Roofing Contractor and BNP Market Research again reached out to roofing professionals across the country to collect their perspectives on the residential and commercial markets in 2017, and gauge their prospects for the year ahead. Here’s a closer look at just who responded to the annual RC State of the Industry survey, sponsored by GAF. 

The data from this year’s report indicates that 54 percent of survey respondents identified themselves as residential roofing contractors. Of those, 36 percent said they did residential reroofing work, 10 percent classified as residential repair, and 8 percent were new construction. Forty-six percent were analyzed as commercial roofers, and 35 percent of them classified themselves as commercial repair and replacement contractors. The remaining 11 percent were in new construction.

Gender

The overwhelming majority of survey respondents in both the residential (83 percent) and commercial sectors (86 percent) were male.

Seventeen percent of this year’s female respondents said they were residential contractors and 14 percent selected commercial.

Age

The mean age of the survey respondent was 50 among residential roofing contractors and 51 for commercial roofers.

The largest age group represented among residential roofing contractor respondents (36 percent) were those between ages 50-59.

The largest segment among the commercial respondents (30 percent) was between ages 60-69.

Seventeen percent of respondents in both residential and commercial sectors of the industry said they were between ages 30-39; and just 10 percent overall (3 percent-residential; 7 percent commercial) said they were under age 29.

Six percent of all survey respondents were 70 years old or older.

Rank and Performance

An identical 41 percent of survey respondents were in corporate or executive management positions.

Roughly 20 percent were in general management in both the residential and commercial sectors.

The vast majority (65 percent residential; 68 percent commercial) had between 11 and 40 years of experience in the roofing industry.

The majority of residential respondents (36 percent) were with companies that grossed between $1-5 million; the majority of commercial (37 percent) said they were with companies that grossed between $2 million and $10 million in annual sales. 

By Region

Of the contractors in the Midwest, 33 percent identified as commercial and 24 percent said they’re residential contractors.

The makeup of roofing contractor respondents was identical in the West, 33 percent commercial to 24 percent residential.

The difference was slightly larger in the South, where 40 percent of survey respondents were in residential roofing, and 30 percent identified as commercial.

In the Northeast, 14 percent of respondents were commercial contractors and 12 percent were residential.