UK government and local authorities directed nearly £24.4 billion in public spending to private equity-controlled companies during the fiscal year ending April 2025, according to spending data released in 2025. This figure accounts for approximately one in every £11 of government spending on contractors during that period, or 8.8% of UK government contracts.

Local councils contributed almost £9.8 billion of this total to businesses majority-controlled by private equity firms in the year to April 2025. This sum represents an estimated 10% of local councils' external spending. In the same fiscal year, the National Health Service (NHS) paid more than £5 billion to private equity-backed firms, which was 10.7% of the NHS's external spending.

A business software company jointly controlled by Hg Capital and TA Associates received almost £1 billion in NHS contracts. Additionally, a pharmaceutical and healthcare services company managed by Vitruvian Partners received almost £500 million. Vitruvian Partners is headquartered in London.

The Department for Education's external spending included almost £600 million directed to private equity majority-backed companies, constituting 11% of its total external spending. BPP Education Group, an educational provider, is controlled by funds managed by TDR Capital. Over £500 million was paid to an infrastructure group controlled by CVC Capital Partners, which provides services in water, energy, transport, and telecoms.

Natalie Bennett, a former Green party leader and author, stated: "We've seen a massive explosion of this. And fundamentally, if you are running something for profit, you're often not running it for the benefit of the people who need the service." She added: "Austerity and cutbacks in funding for local councils has absolutely led us here, but more than that, it's been a triumph of ideology." Bennett further said: "We've accepted this ideological assumption that the private sector must be better. But we're talking about the filthy rich. And it's the most vulnerable who are paying." She concluded: "The government is trying to manage the mess we have, not chart a route out of the mess. But [private equity] will twist and dodge and turn and find a new way to play the system."

Ludovic Phalippou, a professor of financial economics at the University of Oxford's Saïd business school, said: "The core risk is not just 'private equity'. It is for-profit provision, plus high leverage, in an essential service where the state has little room to walk away, and probably low competence in writing contracts and negotiating prices." Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Centre for Local Economies, stated: "That desire for profit maximisation will put downward pressure on the way in which services are operated and run, which is why you end up with a scenario where care workers are earning such low amounts."