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Capita plc
Capita runs back-office and customer-service operations for governments and large organizations, mostly in the UK.
Capita is a British outsourcing company. It takes over the boring but essential work that big organizations need done — answering phones, processing claims, collecting bills, handling paperwork, running IT systems — and does it for them, usually under a long-term contract. Its customers are mostly public-sector bodies like local councils and government agencies, plus private companies in sectors such as financial services and telecoms.
Think of it as the back office for hire. A cash-strapped council doesn't want to build its own call center or billing system, so it pays Capita to run those operations instead. Capita employs the staff, owns the systems, and promises to hit service targets. In return it collects a fee, often for years at a time. The appeal to customers is cost savings and letting someone else handle the operational headache. The business has been through a rough stretch. Capita grew large through acquisitions and at one point was a FTSE 100 member, but years of profit warnings, contract problems, and a heavy debt load forced it to shrink. It sold off businesses — including its education software arm and its stake in the Fera joint venture — and raised fresh equity to repair its balance sheet. In 2024 it brought in a new chief executive, Adolfo Hernandez, to lead another turnaround.
Today Capita is a smaller, leaner company betting on a few core areas: customer management, where it runs contact centers; government services; and its experience business. It faces competition from outsourcers such as Serco and Mitie in the UK, and from global players like Accenture. The big risk is that outsourcing contracts are hard to win, easy to lose, and punishing when costs run over — a lesson Capita has learned the hard way.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026