Defense contractor bucks retrenchment trend

While the effects of the Trump administration’s cuts in the federal workforce and contracts reverberate throughout Northern Virginia and beyond, Alexandria-based Systems Planning & Analysis grabbed headlines in September 2025 when it announced it would spend $46.9 million and add 1,200 jobs across the city and in Fairfax County.

SPA President Terry Benedict uses the word “happenstance” to describe the timing. In February 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed an 8% annual spending cut, about $50 billion a year, across the Department of Defense while prioritizing 17 areas, including drones, submarines and cybersecurity.

“Fifteen of those 17 areas are core to our company,” Benedict says.

Founded in 1972, SPA provides data and analytics services to national security and intelligence customers, including the Pentagon and U.S. allies.

“Because of our heritage, our customer base and our expertise, we find ourselves sort of perfectly aligned to the department in areas that they had committed to grow in and expand in,” Benedict says.

SPA has more than 3,000 employees worldwide, and over the next five years, it expects to boost its Alexandria workforce from 600 to 1,100 people and add more than 700 employees in its Chantilly office. The company may lease more space if needed, Benedict adds.

SPA’s plans come with incentives from the state and city, and the company purchased its Alexandria headquarters last June. SPA listed more than 280 open jobs on its website in late October 2025 and plans to add jobs in systems engineering, data science, operations analysis and other areas, Benedict says.

Those jobs come with an average salary of about $153,000, notes Marian Marquez, senior vice president of Alexandria Economic Development Partnership. Retaining SPA is critical for the city as it works to diversify its economic base, she notes. “Defense technology and aerospace, as well, is an area that has seen tremendous growth since the beginning of the year.”

Terry Clower, director of George Mason University‘s Center for Regional Analysis, says most new jobs in the region’s economy come from existing businesses expanding. While Northern Virginia may be feeling a pinch now, SPA’s announcement comes at a crucial time.

For the thousands of people who have lost federal jobs, “these represent opportunities and reasons for them to stay in the region,” Clower says.