As of Oct 6, 2026, our inventory holds 69 open contracting postings that are either fully remote or telework eligible, of which 55 were posted in the last 30 days; the fully remote share of the category currently stands at 0%. One clarification before anything else, because it trips people up constantly: “Contracting” here is a federal occupation, the 1102 Contracting series, whose members are federal employees who buy things and manage contracts on the government’s behalf. It is not the same as working for a government contractor. If you want a job at a company that holds government contracts, read the CACI guide for how that market works and the contractor companies page for every company we track. This page is about the federal side of the table.
What the 1102 Contracting series does
Contract specialists and contracting officers manage the government’s side of procurement. They write and issue solicitations, evaluate proposals from companies competing for government work, negotiate price and terms, award contracts, administer them once awarded, and make sure every step follows the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the agency’s own supplement to it. A contracting officer holds a warrant, which is the written authority to sign contracts on behalf of the government up to a stated dollar amount; a contract specialist does the same work under a contracting officer’s signature. The field is built around procurement law, negotiation, and program oversight, not the delivery of the goods or services being bought.
That makes it one of the more portable federal occupations. Nearly all of the work is reading, drafting, analysis, and correspondence: reviewing proposals, writing contract language, tracking deliverables and invoices, and coordinating with program offices and vendors. Very little of it requires standing in a particular building, which is why the category appears in our inventory and why so much of it is telework eligible.
Fully remote or telework eligible?
Two tiers decide where you can live. A posting is fully remote when the agency marks it remote on USAJOBS, so the work can be done from an approved location anywhere in the country. A posting is telework eligible when it carries a specific duty station and the agency allows some of the week to be worked from home. The two are never blurred on this site. Here is today’s split across every contracting posting we hold:
If fully remote is a requirement, the share above tells you how much of the category fits today, and when it is small or zero the telework tier is the realistic market. If you can live near a federal acquisition office, the telework tier opens up the rest of the category, and the remote vs. telework guide explains what a telework agreement actually commits an agency to.
Which agencies post contracting jobs
Every agency buys things, so the 1102 series exists across government, but the volume of postings is concentrated. The agencies with the most open contracting postings in our inventory right now are:
- Defense Contract Management Agency 8 listings
- Defense Information Systems Agency 7 listings
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 7 listings
- Defense Logistics Agency 5 listings
- Naval Air Systems Command 3 listings
- Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command 3 listings
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 2 listings
- Commander, Navy Installations Command 2 listings
Across the category, 34 distinct agencies have a contracting posting open today. Each name links to that agency’s hub, which shows all of its listings, not only the contracting ones. Agencies that run large procurement operations, such as the defense acquisition commands, tend to post repeatedly; smaller agencies post occasionally. The order changes with each hiring round, so treat the list as a map of where the work is, not a fixed ranking.
What they pay
Advertised pay on contracting postings we hold currently runs from $43,827 to $228,000 a year, with a typical figure of $125,459. The GS grades advertised span 5–15.
The “typical” figure is the median of posting midpoints: a federal announcement advertises a pay range rather than a single salary, often across several grades, so for each posting we take the midpoint of its range and then report the median across the category. The low and high ends are the lowest and highest bounds advertised on any single posting, so they describe the edges of the market rather than what most applicants are offered. Postings with no usable pay figure are left out. Most contracting postings are on the General Schedule, so the GS pay scale guide applies to them directly, and the locality table depends on the duty station for telework jobs and on where you live for fully remote ones. Some defense acquisition offices use demonstration pay bands, and the FAA has its own pay system; those postings carry a pay range but no GS grade.
How fast new ones appear
Posted in the last 30 days: 55 contracting postings. In the last 7 days: 40. Most recent contracting posting date: Oct 6, 2026.
Set the 30-day figure beside the total at the top of the page to see how much of the current pool arrived in the past month. Contracting announcements are often open for a short window, and some are open-continuous postings that collect applications on a rolling basis and stay in the inventory for months. A closed posting drops out at the next daily refresh. Check the contracting category every few days, newest first.
What qualifications look like
The 1102 series carries a positive education requirement that most federal occupations do not. At GS-5 through GS-12, OPM’s standard requires either a four-year degree in any field or at least 24 semester hours in business-related fields such as accounting, law, economics, finance or contracting. At GS-13 and above it requires both, plus completion of the mandatory acquisition training. Narrow exceptions exist (employees already in the series, or a waiver from the agency’s senior procurement executive), and the announcement says which rule applies. Beyond the degree, the standard asks for specialized experience at the next lower grade: a year of work that involved the actual contracting duties the announcement describes.
Private-sector procurement, purchasing, and vendor-management experience can translate, but it must be described in the government’s terms. A resume that says “managed vendor relationships” will not match a qualification that asks for experience in “pre-award and post-award contract administration.” Read the qualifications section and mirror its language with your own specifics, as the federal resume guide explains. Many announcements also require, or prefer, a federal acquisition certification at a stated level (FAC-C at civilian agencies, the DAWIA contracting certification at DoD), which you earn through agency training once hired; new entrants are usually expected to complete it within a set period.
The career path
Federal contracting has an unusually defined progression. You typically start as a contract specialist at a developmental grade, move up as you take on larger and more complex procurements, and become a contracting officer when an agency grants you a warrant. Warrants come in tiers tied to dollar thresholds, and the grade you hold tends to track the size of the actions you are trusted to sign. Because the work is governed by one regulation across the whole government, experience moves between agencies more easily than in many other series, which is one reason the category shows up at so many employers in the list above.
How to search for these
Start at the contracting category hub, which lists every open 1102 posting we hold with its tier, agency, and advertised pay, refreshed daily from USAJOBS. If you need fully remote work, read the fully remote list and look for contract specialist and contracting officer titles; it is the complete set of fully remote postings in our inventory. If you can live near a federal acquisition office, the telework list adds every telework-eligible posting you would otherwise filter out. And if what you actually want is a job at a company that performs government contracts, go to the companies page or the CACI guide instead; that market hires on private-sector terms and is counted separately on this site.