Guest Post: Top Findings from Deltek’s 2025 GovCon Clarity Study

Article contributed by Logan Ferro, Guest Contributor, Deltek

It’s no surprise that with a new administration taking office in January, contractors have faced an environment of change and unpredictability that demands increased agility and strategic planning. The results of Deltek’s 2025 Clarity Government Contracting Industry Study showed that the overall outlook for the entire government contracting marketplace still offers paths to growth, despite the very real challenges faced by businesses.

Many government contractors are planning to grow their business and diversify their channels into new federal, state, local and education markets, often aided by business development tools to help them understand new requirements and maintain compliance. Here, we’ve identified some of the key business development challenges facing these businesses in 2025 as drawn from our Clarity Study, which surveyed approximately 900 government contracting leaders to take the temperature of the overall market.

Do Contractors Expect to Sell More or Less?

At the start of the new administration, when the Clarity Study was conducted, contractors expressed a generally positive outlook for 2025, with expectations for increasing government revenue. Those expecting higher revenue from the government market attributed their optimism to growth in both prime and subcontracting contracts. At the same time, the survey respondents anticipating revenue from the government market to decline, pointed to uncertainty surrounding the current political climate and administration as the primary concern.

Below are the top reasons that government contractors expect to have either an increase or a decrease in government sales in 2025.  

How Government Contracting Companies are Overcoming Challenges

To overcome some of the challenges in today’s market, such as challenging economic conditions and uncertainty about the direction of government policies, businesses are taking a variety of different approaches to counteract their competition and get ahead of the game in government contracting business development.

Here are three of the strategies that came up most frequently in the Clarity Study:

1. Operational Efficiency

As a new administration continues to take shape, government contractors face significant uncertainty regarding budget priorities, policy changes, and contract stability. Their best bet is to maintain a focus on their areas of strength and align with federal priorities like the current focus on efficiency. While some uncertainty is likely to remain, savvy contractors are avoiding panic and focusing on positioning their offerings in a strategic, efficient manner.

2. Opportunity Identification

In the Clarity Study, business development teams named “more or better opportunity identification” as their top BD initiative, with 77% of respondents listing it as a priority. More businesses are choosing to lean into teaming agreements and networking as a strategy to identify opportunities, giving them more paths to reach their growth goals despite contract consolidation efforts, funding reallocations and a smaller amount of prime contracting opportunities.

3. Strategic Planning

Government contractors are prioritizing agility and flexibility, adapting to the complex market dynamics by diversifying their offerings, investing in emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, and continuing to spend on cybersecurity and compliance efforts. These strategic moves are the steps that contractors are taking to stay innovative and adaptable in a constantly shifting marketplace. It will be important for government contractors to save costs where they can and continue their strategic planning to maneuver around the new political landscape.

Next Steps for Government Contracting Businesses to Spark Growth

Looking for more ways to build its growth strategy? Check out this on-demand webinar highlighting details from this year’s Deltek Clarity Government Contracting Industry Study. In this complimentary online event experts discussed why many government contracting firms have confidence for continued growth and shared the challenges they’re facing that could impact their business. Or you view the full version of Deltek’s GovCon Clarity report and prepare your business to thrive in 2025.