Despite a change in presidential administrations and a host of new initiatives under President Donald Trump, including the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, the federal government appears to be on track to spend a record amount on IT contracts in fiscal 2025.

With only three weeks remaining until the close of the federal government’s fiscal year, federal agencies are pacing toward spending nearly $50 billion on IT contracts in Q4 alone — a record amount for any quarter — according to John Slye, senior advisory research Analyst at Deltek.

Slye authored a July blog post suggesting that, based on a “conservative outlook” of the top 20 agencies spending 90% of what they did in FY 2024 for the remainder of FY 2025, “they will have nearly $49B to spend in Q4 alone.”

If agencies reach or exceed that estimate, Slye told Nextgov/FCW the federal government would continue the recent trend of year-over-year growth in contracted IT spending.

“I would guess we’ll probably push $130 billion for the entire year, even with all the adjustments and tweaks,” he said. In FY 2024, all agencies spent $126 billion on IT contracts — up from $120 billion in FY 2023.

Should those numbers hold, the government would eclipse last year’s total IT spend despite dramatic actions taken by DOGE, which boasts $206 billion in estimated savings from cut contracts on its Wall of Receipts and crusade against consultancies, though its actual savings have been disputed.

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