What Does the RFP Market Actually Look Like in 2026?

Everyone talks about the RFP market, but few teams have the data to back up their claims. We do. Settle's RFP aggregation pipeline indexes thousands of live opportunities every week across four major feed sources: Software and Systems, Marketing and Branding, Construction and Architecture, and Web Design and Development. We analyzed 7,569 RFPs posted between October 2025 and February 2026 to surface the trends shaping how companies discover, bid on, and win contracts this year.

What we found challenges several conventional assumptions about the procurement landscape. The market is growing faster than expected, deadlines are tighter than most teams realize, and the category mix is diversifying rapidly. Here is what the data says.

How Fast Is the RFP Market Growing?

Monthly RFP volume grew from 528 listings in October 2025 to 2,297 in January 2026, a 4.4x increase in just four months. Weekly posting rates hit 630 or more in early February 2026, up from just 104 in the first tracked week of October. This acceleration reflects a combination of expanding data coverage and genuine procurement activity following the post-holiday budget cycle.

January 2026 was the highest-volume month in our dataset by a significant margin. The post-holiday rebound is dramatic: Christmas week saw just 97 RFPs posted, an 82% drop from the December average of 527 per week. The first full week of January snapped back to 565, a 5.8x recovery. Teams that prepare proposals during the quiet holiday period gain a measurable head start when January volume surges.

Which Categories Dominate the RFP Landscape?

Software is the largest single category at 2,578 RFPs, representing 34.1% of all listings. Construction follows at 544 (7.2%), then Consulting at 453 (6.0%), Marketing at 370 (4.9%), and Engineering at 274 (3.6%). These top five categories account for 55.7% of total volume, but the remaining 44.3% is spread across 400 additional categories, creating a significant long tail.

The most striking trend is how rapidly the category mix is diversifying. In October 2025, Software accounted for 54.5% of all RFPs. By February 2026, that share dropped to 26.7%, not because Software volume fell, but because other categories grew much faster. Construction RFPs increased 191% from November to January. Marketing grew 249%. Engineering surged 206%. Information Technology listings exploded 361%. The dataset now covers 405 unique categories, though 192 of those (47.4%) have only a single listing.

How Tight Are RFP Deadlines in 2026?

The median turnaround from posting to submission deadline is 24 days. Nearly half of all RFPs (45.7%) give respondents 21 days or less. Over a quarter (27.0%) allow just 14 days, and 10.2% of all RFPs are rush jobs with seven days or fewer. That means 771 RFPs in our dataset gave teams one week or less to discover, qualify, draft, review, and submit a complete proposal.

Turnaround times vary significantly by category. IT Services and Software have the tightest windows, with median deadlines of just 21 and 22 days respectively. Healthcare IT averages 27 days, but the sector's overall median turnaround is actually 18 days when accounting for the urgency of clinical and regulatory requirements. Construction is the most generous at a 27-day median. For proposal teams, these numbers make a clear case: speed of response is not a nice-to-have. It is a competitive requirement.

Where Are RFPs Concentrated Geographically?

The United States accounts for 82.1% of all RFPs in the dataset (6,215 listings), followed by Canada at 11.8% (894) and Ireland as a surprise third at 1.5% (117). Within the US, California leads with 672 RFPs, followed by Texas (471) and New York (420). However, raw volume is misleading. When adjusted for population, Washington DC dominates at 263 RFPs per million residents, followed by Maryland (39.8 per million) and Colorado (30.2 per million). The DC-Maryland-Virginia federal corridor is by far the highest-density procurement market in North America.

Canada's RFP market skews differently from the US. Canadian listings index higher on Consulting (9.7% vs. 5.3% in the US) and Web Development (5.6% vs. 2.8%) but have virtually no representation in Construction. Ontario accounts for 40% of Canadian RFPs, followed by British Columbia (17.4%) and Alberta (16.9%). Canadian deadlines are slightly more generous, with a median turnaround of 25 days compared to 23 in the US.

What Technology Are Buyers Actually Requesting?

We searched all titles, summaries, and descriptions for technology keywords. The results paint a clear picture of buyer priorities. API and integration capabilities are mentioned in 21.4% of all RFPs (1,620 listings), making interoperability the single most requested technology feature. Cloud infrastructure appears in 15.8% (1,194), followed by automation at 11.5% (870) and data analytics or business intelligence at 9.9% (752).

Artificial intelligence, when measured with strict word-boundary matching to avoid false positives, appears in 5.0% of RFPs (379 listings). SaaS is mentioned in 4.7%, digital transformation in 3.8%, ERP in 2.8%, CRM in 2.2%, and cybersecurity in 2.0%. At the bottom of the list: blockchain appears in exactly two RFPs out of 7,569, effectively dead in procurement. The takeaway for vendors is clear. Buyers want systems that integrate, automate, and scale. They are less interested in buzzwords than in practical capability.

What Do These Trends Mean for Proposal Teams?

Three implications stand out from the data. First, the 24-day median deadline means most teams have roughly three working weeks from discovery to submission. Manual processes simply cannot keep up at this pace, especially when 10% of opportunities are rush jobs with a week or less. Second, the long tail of 405 categories means discovery tools that only cover major sectors miss nearly half of all opportunities. Teams need comprehensive, real-time feeds, not category-specific portals. Third, the January surge is predictable and massive. Organizations that build their proposal pipelines during the Q4 holiday lull position themselves to capture disproportionate share when procurement budgets reset in January.

These numbers will be updated monthly. If you want to explore the live RFP feed yourself, check out Settle's RFP Hunter, which indexes new opportunities daily across all the categories, geographies, and feed sources covered in this analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many RFPs are posted per week in 2026?

Based on our analysis of 7,569 RFPs, weekly posting volume averaged 574 listings in January 2026 and exceeded 630 per week in early February 2026. Volume is seasonal, dropping 82% during Christmas week before rebounding sharply in January.

What is the average time to respond to an RFP?

The median turnaround from posting to submission deadline is 24 days across all categories. However, 45.7% of RFPs give respondents 21 days or less, and 10.2% allow just 7 days or fewer. IT Services and Software have the tightest deadlines at 21-22 days median.

Which RFP categories are growing fastest in 2026?

Between November 2025 and January 2026, the fastest-growing RFP categories were Information Technology (+361%), Event Services (+462%), Marketing (+249%), Engineering (+206%), and Construction (+191%). Software, while still the largest category by volume, saw its market share decline from 54.5% to 26.7% as other categories expanded.