Defense contractors in San Diego: who wins the $11.7 billion and how to reach them

This report is for suppliers looking for primes to work with, engineers weighing San Diego defense employers, and B2B sellers whose customers are defense contractors. It leads with federal contract records, which show San Diego's defense work far better than factory counts.

Defense contracting in San Diego County, fiscal 2025

We pulled these from USAspending.gov on 30 October 2026: DoD prime contract awards (definitive contracts, purchase orders, delivery orders and BPA calls) performed in San Diego County, 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025. Obligations are net of deobligations and cover prime contractors only, so subcontracts aren't included. A company with several registered units appears as several recipients, and 328 more recipient records netted to zero or less.

Who awards the money

The Navy awarded $7.40 billion (63%), the Air Force $2.76 billion and the Army $826.8 million. The Defense Logistics Agency ($254.4 million), the Defense Information Systems Agency ($169.1 million), the Defense Health Agency ($159.6 million) and Special Operations Command ($132.1 million) follow; the rest nets to a small negative after a $88.0 million deobligation by the Defense Contract Management Agency. Most San Diego defense selling is, in the end, selling into Navy programs, ships and bases.

The largest contractors

The top 10 recipients took 49% of the total. The names fall into clusters: under ship building and repairing, BAE Systems' San Diego unit ($657.5 million), NASSCO ($550.4 million) and Continental Maritime ($161.6 million) lead; under aircraft manufacturing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems ($982.2 million) and Northrop Grumman ($499.1 million); under engineering services, Booz Allen ($351.4 million), Northrop Grumman ($165.1 million) and SAIC ($128.3 million).

What the money buys

Engineering and R&D services together outweigh any single kind of hardware, so San Diego's defense market is as much about engineers and offices as shipyards.

The bases behind the demand

The San Diego Military Advisory Council's 2025 economic impact report (November 2025) counts these active duty and civilian personnel by installation in fiscal 2025:

The same report says San Diego is homeport to 63 Navy ships, and that the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR), one of five major Navy acquisition commands, is based at the Old Town Campus of Naval Base Point Loma. SDMAC puts fiscal 2025 defense contracting in the region at $19.8 billion across more than 2,000 companies, using data provided by military sources; it is measured differently from the USAspending total, so don't compare the two directly.

What Census factory data shows

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns 2023 counts only 28 establishments in the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA Metro Area (CBSA 41740) under aerospace product and parts manufacturing (NAICS 3364) and ammunition and ordnance manufacturing (332992, 332993, 332994), 1.08% of 2,598 nationally. The employee and payroll totals were published but flagged as high-noise, so they are not reported here.

Those codes miss most of the work in the contract tables: ship building and repairing alone has 31 establishments and 8,435 employees in the county. For the aircraft side, see aerospace companies in San Diego.

Listed defense companies here

Two Virginia-based primes name San Diego in their 10-Ks: General Dynamics among its Marine Systems locations, where NASSCO does surface ship repair, and Northrop Grumman under three of its sectors. General Atomics and BAE Systems don't file 10-Ks, so contract records are the best public view of them.

How to find and check a San Diego defense contractor

1. Search the awards. In USAspending's advanced search, filter on place of performance (San Diego County), the awarding agency and your NAICS codes to see who wins that work.
2. Check the registration. Confirm an active SAM.gov registration before you sign a teaming agreement or supply contract.
3. Ask about CMMC. The DFARS rule took effect on 10 November 2025, starting phase 1. Under 32 CFR 170.3, phase 2 begins a year later, on 10 November 2026, when DoD intends to require Level 2 certification by an outside assessor for applicable contracts. A sub handling controlled unclassified information will be asked for it.
4. Read the listed primes' filings. Segment revenue and the share from the US government tell you how much of a company's business your offer touches.

Selling to San Diego defense contractors

Large primes buy through supply chain teams with approved-supplier lists, so expect a qualification step before the first order.

Illustrative example. The seller, price and win rate are invented; the counts are from USAspending.

Mesa Ridge Compliance (mesaridge.example) prepares contractors for CMMC Level 2 assessments. Its targets are the 397 San Diego recipients with $1 million to $10 million of fiscal 2025 obligations, big enough to hold controlled information but too small for a large security team. At a 3% win rate (12 firms) and $45,000 per project, that's $540,000 of work. It starts with firms hiring a compliance analyst. Bebop can find contractors matching that description and draft the first email.

Subject: CMMC Level 2 at [company] before your next recompete

Hi [first name],

[Company]'s DoD work in San Diego likely touches controlled unclassified information, and CMMC phase 2 starts on 10 November 2026.

We run a gap assessment against Level 2 and fix the findings with your team, so the outside assessment isn't the first test. Would a 30-minute review be useful?

[Your name]

San Diego sources

Next step: for how the government buys and how to get on a contract, read the guide to selling to government.