Nevertheless, the election became much more competitive as supporters of both Henry Tang and Leung Chun-ying, the two potential candidates for the 2012 Chief Executive race, tried to gain as much seats.

The pan-democracy camp secured the 150-member threshold to nominate a candidate to challenge to pro-Beijing dominated Chief Executive election in the following year.

The Catering sub-sector was contested by two candidate lists the Cater17, led by the Catering Legislative Councillor Tommy Cheung Yu-yan and considered Henry Tang's supporters, and 星火行動, led by Simon Wong Ka-wo and considered Leung Chun-ying's supporters.

[2] Notable elected candidates include Allan Zeman, chairman of the Ocean Park Hong Kong.

The A16 Alliance was formed by accountants from the Big Four firms, the group was considered as Henry Tang's camp.

[3] Two groups called "Your Vote Counts" and "Y5 Give Me Five" were supported by member of the Leung Chun-ying's election campaign office and Accountancy Legislative Councillor Paul Chan.

[3] The Action 9 group was formed with 9 candidates with the election platform of increasing supply of public housing, solving the disparity between the rich and poor and implementing universal suffrage.

The pro-democratic Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union put out a 25-candidate list for the 30 seats in the sub-sector in which five of them are also the Democratic Party members.

Sponsored by the Professional Commons, the pro-democratic group "Engineers for Universal Suffrage" (E4US) put out an 8-candidate list in which two of them are Civic Party members including Albert Lai.

Other elected members included Lo Wai-kwok who won the Engineering functional constituency in the Legislative Council in September 2012, and Mak Chai-kwong who was appointed Secretary for Development in July 2012 by Leung Chun-ying.

22 pro-democratic independent candidates led by former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association Edward Chan King-sang formed the "ProDem22"[10] and 8 candidates from the Democratic Party, Civic Party, and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood formed the "PanDem8" while the vice-chairman of the Law Society of Hong Kong Ambrose Lam San-keung led another 12 candidates group "Vox Pop" which was considered pro-Beijing.

The 5 members pro-democratic group won 2 seats including the former Legislative Councillor for the Medical functional constituency Kwok Ka-ki.

The Demo-Social 60 filled in 31 candidates in which many of them are the Democratic Party members such as Law Chi-kwong and Yeung Sum.