Government Contractors
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 205,500 government contractors in the US sell a wide range of goods and services to agencies of the federal government, state governments, and local governments. Goods range from advanced military jets and weapon systems to office supplies. Services range from complex information systems design to janitorial services and food contracting services. Contract types vary from firm fixed price contracts to cost reimbursement or time and materials contracts.
Qualifying For Procurement Preferences
Contractors will be at a competitive disadvantage in winning federal government business if they do not qualify as a preferred vendor.
Cost Overruns Hurt Profits
Government contractors must possess strong project management skills to successfully manage large, complex projects and avoid cost overruns.
Industry size & Structure
The average government contractor generates about $5-6 million in annual revenue.
- The government contractor industry consists of about 205,500 firms that generate $1.1 trillion in annual revenue.
- The federal government is contracted to spend $557.7 billion in FY 2024 on contracts, or 10.4% of the total federal budget. State government contract spending on goods and services is slated at over $558.3 billion.
- There are over 41,600 defense contractors in the US.
- The largest government contractors are Lockheed-Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, SAIC, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Hewlett-Packard, and Booz, Allen & Hamilton.
Industry Forecast
Government Contractors Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Nov 5, 2024 - Top Technology Firms Become Major Industry Players
- Technology giants that have taken the lead in the development of AI are increasingly involved in bringing the technology to government agencies. The shift comes as competition intensifies between the US and China in developing advanced AI capabilities, according to AI news site Maginative Plus. Meta has announced that it will now provide its Llama AI models to US government agencies and defense contractors, marking a significant shift in how tech giants are approaching military applications of AI. The partnership includes major players in the defense and technology sectors, with companies like Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and Microsoft joining forces to implement Llama in national security applications. These implementations range from aircraft maintenance optimization to mission planning and threat analysis. Reuters has reported that Chinese researchers had used Meta's Llama 2 model to develop AI systems for China's military.
- National elections, debt limit reset, budget caps, workforce shortages, and the pace of contracting are just some of the sources of uncertainty that the federal contracting industry faces this year, according to the Federal News Network. New programs requiring high-level approval tend to face delays as elections approach. Political appointees start to leave their positions as elections approach, which usually doesn’t significantly impact ongoing projects but makes it challenging for political appointees to initiate or complete new projects in the final year of a term. An election year also adds complexity to budget negotiations, and it is “almost a guarantee” that the federal agencies will start a new fiscal year under a continuing resolution, according to David Berteau, President and CEO of the Professional Services Council.
- Defense contractors and companies in the DOD supply chain can expect the US Department of Defense (DOD) to increase the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the market and to increase its scrutiny of transactions, according to the Holland & Knight law firm. The DOD's stated policy is to review M&A activity for potential risks to national security, innovation in the defense industrial base, higher costs to the federal government, and antitrust concerns, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that this is generally not occurring. The DOD is also not routinely reviewing transactions for the potential benefits of M&A, such as improving the financial health of key suppliers or monitoring longer-term outcomes of M&A after a transaction closes. The GAO has made recommendations regarding the DOD's approach to M&A review. The DOD concurred with these recommendations and has outlined certain actions that it intends to undertake to address them.
- Nondefense spending by the federal government increased 4.8% year over year and 1.2% month over month in April 2023, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Government contractor industry sales are forecast to grow at a 3.29% compounded annual rate from 2024 to 2028, slower than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.
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