FreeTender
Market analysis6 min read · Updated 14 November 2026

Which tender sectors are growing? A like-for-like look at October 2026

Education, research and facility services up; construction, manufacturing and electronics down. What changed between September and October across 74 steadily publishing portals, and by region.

Counting tenders is easy. Saying which markets are growing is not, because a tender database grows whenever it adds sources. To get a fair comparison we used only the 74 portals that published steadily in both months: 112,759 notices in September and 112,321 in October. Their total barely moved (−0.4%), so any sector that rose or fell did so against a flat market.

+19%
education and training, the largest growing sector
+28%
research and evaluation assignments
−5%
construction and infrastructure
+29%
Middle East, the fastest-growing region

Sectors that grew, and sectors that shrank

Change in notices, October vs September 2026Same 74 portals in both months. Sectors with at least 300 notices in September.
Show as table
SectorSeptemberOctoberChange
Research & evaluation302387+28%
Livelihoods & enterprise318388+22%
Education & training3,0513,628+19%
Sports & recreation9121,029+13%
Media & advertising782878+12%
Facility services4,1534,538+9%
Healthcare & pharma10,04910,627+6%
Professional services8,4188,875+5%
Source: FreeTender analysis · freetender.net
Sectors with fewer notices in OctoberSame 74 portals. Bar length = size of the fall.
Show as table
SectorSeptemberOctoberChange
Electronics & semiconductors2,0071,643−18%
Communications networks394326−17%
Chemicals & materials447407−9%
Manufacturing & supply15,44414,222−8%
Construction & infrastructure29,15127,750−5%
Transport & logistics6,4136,264−2%
Source: FreeTender analysis · freetender.net

The pattern is a shift from things to services and people. Goods-heavy categories (electronics, manufactured supplies, building works) slowed, while services that depend on expertise (evaluations, training, facility management, consulting) picked up. Within sectors, the fastest-growing sub-categories were school and education buildings (+25%), legal services (+24%), IT services (+14%), waste management (+13%) and catering (+13%). Roads (−9%) and general buildings (−10%) fell.

By region

Change in notices by region, October vs SeptemberSame 74 portals
Show as table
RegionSeptemberOctoberChange
Middle East3,1554,064+29%
Global / multi-country451506+12%
Africa8,7719,748+11%
Europe and the UK48,67149,544+2%
Americas31,03129,349−5%
Asia and the Pacific20,66719,108−8%
Source: FreeTender analysis · freetender.net
  • Middle East (+29%) and Africa (+11%) grew fastest. Both regions publish a lot of healthcare, IT and services work.
  • The Americas fell (−5%), which is what you would expect: the US federal fiscal year ends on 30 September, and agencies concentrate purchases before it closes.
  • Asia and the Pacific dipped (−8%). Part of this is likely seasonal: October 2026 had major festival holidays across South Asia, when publication slows.

What to take from one month

One month is a signal, not a trend. Fiscal calendars and holidays move volumes every year, and we will repeat this comparison monthly so the real direction becomes clear. For now, if you sell services (evaluation, training, facility management, legal or IT services), October was a better month to be looking than September. See the monthly market reports for every country.

How we counted. 443,107 notices that FreeTender collected from official procurement portals, development banks and UN agencies between August and mid-November 2026. Notices that an aggregator had re-published from somewhere else are left out, so nothing is counted twice. The figures describe what FreeTender collects, which is a large share of public tendering but not every notice published in the world. Growth compares notices published in September and October 2026 on the 74 sources that published at least 30 notices in each month and whose own volume changed by less than 50%, so crawler changes and newly added portals cannot create a trend. Sectors are FreeTender’s classification of each notice.

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