Mitie is a UK-based facilities management, outsourcing and professional services provider. Mitie works across a range of industries split between four divisions: Business Services (including Spain, Waste and Landscapes); Technical Services; Communities (including Care and Custody), and Central Government and Defence, which includes its support services to the UK armed forces. Defence services include, for example, accommodation provision, aircraft support, fuel infrastructure and supply management, grounds and environmental maintenance, armoury storage, security and access control, waste management and other administrative services.
The Mitie Group Plc was founded in 1987. It reports that it is the UK’s leading facilities management company, made possible through its acquisition of other companies. In 2020 it acquired its rival, Interserve, boosting Mitie’s overall presence in the defence sector, as around 44% of Interserve’s contracts had been with defence clients and the company had been prominent in providing them services for over 25 years.
Mitie made revenues of UK£ 4.5 billion in 2024 of which 20% was within its central government and defence division. 96% of Mitie’s revenues derive from UK customers. Mitie employs 76,000 mostly UK-based workers. Mitie is based in London and has dozens of wholly-owned UK subsidiaries, among them at least two defence-focused companies, Mitie (Defence) Limited and Mitie Aviation Security Limited. Mitie also has subsidiaries in Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and the UAE. Among its joint ventures is a 50%-owned Saudi company, Interserve Rezayat Company LLC.
UK military facilities support
Mitie provides support services to UK Ministry of Defence operations abroad and training and support facilities in the UK, notably through its contracts with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO).
Recent contracts have included a 2023 UK £150 million contract to provide services for UK Armed Forces serving in Germany and Italy and a contract to support 1,622 Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (RFCA). Mitie’s joint venture with Amentum, Landmarc Support Services, was awarded a UK£ 560 million contract to manage the UK training grounds for Armed Forces personnel. Interserve, the company Mitie acquired in 2020, had previously held this contract via a joint venture since 2003.
Abroad, Mitie delivers facilities management services across MoD sites in Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island. It appears to have inherited this project from Interserve. In 2017, the DIO awarded Interserve an extension on a contract to provide site-specific services across the bases, such as aircraft handling at Ascension Island, power generation, water treatment and plant management in the Falklands, and support for visiting vessels in Gibraltar.
Mitie is also contracted to provide services to arms companies manufacturing facilities in the UK. In 2024, Mitie received an extension on its contract worth UK£ 17 million per year to deliver integrated facilities management services across 16 sites of defence and aerospace giant Thales in the UK.
Immigration detention
Mitie reports that it is the “largest supplier of immigration detention services to the UK government” under its Care and Custody division.
Mitie regularly receives big immigration detention contracts. In 2017, the Home Office awarded Mitie a 10-year UK£ 525 million contract, reportedly the single largest ever. Mitie’s responsibilities included escorting immigration detainees on removal flights to detainees’ home countries, managing fixed facilities including airport holding rooms, reporting centres, and holding facilities. Mitie had been awarded a similar UK£ 180 million contract in 2014.
In April 2025, researchers from the Universities of Liverpool, York, Sheffield and Nottingham published a report calculating that between 2018 and 2028, Mitie would receive UK£ 514.2 million to support in-country and overseas escorting operations and managing holding facilities for immigration removals. Mitie responded to the Business and Human Rights Centre’s initiative to follow up the researchers’ complaint, confirming its contracts with the Home Office and stating that it was not responsible for setting immigration policy and that its team prioritised the safety and wellbeing of persons in its care.
Controversies
Mitie’s facilities have been particularly criticised over human rights and detainee welfare grounds. Mitie had received a contract to run Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), in 2011, and in the following years, it received criticism for conditions at the camp linked to mass hunger strikes, a detainee suicide and protest arson. In 2018, the government closed Campsfield after over 20 years of operations following welfare concerns highlighted in the Shaw review of immigration detention. But in 2025, the Home Office re-awarded Mitie a six-year contract to oversee the functioning of the 400-bed newly reopened camp. Mitie also runs the Heathrow Immigration Detention Centre. The Chief Inspector of the Prisons Directorate reportedly described conditions at this centre in 2024 as “decrepit”, with “widespread” drug use and violence.
Mitie has also been scrutinised for its business practices and the conduct of its employees. Mitie was briefly investigated by the UK Competition and Markets Authority in 2022 for suspected anti-competitive conduct. The investigation was closed a year later with no adverse findings to Mitie. Unite, the union representing some of its Gibraltar employees on a Ministry of Defence contract, have also criticised Mitie for what it claims are unfair wage practices and poor working conditions; the company has since agreed a new basic pay increase for all affected employees.
