The state has the third-highest number of uniformed military personnel in the country, a $7.38 billion federal prime contract market, and a civilian federal research presence that most people don’t think of as a federal market at all. The gap between what’s available and what most companies are pursuing is significant.
Most companies that haven’t pursued federal contracting in North Carolina assume one of two things: either the market belongs to large defense primes and Beltway insiders, or it’s concentrated in a few military corridors and too narrow to justify the investment. Both assumptions are wrong — and both are costing companies real revenue.
North Carolina businesses executed $7.38 billion in federal prime contracts in FY2023, including $4.11 billion in Department of Defense prime contracts alone, according to the North Carolina Military Business Center. Businesses in 95 of the state’s 100 counties performed federal prime contractor work that year. The Department of Defense is the second largest sector of North Carolina’s entire economy, accounting for 12% of GDP and an $80 billion annual impact. The state has the third-highest number of uniformed military personnel in the country.
That is not a niche market. It is a foundational sector of North Carolina’s economy — and most of the companies that could be competing in it are not.
The Military Installations Are the Most Visible Part of a Larger System
Fort Bragg — redesignated in June 2025 from Fort Liberty, now honoring Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg — is the largest US Army installation by population and one of the most consequential military commands in the world.
With approximately 47,000 active duty soldiers, more than 16,000 civilian employees, and an annual economic impact exceeding $8 billion on North Carolina, it is home to the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division, U.S. Army Forces Command — which oversees more than 750,000 warfighters — U.S. Army Special Operations Command, and the Joint Special Operations Command. Its contracting footprint across construction, logistics, technology, professional services, and specialized support is among the largest of any single installation in the country.
Camp Lejeune generates more than $4 billion in annual economic impact on eastern North Carolina and runs a contracting office that awards and manages more than $767 million per year in defense contracts for materials, supplies, and services — before MILCON construction projects are counted. Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point supports F-35 maintenance, flight technology upgrades, and facility modernization. Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Wayne County hosts one of the Air Force’s primary F-15E fighter wings on the East Coast — a mission that survived a proposed divestiture in the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act after significant congressional intervention.
In addition to the major installations, North Carolina has 116 National Guard facilities, 40 Army Reserve facilities, and a Coast Guard Air Station at Elizabeth City — the largest Coast Guard air station in the world — that generates its own significant contracting footprint in Pasquotank County. The combined scale of this military presence creates procurement activity across construction, cybersecurity, information technology, healthcare, professional services, logistics, training, maintenance, and technology transition that extends into nearly every county in the state.
The Research Triangle Is Also a Federal Market
The federal market in North Carolina is not only military. The Research Triangle Park area hosts one of the most significant concentrations of civilian federal agency presence in the country outside the Washington DC region — and most companies that serve civilian agencies don’t think of it in those terms.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s main campus is at Research Triangle Park. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences — a component of the National Institutes of Health — is headquartered there. The Food and Drug Administration maintains a significant regulatory science presence in the region. RTI International, one of the country’s largest independent research organizations, is headquartered at RTP and executes billions of dollars in federal research contracts across health, defense, education, and environmental programs. North Carolina State University received $316 million in federal research expenditures in its most recent reporting year, with the National Science Foundation as its largest federal sponsor and the Department of Defense accounting for a growing share.
For companies selling research support services, IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, data analytics, laboratory technology, environmental services, regulatory consulting, or professional services, the RTP civilian federal market is as significant as the military market — and considerably less crowded.
The Access Problem Is Real — and Solvable
The reason most companies leave this market on the table is not that the opportunity doesn’t exist. It is that the federal contracting process is genuinely complex — registration requirements, compliance obligations, competition rules, small business set-aside programs, subcontracting relationships, and agency-specific procurement cultures all create barriers that most companies don’t have the internal capacity to navigate alone.
The North Carolina Military Business Center, a state entity embedded in the community college system, exists specifically to close this gap. Since opening in 2005, the NCMBC has assisted NC businesses in winning thousands of contracts. Its resources include procurement specialists embedded at community colleges across the state, matchmaking programs connecting NC businesses with installation contracting offices, technology transition support for companies moving innovations from commercial to defense applications, and an annual construction summit connecting builders with the hundreds of millions of dollars in military construction awarded annually across the state’s installations.
The subcontract market adds another dimension that most companies miss. The NCMBC consistently notes that the $7+ billion in prime contracts generates billions more in subcontracting opportunities — work that flows from large prime contractors to smaller firms for specialized components, services, and support. A company that cannot compete as a prime contractor may find significant and more accessible revenue as a subcontractor to firms already holding major NC installation contracts.
The Market Is Not Static — and That Creates Both Risk and Opportunity
The federal market in North Carolina is not a fixed landscape. Military priorities shift. Installation missions evolve. Federal civilian agency budgets rise and fall. The current administration’s emphasis on defense spending and military readiness generally bodes well for the state’s installations — but the broader federal discretionary spending environment, including the pressures created by DOGE and ongoing budget negotiations, creates real uncertainty for civilian agency programs and federally funded research.
For companies already in the federal market or evaluating entry, that uncertainty is itself an argument for earlier, deeper market intelligence. The contracts that matter most — major MILCON projects, multi-year IT contracts, long-term professional services awards — are planned years in advance. The companies that win them consistently are the ones that understood the requirement before the solicitation was released, built relationships with contracting offices and program managers before the competition opened, and positioned their capabilities against agency priorities rather than chasing solicitations after the fact.
North Carolina’s federal market is large, distributed, and underutilized by most of the companies that could be competing in it. The barriers are real but not unique — and for companies willing to invest in understanding how the market actually works, the opportunity is significantly larger than the headline contract numbers suggest.