Operating picture · measured 2026-09-09
6,897 US IT providers name manufacturing — 17.6% of the market, and the largest firms of any vertical we measure.
Manufacturing is the fourth most-claimed vertical in US IT services, and the group that claims it has a median headcount of 15 against the directory's 9.
of 39,235 US providers name manufacturing as a vertical they serve
n = 39,235 published US providers, of which 6,897 name manufacturing or industrial work among the verticals they serve; the defense industrial base tag is excluded as a different market. Verticals are on file for 25,458 of the 39,235, so 17.6% is a floor. Shares labeled "of the manufacturing group" are against those 6,897. Measured 2026-09-09 in one repeatable-read snapshot.
- Median headcount
- 15
- Shows a certification
- 26.4%
- Shows a Google rating
- 60.0%
- Names compliance work
- 46.6%
- Median headcount
- 9
- Shows a certification
- 15.7%
- Shows a Google rating
- 44.3%
- Names compliance work
- 29.2%
The published statistic behind this
Cybersecurity is the most common published service among IT providers: 16,425 firms of the 36,575 that list any service at all.
n = 36,575 providers listing at least one service · measured 2026-09-17. The figures on this page are frozen at their own measurement date and are not recomputed from that table.
Services offered prevalence ▸The widest industrial claim in the directory
6,897 of 39,235 published US providers name manufacturing or industrial work among the verticals they serve — 17.6%, the fourth most-claimed vertical after healthcare at 33.0%, finance and government.
It is also the group with the largest firms. The median manufacturing-naming provider that publishes a headcount reports 15 staff, across the 6,172 that publish one, against a directory median of 9 and 13 in the education group. Only 456 firms, or 6.6%, name manufacturing as their only vertical.
Illinois appearing fourth, ahead of New York, is the one break from a straight population ranking in this vertical, and Illinois is also where the directory's industrial base concentrates.
Bigger firms, but proof is still a minority
1,821 of the 6,897 show a certification — 26.4%, against 15.7% directory-wide. So 5,076 providers who tell manufacturers they serve the sector show a buyer no third-party credential.
3,214, or 46.6%, name compliance work as a service, against 29.2% across the directory. That is the signal you would expect from a sector where CMMC flow-downs, ITAR and customer audits arrive through the supply chain rather than from a regulator.
4,136 show a Google rating, at 60.0% against the directory's 44.3%, with a median of 9 reviews among rated firms — level with the directory median. More manufacturing-serving providers are rated, but they are not more heavily reviewed.
What the numbers do not cover
Nothing here measures operational technology capability. A provider that names manufacturing may run office IT for a plant and never touch a programmable controller, a historian or a plant network, and our vertical tag cannot tell those apart.
104 of the 6,897 publish a per-user, per-month rate — 1.5% of the group. Manufacturing IT is commonly priced per site or per device rather than per seat, so a per-user median would be the wrong shape for this sector even if the sample supported one.
The industrial tags we pool here include general industrial, industrial automation, industrial machinery and process manufacturing. The defense industrial base tag is excluded, because that market is bought through a different procurement route.
What this number can't tell you
- ·This measures what providers publish, not who they serve. Any provider with manufacturing clients who never names the vertical is counted in the 82.4%.
- ·Verticals are on file for 25,458 of the 39,235 published firms, so 17.6% is a floor and an unknown counts against it.
- ·"Manufacturing" pools a general manufacturing tag with industrial, industrial automation, industrial machinery, process and discrete manufacturing tags. The defense industrial base tag is excluded.
- ·The 6,897 are distinct firms, not tag mentions; a provider carrying several industrial tags is counted once.
- ·Nothing here measures operational-technology or plant-network capability, which is the distinction that matters most to a manufacturer and which we do not hold.
- ·Median headcount is over the 6,172 firms in the group that publish one, and self-published headcounts are not audited.
- ·Certification shares are what providers publish where a buyer can find them, and the certifications we record skew toward enterprise, cloud and security programs rather than sector-specific ones.
- ·Rating values are not plotted, only rating presence and review count, because google_rating bunches at the top of its range.
- ·Only 104 firms publish a per-seat rate, and manufacturing IT is often priced per site or per device, so no pricing figure is given.
What to do about it
- ▸Buying: the vertical tag will not tell you whether a provider can touch your plant floor. Ask specifically about operational-technology work — controller networks, historians, air-gapped segments — and for a named plant reference. 17.6% of the market claims the sector; far fewer will answer those questions.
- ▸Selling: this group is larger and better credentialed than the directory average, so scale alone is not a differentiator here. Naming operational-technology capability is, because the directory has no way to show a buyer who has it and 5,076 firms in the group show no credential at all.
Questions this finding answers
- How many US MSPs serve manufacturing companies?
- Manufacturing is the fourth most-claimed vertical in US IT services, and the group that claims it has a median headcount of 15 against the directory's 9.
- How was this measured?
- n = 39,235 published US providers, of which 6,897 name manufacturing or industrial work among the verticals they serve; the defense industrial base tag is excluded as a different market. Verticals are on file for 25,458 of the 39,235, so 17.6% is a floor. Shares labeled "of the manufacturing group" are against those 6,897. Measured 2026-09-09 in one repeatable-read snapshot.
- What can't this number tell you?
- This measures what providers publish, not who they serve. Any provider with manufacturing clients who never names the vertical is counted in the 82.4%.
Where does your firm sit on this?
Claim your MSP with a magic link from your company email to see your own certifications, reviews, web footprint and local rank measured against every provider we track.
Claim your MSP ▸Related markets
More findings
- 94.7%19,959 US providers sell security. 1,071 name a capability that detects an attack.
- 42.8%16,794 US providers name cybersecurity. Every specific security service is named by under 3.1% of the market.
- 0.95%374 US IT providers name security-operations work — 0.95% of the market.
- 32.5%12,907 US IT providers name healthcare — 32.5% of the market.