587 Planned Procurements: What the Government Is Buying Next

Most suppliers start paying attention when a tender goes live. By then, the agency has already written the scope, set the evaluation criteria, and often has an incumbent in the chair. You're playing catch-up from day one.

The Annual Procurement Plan gives you the other end of the timeline. Agencies are required to publish planned procurements, including descriptions, categories, estimated timelines, and whether they're open to multi-agency access. It's not detailed enough to write a bid, but it's detailed enough to start a conversation, build a team, and understand the competitive landscape before anyone else is looking.

The problem is that the AusTender interface for this data is genuinely terrible. Pagination, no filtering, no aggregation. You can't see patterns. You can't compare agencies. You can't spot the wave coming. So we did the work.

This will not surprise anyone who works in government contracting, but it's worth seeing the numbers clearly. The Department of Defence accounts for 154 of the 587 planned procurements — 26.2% of the entire pipeline. No other agency comes close.

National Archives of Australia is a distant second at 36, followed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at 35. Parks Australia and the Department of Health both sit at 28. After that, the count drops off quickly. Most of the remaining 48 agencies have fewer than 15 planned procurements each.

What this tells you: if you're not positioned for Defence work, you're ignoring a quarter of the federal procurement pipeline. And if you are positioned for Defence work, you already know the clearance requirements, the panel arrangements, and the long lead times that come with it. The Procurement Plan lets you see what's coming far enough in advance to actually prepare — security clearance applications, teaming arrangements, past performance documentation. None of that happens overnight.

The single largest procurement category across all agencies is building construction and maintenance services. 135 planned procurements — 23% of the entire plan — fall into this bucket. That's nearly one in four.

This isn't just Defence bases and government office fit-outs, though there's plenty of that. It includes infrastructure across remote Australia, heritage building maintenance, scientific facility upgrades, and embassy works. The breadth of it is significant. If you're a construction or facilities management firm and you've been treating government work as occasional, the pipeline says otherwise.

Behind construction, management advisory services account for 41 planned procurements (7%), followed by education and training at 19 (3%). The remaining 166 unique categories cover everything from IT services to environmental consulting to marine vessel operations. The long tail is long.

Here's the number that should change your planning. 175 of the 587 planned procurements are scheduled to go to market in Q3 of the 2025–2026 financial year. That's 29.8% — nearly a third of the entire pipeline — concentrated in a single quarter running from January to March 2026.

We're in that window right now. Some of these have already dropped. Many haven't. If you're waiting for opportunities to come to you through your usual channels, you're going to miss the peak.

The implication for bid teams is straightforward. The next six to eight weeks will see the highest volume of new approaches to market for the financial year. Resource accordingly. If you're a small firm that can only pursue two or three opportunities at a time, you need to be selective now, not reactive later.

One of the less obvious fields in the Procurement Plan is Multi-Agency Access. 89 of the 587 planned procurements — 15.2% — are flagged as potentially available to multiple agencies. The rest are single-agency only.

Why does this matter? Multi-agency procurements tend to be larger in scope and longer in duration. They're the panel arrangements, the standing offer notices, the whole-of-government deals. If you win one of these, you're not just serving one department. You're on a contract vehicle that could generate work across the APS for years.

These are also the procurements where incumbents have the strongest advantage, because they've already demonstrated delivery across multiple agency contexts. If you're looking to break in, identifying these early and starting to build your multi-agency credentials now is the play.

Of the 587 planned procurements, 80.4% are currently active — a mix of those already approaching market and those published as planned. 18.6% have been amended since their original publication, which tells you the scope or timing has shifted. Only 6 have been withdrawn entirely.

The amendment rate is worth paying attention to. Nearly one in five planned procurements has been modified. Sometimes that's a timeline push. Sometimes it's a scope change. Sometimes the agency has consolidated two procurements into one or split one into three. If you identified an opportunity three months ago and haven't checked back, the details may have changed under you.

38.8% of entries have change comments attached — notes explaining what shifted and why. These comments are a goldmine for understanding how an agency's thinking is evolving. A date push might mean the requirement isn't fully defined yet. A scope narrowing might mean they've already decided on an approach and are tightening the criteria. Reading the amendments is reading the agency's mind.

Beyond the headline categories, a few clusters stand out when you read through the descriptions rather than just the category codes.

Sovereign capability. Defence procurement this cycle is heavy on building Australian industrial capacity — submarines, drones, advanced manufacturing. If you've been following the sovereignty conversation, this is where it starts showing up in actual procurement planning. These aren't just equipment purchases. They're workforce development, supply chain establishment, and long-term capability building.

Remote Australia. Multiple agencies are planning procurements for remote and regional service delivery — infrastructure, health, communications, and environmental management. Parks Australia's 28 planned procurements are almost entirely focused on remote site management and conservation. These opportunities tend to have smaller applicant pools and favour firms with genuine remote delivery experience.

Digital and data. Management advisory and IT services together account for over 60 planned procurements. The government's ongoing digital transformation, AI adoption, and data management modernisation continue to drive demand. If you're in this space, the Annual Procurement Plan tells you which agencies are buying and roughly when — intelligence that's worth having before the RFT drops.

International development. DFAT's 35 planned procurements span Pacific security, aid program management, and diplomatic infrastructure. These are complex, multi-year engagements with specific evaluation frameworks. Early positioning is everything.

The Annual Procurement Plan isn't a substitute for monitoring live tenders. It's the layer before that. Here's how we'd suggest working with it.

Filter by your capability. Start with your UNSPSC categories and agency relationships. Of the 587 entries, how many are you genuinely positioned to pursue? For most firms, the answer is somewhere between 5 and 30. That's your watchlist.

Track the amendments. Once you've got your shortlist, check back regularly. Nearly 20% of planned procurements have already been amended. Changes in timeline or scope are signals. A delayed procurement might mean the agency needs more industry engagement. An expanded scope might mean they're looking for a broader capability set than originally planned.

Start the relationship early. The Procurement Plan includes contact information for every entry. 53% include a specific person or department with a direct email and phone number. The rest reference the agency's general procurement contact. Either way, you know who to talk to. Industry engagement before an ATM drops isn't just allowed — it's expected. Use it.

Plan your resources. If you can see that three opportunities in your space are all hitting the market in March, you can staff accordingly. If they're spread across Q3 and Q4, you can pursue them sequentially. This is basic capacity planning, but it's impossible to do if you're only reacting to live tenders.

587 planned procurements across 53 agencies. Defence dominates at 26%. Construction leads all categories at 23%. A third of the pipeline is hitting the market this quarter. And most of your competitors aren't looking at this data at all.

The Annual Procurement Plan is the closest thing the Australian Government publishes to a forward-looking spending roadmap. It's free, it's public, and it's updated regularly. The agencies that published these entries want industry to see them. The question is whether you're paying attention early enough to do something about it.