Mitie is growing mighty big. The FTSE 250 outsourcer, whose 64,000 staff clean hospitals, run police custody suites and guard ports, saw its revenues exceed £4 billion for the first time last year. It is flourishing alongside contractors Serco and Babcock as the industry bounces back from a long spell of scandals, collapse and profit warnings.
Mitie’s problems might not have been as high-profile as others (it’s hard to beat charging the government for “tagging” criminals who were, in fact, dead), but it was expensively punished by its entry — and exit — from the elderly home-care market and has faced criticism for its work at refugee detention centres, including running Europe’s largest “immigration removal centre” at Heathrow. But while, historically, Mitie struggled with the
