Private Prisons UK 2026: All 15 and Who Runs Them

In shortA private (contracted-out) prison is run by a company under contract to the Ministry of Justice; the operator employs the staff, not HMPPS.

A private prison, formally a contracted-out prison, is an establishment run by a private company under contract to the Ministry of Justice. HMPPS still oversees performance, groups these prisons as "Contracted" in the performance ratings and publishes their capacity, but the operator employs the staff, runs the regime and carries the day-to-day management.

Public prisons, in contrast, are run by HMPPS directly and staffed by civil servants. The number of private prisons has moved in both directions in recent years, and older lists that still show Birmingham or Lowdham Grange as private are out of date.

Private prison / contracted-out prison

Mean the same thing here.

Prison custody officer

The older phrase, often used for private-sector wing staff.

Prison officer

The term HMPPS uses for its own Band 3 role. A separate planned guide, prison custody officer vs prison officer pay, compares the two job types.

In shortThe table lists all 15 with operator, the date of the source confirming it, capacity and population; several GOV.UK pages are dated 2022 and out of date, so confirm the operator before relying on a name.

• Contracted-out prisons15England and Wales
• Population19,19124 August 2026; Peterborough is reported as one figure for its male and female sites
• Operational capacity19,609Combined, same date

The table below lists each establishment with its current operator, the date of the source that confirms it, and capacity and population from the 24 August 2026 monthly bulletin.

Because the GOV.UK pages for private prisons are stubs and several carry a 2022 date, the operator in the table comes from the most recent inspectorate report or contract announcement we could open, with that source's date. A report naming an operator supports the position on that date but does not replace the contract:

• HMIP's July 2026 report on Ashfield names Serco.
• The June 2026 Parc report names G4S.
• The August 2026 Five Wells report refers to G4S.
• The October 2025 Altcourse report records that Sodexo took over from G4S in 2023, and Sodexo's announcement gives 1 June 2023 as the start of its ten-year contract.
• Sodexo's announcement of 2 May 2025 records a new ten-year contract to keep running Forest Bank.

In shortSerco runs five, G4S four, Sodexo five and Mitie one, and each operator is a separate employer with its own terms.

• Serco5Latest HMIP reports
• G4S4Latest HMIP reports
• Sodexo5Includes Altcourse since 1 June 2023
• Mitie1Millsike

That is five, four, five and one, which accounts for all 15. Altcourse is the correction to older lists: Sodexo took over from G4S on 1 June 2023, though its GOV.UK page, last updated in January 2022, still names G4S.

Ownership of the companies themselves has changed over time, and the group names on the pages may not match the legal entity operating a contract today.

The sources are the latest HMIP reports and operator or contract announcements, with GOV.UK pages as a fallback. I have not checked company filings, so I do not state corporate details or contract values.

What matters for an applicant is that each operator sets its own terms. Applying to a Serco prison and applying to a Sodexo prison is applying to two different employers, with separate recruitment pages, training, pay scales and benefits.

Serco

Ashfield, Doncaster, Dovegate, Fosse Way and Thameside.

G4S

Five Wells, Oakwood, Parc (including Parc YOI) and Rye Hill.

Sodexo

Altcourse, Bronzefield, Forest Bank, Northumberland and Peterborough (male and female).

Mitie

Millsike.

In shortOperator staff are not on HMPPS bands, so public Band 3 figures are benchmarks rather than like-for-like comparisons.

Private-sector prison staff are employed by the operator, not HMPPS. The HMPPS workforce bulletin excludes them from its staff counts, which is why the 22,001 FTE band 3 to 5 officers in post at 30 June 2026 describes public-sector officers only.

Their pay is not the Fair and Sustainable structure, so the dataset sets pay zone and market supplement to null for them rather than guess. That has a practical consequence for any pay comparison:

• A public Band 3 officer on the national zone and a 37 hour contract earns £34,928 to £36,778 including the 20% unsocial hours allowance, and £38,840 to £40,896 in outer London.
• A private operator advertises its own figure on its own hours, and the two are not like-for-like unless you compare the same contract hours, allowances and pension.
• The pay bands guide has the full public tables.

In shortPublic officers follow the HMPPS route of about nine to ten weeks of training; private operators run their own recruitment, training and vetting, so check each advert.

If you have concerns about your history, the guide to vetting for prison officers and the vetting checker cover the public-sector position, and you should ask the operator directly for theirs.

In shortScotland has one private prison, Addiewell; Kilmarnock returned to SPS on 17 March 2024; none of Northern Ireland's three prisons is private in the sources checked.

• SPS Residential Officer, from 1 April 2026£37,682Start of scale, per the SPS careers page
• Within three years£44,248Subject to progression

SPS staff are on SPS terms. See pay in Scotland.

Addiewell

The Scottish Prison Service says it has 16 publicly managed prisons and one run by a private sector operator under contract. That one is Addiewell, run by Sodexo Justice Services under a contract with SPS: the prisons inspectorate for Scotland's 2018 inspection report names it, and its independent prison monitors' 2024-25 annual report refers to the SPS and Sodexo contract. The SPS establishment page itself does not name the company. For the up-to-date position, check the SPS site.

Kilmarnock

Was run by Serco under a contract with Scottish Ministers. The SPS Kilmarnock page says it transferred to the Scottish Prison Service on the expiry of that contract on 17 March 2024.

Northern Ireland

Three establishments (Maghaberry, Magilligan, and Hydebank Wood College and Women's Prison) are run by the Northern Ireland Prison Service, per the Department of Justice. NIPS pay is separate again and the 2026/27 outcome was not found; see the planned guide on pay in Northern Ireland. None of these three is a private prison in the sources checked.

In shortThere is no verdict on public versus private: write down the same terms for each offer, including pension, and compare like for like.

There is no verdict here on whether public or private is better, because the answer depends on the specific offer. In the public sector most terms come from published HMPPS terms; in a private prison they come from the operator's contract of employment.

Pension is the item people forget. Public-sector officers are in the Civil Service pension scheme; the guide to the Civil Service pension for prison officers explains it.

I have not verified what scheme each private operator offers, so ask for the details in writing. A non-pensionable supplement or higher headline pay can look generous until you add the value of the pension.

1. List every contracted-out prison within reach using the prison finder and the directory.
2. Confirm the current operator from the establishment page and the operator's recruitment site.
3. Write down hours, pay, allowances, leave, sick pay and pension for each offer.
4. Compare to the public Band 3 benchmarks above using the same contract hours.
5. Read the latest HMIP report and note the performance rating for the site.
6. Ask each employer for training length, probation terms and how long vetting takes.

In shortContracted prisons are a large share of places and show a spread of 2025/26 ratings; policy direction is not settled.

• Places listed (contracted)19,609Operational capacity, per-prison table
• Oakwood2,034Operational capacity, 24 August 2026
• Fosse Way1,960Opened May 2023; 245-place houseblock added December 2025, per MoJ announcements

Contracted-out prisons are a large share of the estate by capacity: 19,609 of the places listed in the dataset's per-prison table. They also include some of the biggest sites, such as Oakwood and Fosse Way.

Performance ratings for 2025/26 show a spread across the group: some sites rated Good and some rated Concern, including HMP Fosse Way, HMP Oakwood, HMP & YOI Parc and HMP Thameside.

Because the publication warns that framework changes limit comparison with earlier years, and because a rating describes an establishment rather than your team, read it with the inspection report.