Where Belgian public money goes: sector spend over time
IT services account for more than a third of all reported Belgian procurement value
A single sector — IT services: consulting, software and support (CPV division 72, where CPV refers to the Common Procurement Vocabulary, the EU's standardised goods-and-services classification) — reported a cumulative awarded value of roughly €117.5 billion across the three years covered by this dataset. That figure alone exceeds the combined reported totals of the next eleven sectors. It is the most striking finding in TED (EU Tenders Electronic Daily) award notices published by Belgian contracting authorities (public bodies legally required to advertise contracts above EU thresholds).
The runner-up, business services including law, marketing, consulting and recruitment (CPV 79), reported a cumulative €47.4 billion. Construction work (CPV 45) came third at €32.7 billion.
Year-on-year patterns — and why 2024 figures are not comparable
The data span three calendar years: 2024, 2025, and 2026. Readers should treat 2024 with particular caution: the award counts for most sectors are a fraction of those in 2025, suggesting the dataset captures only a partial slice of that year's activity. In IT services, for instance, just 61 awards were recorded in 2024 against 1,042 in 2025 and 532 in 2026. The 2026 figures are similarly incomplete, as the year is not yet closed at the time of publication. Gaps should not be read as zero spend.
With those caveats stated, the 2025 column offers the most complete picture. IT services reported €74.6 billion in awarded value across 1,042 contracts (value coverage: 89.1%, meaning 89.1% of awards in that division and year actually disclosed a monetary value). Business services reported €31.1 billion across 1,253 contracts (89.5% coverage). Construction reported €23.0 billion across 912 contracts (84.9% coverage).
A notable outlier: transport equipment surging in 2026
Transport equipment (CPV 34) presents an unusual trajectory. Its reported 2025 value was €2.0 billion across 345 awards. In 2026 — a partial year — it had already reached €11.2 billion across 226 awards (91.2% coverage), making it the third-largest sector by reported value in that year. Whether this reflects a genuine acceleration in fleet or infrastructure procurement, or is an artefact of a small number of very large contracts, cannot be determined from the data alone.
Architectural and engineering services: a declining reported value
Architectural, engineering and inspection services (CPV 71) show the opposite pattern. Reported value was €6.0 billion in 2024 (78 awards, 75.6% coverage), falling to €3.5 billion in 2025 (725 awards, 86.2% coverage) and €1.0 billion in 2026 (460 awards, 85.2% coverage). The sharp drop in unit value alongside a large rise in award count may indicate a shift towards smaller, more numerous contracts rather than a reduction in overall activity — though the data do not confirm this.
Research and development: a quiet but consistent presence
Research and development services (CPV 73) stand out for data quality rather than volume. Coverage rates were 98.5% in 2024, 96.2% in 2025, and 98.9% in 2026 — the most consistently complete disclosures in the dataset. Cumulative reported value reached €4.9 billion across 699 awards over the three years.
Methodology note
All figures are drawn from TED (EU Tenders Electronic Daily), the official journal of EU public procurement, filtered to Belgian contracting authorities. The dataset covers award notices published between 2024 and 2026 (inclusive). Awarded values are summed only where disclosed; the value_coverage_pct column indicates what proportion of awards in a given sector and year actually reported a monetary value. Years with low award counts (notably 2024 and, to a lesser extent, 2026) are likely partial and should not be compared directly with 2025 figures. Sectors are identified by CPV division (two-digit prefix). All values are in euros.