FY 2022-2024 Federal Cybersecurity Prime Contract Spending

Federal cybersecurity priorities and challenges continue to drive increases in contracted spending as departments and agencies seek out effective commercial solutions and supporting services. This continues to be evident in the procurement data posted to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). Past obligations are an indicator of past contract spending trends and scale. They verify the strength and evolution of the market and Deltek uses this data set among several as we develop our cybersecurity market forecasts.

Analysis Methodology

To get a sense of the size and trajectory of federal contract spending for cybersecurity, Deltek searched over 4.5 million FPDS prime contract obligation transactions for FY 2022-2024, the three recent fiscal years for which we have the most settled and complete data. (Those familiar with agency FDPS data reporting will recall that the Department of Defense (DoD) lags in their reporting by up to 90 days, so data for FY 2025 is still fluid at this point.)

For the cybersecurity market, Deltek uses FPDS prime contract obligation transactions in the categories of Information Technology, Professional Services, Research and Development, Defense and Aerospace, and Operations and Maintenance. To narrow the pool of relevant prime contract dollars, we search the contract requirement description and contract names for each transaction for a selection of cybersecurity-related keywords and then further vet those transactions for relevance to the specific market.

Of those 4.5 million in transactions, Deltek identified nearly 47 thousand as cybersecurity-related. These transactions represent a conservative estimate of cybersecurity spending, acknowledging the potential for obligations that are not identifiable based on publicly available data.

This analysis provides an approximate baseline for cyber-related contract awards that can be used to assess the overall size and composition of federal spending. However, contract obligations are intended to provide a sense of spending scale and are not all-inclusive. Some contracts include embedded cyber spending but are not exclusively cyber.

Total Cybersecurity Spending from FY 2022 through FY 2024

In completing this analysis, we were able to identify more than $34B in cybersecurity-related prime contract obligations from FY 2022 to 2024. It is noteworthy that this contract spending continued a steady upward trend, increasing 21% over the three-year period.

Cybersecurity Spending by Buyer Segment

Digging a bit deeper into the data to determine how the dollars fall between Defense and Civilian departments and agencies provides a little more insight into the market. As the total spending increased from FY 2022 through FY 2024, Defense segment cyber-spending consistently exceeded Civilian segment spending in each fiscal year. Further, the relative proportion of Defense segment spending continued to increase as a percentage of total spending, with the Civilian segment accounting for slightly less each year in the period. This relative trend is not always the case. Factors, such as cyclicality and new program starts, may contribute to yearly fluctuations within the buyer segments that may flip the proportions in any given year.

Cybersecurity Spending – Top Departments

Delving into spending by federal departments provides another interesting perspective. These top ten departments account for more than $29B in cybersecurity-related prime obligations from FY 2022 through FY 2024. That means more than 85% of the cyber spending across the period was made by these top ten departments, underscoring both the concentration of federal cyber spending among the largest departments and the critical importance of cybersecurity at these organizations.

Most but not all these departments reported increasing spending over the three-year period, further driving home the variability that may be occur over the lifecycle of the respective contracts or programs in any given multi-year period.

To see further details of how FY 2022-2025 cyber-obligations shake out and to get our full perspective on the federal cybersecurity market, check out Deltek's report, Federal Cybersecurity Market, 2026-2028.