (20%).

Contractors tend to still have between 21-30 years of experience on the job (26%). But this year, more respondents have 10 years of experience or fewer (20%) compared to 2024 (15%). The group with more than 41 years has held mostly steady (35% this year compared to 33% in 2024). It’s possible that some of those who started work in the industry in the last few years have stuck with it.

Understanding Business

A total of 43% of respondents consider themselves to be primarily irrigation contractors, though nearly all provide irrigation maintenance (94%), system design and installation (88%) or smart irrigation system upgrades (82%). Even when they’re not primarily focused on irrigation, nearly all contractors are a part of the professional irrigation field. If they have to choose one, most respondents consider their primary market to be landscaping (57%) which is a flip from last year’s survey, where 54% saw irrigation as their primary market.

Businesses that have been operating between 31-40 years took a slight lead to others this year (24%) as compared to the past two years, where those in the 21- to 30-year range had the largest share (22% in 2024, for example). There are also fewer companies with under 10 years of operation (16%) compared to the past two years as well (18%). While these are smaller differences, they do line up with the earlier results around fewer contractors with less experience in the field.

For the first time in a few years, commercial work has taken the lead (90%) from residential markets (84%). Those opportunities might be proving more reliable for contractors looking for stability.

Building the Crew

Even though respondents say labor is the top obstacle to their business’s growth, more contractors say they’re able to find enough qualified workers in their region (37%), a jump of 8% from last year’s result (29%) and an upward trend from the 25% of the past three years of the survey. That’s great news for those who are looking to capitalize on additional available work.

Bigger companies seemed to have an easier time of things: If you reported finding enough labor, you typically hire 50 or more employees full-time (57%). Companies that reported not being able to find enough workers were more typically hiring 10 or fewer (40%). For those unable to find enough qualified employees, most tend to say that potential employees aren’t aware of a career path in the industry (36%). Other responses included higher competition in wages, obstacles to additional training and challenges around keeping hires employed year-round rather than seasonally.

There are some interesting overlaps and differences in both groups, whether they can hire enough employees or not. Both groups have roughly the same amount of employees under the age of 30 (37%). They almost equally encourage licensing, certification and additional training (95% and 92%, respectively). Both report having raised the general starting pay for an entry-level crew position in the past year (82% and 77%, respectively), one of the toughest roles to fill for most contractors. Both offer additional monetary incentives equally (81%).

Employers who have enough qualified workers have a more diverse staff by race and ethnicity (92% compared to 83%) as well as by gender (76% compared to 64%). They more often have a policy related to diversity, equity and opportunity (76% compared to 51%). They generally pay between $18-$20 per hour for an entry-level crew position (47% compared to 37%). They also tend to offer some form of health care option (78% compared to 65%) or retirement plan (69% compared to 52%).

One area that has been one of the widest gaps in past surveys is narrowing slightly, as more employers tend to be offering a mentorship or career path for employees, though it’s still one of the largest differences between whether you have enough employees (58%) or not (45%).

Continuing Growth

More than half of contractors believe that their business has grown in the past year (56%) at exactly the same rate as last year’s survey. If you reported being able to hire enough employees, that climbed to 66%. That same group expects significant growth in demand in the upcoming year (15%) more often than the average (11%). That’s a difference from last year’s survey, where there wasn’t a significant deviation. Fewer overall expect growth in demand in the upcoming year (58%) compared to last year (63%), possibly pointing to some uncertainty. Companies with 10 or fewer employees were equally likely to expect growth to remain the same (40%) as to grow at all (40% total).

Generally, contractors estimated that they made more money in the past year, with 80% above the $1 million mark compared to 67% in 2024. About half of respondents this year land between $1 million and $10 million (47%), close to the same group from last year (45%). Wages topped out the largest expenses for respondents (76%) by more than twice the next highest expense of equipment, tools and materials (34%). Contractors are spending the most money on who and what make the company work. Labor availability and retention (71%) and economic conditions (41%) are nearly identical to where they landed in last year’s survey (72% and 43%) as they relate to the biggest obstacles for growth. If you reported having enough labor, the order for the top two stays the same, but the totals drop to 58% and 53%, respectively.

More contractors expect smart irrigation technology to make an impact on their business and growth in the upcoming year (60%) than last year (54%). Those numbers are nearly the same whether you consider yourself an irrigation professional or a landscaping professional. It looks like regardless of where you stand in the industry, smart irrigation is a major focus for the upcoming year.

Irrigation Focus

Among contractors who offer irrigation services, demand is up this year. A total of 44% of respondents say demand has either increased or greatly increased, compared to 34% for the same group last year. For irrigation contractors, even those who saw a moderate increase (40%) outnumber those whose demand stayed the same (38%), which is a reversal from last year (34% and 45%, respectively).

That growth trend in demand is more pronounced for smart irrigation systems and services. A total of 57% of respondents have seen an increase, compared to 50% last year. Nearly the same amount expect future demand for smart irrigation services to increase this year (71%) as last year (69%). Similarly, the percentage of customers who use smart controllers remains nearly the same this year (39%) as last year (37%), and the percentage of irrigation products installed labeled by WaterSense is exactly the same year over year (50%).

Half of respondents believe that water scarcity will create new demand for irrigation services (50%), slightly more than did last year (46%). More also believe that it won’t have any impact (44% compared to 40%). A total of 61% of contractors see water conservation rebates offered as a driver for irrigation services.

Outlook

Nearly the same number of respondents are feeling optimistic about the year ahead this year (72%) compared to last year (76%). There’s no major change for those who found enough employees or for those under 40, suggesting that there’s good odds that contractors are seeing a positive future from wherever they stand. Companies with fewer than 10 employees are slightly less optimistic (60%), but that group still outpaces being in the middle (37%).

In general, contractors are looking to add more irrigation (26%) or smart irrigation services (26%) in the upcoming year, or nothing at all (24%). If you’re an irrigation contractor, you’re most likely to not be adding any services (25%), or checking into expanding maintenance (23%) or smart irrigation (23%).

The majority of respondents aren’t opting to reduce any services for the upcoming year (65%). If you’re among the group looking to do so, you’re likely looking at holiday lighting (9%), snow/ice management (8%) or water features (7%).

Contractors are still investing in trucks (60%), construction equipment (45%) and handheld power equipment (36%), though trucks in particular are higher on the priority list than they were last year (46%).

Methodology

The 2025 Green Industry Outlook Survey – Contractors was developed in SurveyMonkey with three email invitations including individual, anonymous links sent to respondents between Sept. 9 and Sept. 23. Responses gathered were checked for duplicates and relevance to the survey. Each invitation included information on the drawing for a Solo Stove Bonfire fire pit. Survey results were closed Sept. 23 with 143 responses. Results have a 95% confidence level and an 8.7% margin of error. Irrigation & Lighting staff analyzed the survey results. All comparisons to previous surveys were made using only contractor respondents to improve correlations. All questions related to revenues specified an end date of June 30, 2024, and are related to information relevant to the past year. The goal of the survey is to help irrigation contractors assess their own performance. The survey did not ask for any pricing information or other future forecast information and is not intended to enable respondents or association members to engage in price fixing or anti-competitive activities. The results must not be used, analyzed or reverse-engineered for any such purposes. Only the Irrigation Association has access to the raw survey data. Participation in the survey was voluntary and open to members and nonmembers of the Irrigation Association. Due to rounding, totals may not add exactly to 100%.

 

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