Every DoD contracting shop has an informal hierarchy. A few people get the big actions: the major program buys, the letter contracts, the year-end money. Everyone else works the volume. From inside one office, nobody can see how narrow that group has become across the department. The public record shows it.
It also shows the load behind it. Since January 2025 the department’s contracting workforce has shrunk by about a tenth, while dollars on large actions grew by roughly two-thirds over two years. The same experienced people are carrying more of the department’s most consequential work.
Everything here comes from public records: FPDS, USAspending.gov and OPM workforce data.
Who releases the money
Each FPDS action records the account that released it. Using Kharros Discovery, our internal research system for public government data, we read every Department of War action of $250,000 or more for January through June of 2024, 2025 and 2026, 177,636 records. Each account was replaced with a one-way code before analysis, so no individual can be identified.
In January–March 2026, the top 1% of approvers, about 50 accounts, released 44% of the dollars. Two years earlier that figure was 31%. Accounts that each released $100 million or more in a quarter went from 73 to 139. Obligations on large actions rose 65%, and dollars per approver rose 66%. Only about one in five of DoD’s 25,314 contracting specialists released any action of $250,000 or more in a given quarter.
Money before price
DoD obligated $46.3 billion on undefinitized contract actions in October–June of FY2026. That is the highest nominal total since at least 2010, spread over the fewest such actions in that period. New undefinitized actions fell 78% from their 2018 peak, so the average one is now about four times larger. The money went to PAC-3 interceptors, F-35 sustainment, AMRAAM, submarines and foreign military sales. Undefinitized actions made up 17% of new awards over $10 million, up from 6% a year earlier.
Commercial buying has not yet grown. Commercial procedures held at about 43% of new awards over $1 million, and certified cost data and the fixed-price share were flat. Most of the speed came from letter contracts, a legitimate tool for urgent needs.
Sole source up to $10 million
Since contracting officers gained J&A approval up to $10 million in early 2026, DoD sole-source awards between $900,000 and $10 million rose 18% in count and 25% in dollars, while civilian agencies stayed flat. Awards just under $10 million now outnumber those just over it two to one. The new authority is being used as intended.
A new signature on $546 billion
Executive Order 14402 requires an approved justification for DoD cost-type and T&M contracts of $100 million or more, signed by a department secretary, the chief acquisition officer or a non-career senior executive. That includes existing contracts with 18 months or more left. We count 502 of them, worth $546 billion. The Navy holds 223.
Under DoD’s procedures, 67 contracts are due now, and 55 more fall due in November and December. The Army, Navy and Air Force have 12, 13 and 9 eligible non-career executives.
What this means
For DoW leaders, protect and support the people the system already relies on: measure how concentrated contract release has become in your own command, code UCA definitization consistently in FPDS, and get look-back packages into the 120-day pipeline.
For contractors, know who actually releases your actions, prepare to definitize any UCA you hold, check whether your cost-type contract is in the look-back, and offer a fixed-price path where the work allows.
Sources
Analysis by Kharros Discovery. Data: public federal records only.
FPDS public feed and USAspending.gov API, pulled October 2026. Department of War contract data is published with a 90-day delay, so FY2026 is complete through June.
OPM Federal Workforce Data, through August 2026.
DoD Class Deviation 2026-O0045 Rev 1, July 15, 2026, and Class Deviation 2026-O0017 Rev 1, January 23, 2026.
Executive Order 14402, April 30, 2026.
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Public Law 119-60, section 1804.
This analysis uses public data and is not legal advice. No individual contracting official is identified. Figures are rounded.
