By 2004, Serco held numerous defence contracts, including the UK Government's contract for the maintenance of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales. The MoD extended Serco's contract in October 2022 for a further three years, under which the company provides maintenance, repair, and operational services for the radar in Yorkshire, England. Serco has contracts for the operation and maintenance of RAF Brize Norton, RAF Halton, RAF Northolt and RNAS Culdrose in the UK and RAF Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic.
Serco provides support services to garrisons in Australia. Serco manages many aspects of operations at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Shrivenham. Prior to June 2021, Serco was one of three partners in the consortium who managed the Atomic Weapons Establishment until it was taken over by the MoD: in July 2015, the Office for Nuclear Regulation issued an improvement notice to the consortium demanding that it demonstrate that it has a long-term strategy for managing higher active radioactive waste in order to reduce the risk to the public and its employees.
Serco is a major subcontractor to Airbus Defence and Space on the Skynet military communications satellites under a private finance initiative (PFI) contract.
Serco Marine Services is responsible for fleet support at the three main UK naval bases, HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport and HMNB Clyde. In November 2022, the MoD awarded Serco a £200 million follow-on contract, lasting 27 months, to provide marine services for the Royal Navy.
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Transport
In London, Serco has operated the London Cycle Hire Scheme for Transport for London since it was first introduced in 2010. During December 2022, Serco signed a three-year contract extension valued at £50 million to continue maintaining and distributing the bikes, including the newly introduced e-Bikes.
Serco has operated a number of train operating companies. It has a 50% shareholding in Serco-Abellio that has a concession to operate the Merseyrail franchise in Merseyside until 2028, and previously operated the Northern Rail franchise from December 2004 until March 2016. Between April 2015 and June 2023, Serco operated the Caledonian Sleeper between London and Scotland; the contract was terminated early after Serco's request to rebase the loss making contract was deemed by Transport Scotland to not offer value.
In 1997, Serco purchased the Railtest business as part of the privatisation of British Rail. Included in the sale was a management contract for the Old Dalby Test Track. Between 1997 and 2004, Serco operated the National Rail Enquiry Service under contract to the Association of Train Operating Companies. It maintains Network Rail's fleet of infrastructure and maintenance trains at the Railway Technical Centre.
In Scotland, Serco has operated the NorthLink Ferries ferry service since July 2012. In September 2018, the firm commenced operating a bicycle-sharing system under contract to Transport for Edinburgh; these scheme was closed during September 2021.
Serco's Home Affairs division operates speed camera systems throughout the UK and, until November 2013, designed, wrote and tested the software that controls the matrix message signs, signals, emergency roadside telephones (SOS) and traffic monitoring on England's motorway network including, until 2011, the National Traffic Control Centre.
Starting in 1997, Serco operated the London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR) under franchise. In November 2005, TfL announced that Serco had retained the DLR franchise for seven years from May 2006; this contract was extended until September 2014 in January 2013. However, in July 2014, the DLR franchise was awarded to KeolisAmey, thus Serco handed over operations on 7 December 2014.
Serco operated Scatsta Airport in Shetland until its closure in 2020. During June 2010, Serco signed a £4 million contract to operate all air traffic control services for Coventry Airport.
Border security
Serco was part of a consortium called Trusted Borders, led by Raytheon Systems Limited, to put in place e-Borders under a contract awarded by the UK Home Office in 2007. As a subcontractor to Raytheon, Serco was responsible for delivering the infrastructure and service management of e-Borders; Raytheon had its contract terminated in July 2010 and Serco at the time stated it had fulfilled all its commitments on the contract.
Work and pensions
Serco was contracted to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to provide telephone advice on behalf of DWP to recipients of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI), which ended in April 2018.
Science
Prior to 2015, Serco managed the UK's National Physical Laboratory. It currently provides IT Services, Industrial Support and Cryogenic Operations Support and Maintenance at CERN. Serco was part of a consortium that ran the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory under contract up until October 2013.
Prisons and justice
In Britain, Serco supplies electronic tagging devices for offenders and asylum seekers. Serco, as well as its rival G4S, was accused of overcharging the Ministry of Justice on its contract to tag offenders. The firm issued a profit warning for 2014 as a result of the costs of becoming embroiled in an electronic tagging scandal. Serco repaid £68.5 million to the government for its overcharging on the contract. In May 2014, a Survation poll for the campaign group We Own It, found that 63% of respondents thought Serco should be banned from bidding for any new public contracts after the firm was investigated for overcharging on government contracts.
Serco runs four prisons, a young offenders institution and a secure training centre. It has operated two immigration removal centres since 2007. Serco is responsible for the contracted-out court escort services in the south-east area, formerly a role undertaken by HM Prison Service.
In September 2013, Serco was accused of an extensive cover-up over sexual abuse at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, England. During August 2014, it was criticised for using immigrant detainees as cheap labour, with some being paid as little as £1 per hour. The decision to award Serco a new £70 million eight-year contract to run Yarl's Wood has been criticised; Natasha Walter, of Women for Refugee Women, said
"Serco is clearly unfit to manage a centre where vulnerable women are held and it is unacceptable the government continues to entrust Serco with the safety of women who are survivors of sexual violence."
During 2019, a fine of £19.2 million was imposed on Serco following delayed legal action started in 2013 for fraud and false accounting over its electronic tagging service for the Ministry of Justice. Serco was also ordered to pay the full amount of the Serious Fraud Office's investigative costs of £3.7 million. In his judgment, Mr Justice Davis said: "SGL (Serco Geografix Ltd) engaged in quite deliberate fraud against the Ministry of Justice in relation to the provision of services vital to the criminal justice system." During April 2021, the charged ex-directors of firm's subsidiary were cleared of fraud and false accounting, primarily due to the SFO having failed to disclose certain documents to the defense, resulting in issues that, according to the judge, "undermine the process of disclosure to the extent that the trial cannot safely and fairly proceed until they have been remedied".
In July 2022, the company supplied food containing maggots to children in a hotel in the Midlands. Serco issued an apology and said it would visit the hotel.
In October 2024, Serco's tracking devices and panic alarms on prison vans were disabled after a cyber attack. Allegedly, some Serco prisoner custody officers were unaware that vehicles were still being used to transport prisoners for three days after the attack despite continuing software faults.
In December 2024, Serco was accused of failing to tag 77 year old climate protestor Gaie Delap after her release on licence from HMP Peterborough, resulting in her being recalled to custody. Her supporters argued that Serco had failed to supply a tag small enough for her average-sized wrist since she could not be tagged on her ankle for medical reasons. They also accused Serco of misrepresenting the reason for its failure to tag Delap, after falsely claiming she had refused to cooperate with its fitting. In January 2025, Delap discovered that she would have to serve a further 20 days in prison, the amount of time Serco had previously spent unsuccessfully trying to find a suitable bracelet.
Housing
During August 2018, it was disclosed that Serco had been planning to evict asylum seekers in Glasgow before their appeal procedure was completed; the legality of such actions under Scottish law was questioned by lawyers. Serco confirmed that it was serving a notice of eviction on many tenants, causing alarm and lawyers challenged one asylum seeker's eviction at the Scottish Court of Session. Councillor Jennifer Layden, equalities and human rights convener for Glasgow, said, "The lock change announcement by the Home Office and Serco has caused widespread fear and alarm among asylum seekers in Glasgow. There is confusion and panic among the community – some of whom have limited English and who may not be affected by Serco's announcement. Both Serco and the Home Office have a responsibility to put this vulnerable group at ease". Two asylum seekers started a hunger strike.
In January 2019, it was reported that Serco had lost the contract to provide housing to asylum seekers in Glasgow. That same year, a Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Refugee Council showed that Serco had been charged nearly £3 million by the Home Office for repeatedly breaching its contract to house asylum seekers in Glasgow and Northern Ireland.
In 2026, a cleaner working for Serco was charged with misconduct in public office after releasing the addresses where asylum seekers were residing in Thetford, which preceded several days of mob violence in the town.
Health
Serco provide facilities management services at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Leicester Royal Infirmary, and Wishaw General Hospital.
The company held the contract for out-of-hours GP services in Cornwall, from which it withdrew in December 2013 after the company left the county short of doctors. Serco also stated that it would stop running Braintree hospital in Essex as it opted to pull out of managing GP services and large hospitals.
In health services, Serco's failures include the poor handling of pathology labs and fatal errors in patient records. At St Thomas' Hospital, the increase in the number of clinical incidents arising from Serco non-clinical management has resulted in patients receiving incorrect and infected blood, as well as patients suffering kidney damage due to Serco providing incorrect data used for medical calculations. A Serco employee later revealed that the company had falsified 252 reports to the National Health Service regarding Serco health services in Cornwall.
During November 2013, it emerged that Serco, which been awarded a contract for Suffolk Community Healthcare in 2012, had 72 job vacancies after previously cutting 137 positions. Problems identified by Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group include "staff capacity, skill mix, workload, succession planning and morale, training, communication, mobile working, care co-ordination centre processes, incidents and near miss incidents".
In April 2014, Serco revealed that it would lose almost £18 million on three of its NHS contracts. It had made provisions for losses in its Braintree and Cornwall contracts, which were cancelled early, and had also made provisions for losses in its contract for services in Suffolk. Serco claimed it would take longer to deliver the operational efficiencies it hoped for, despite stating in May 2013 that it expected to make a profit on the three-year, £140 million contract for community services. It said that staff had not recorded activity accurately on the electronic health record and that activity had increased significantly during the course of the contract.
In August 2014, the company had reportedly decided to withdraw from the clinical health services market in the UK after a review of the cost of delivering "improved service levels" and meeting the performance requirements of several existing contracts.
During October 2017, it was reported that Serco was preparing to buy healthcare contracts from facilities management business Carillion. This deal included 15 contracts, with annual revenues of approximately £90 million, for which Serco would pay £47.7 million, with Carillion losing £1 billion from the value of its order book.
In May 2020, Serco accidentally shared the personal email addresses of nearly 300 trainee COVID-19 contact tracers.
Education
Between 2001 and 2011, Serco held a ten-year contract with Bradford City Council to manage and operate the local education authority, providing education support services to the city's schools. According to senior council officials, this period was marked with "real problems" and management was taken back in house by the local authority after the contract's end-date. Serco has operated similar management arrangements for both Walsall and Stoke-on-Trent local education authorities. By 2009, Serco was one of Ofsted's three Regional Inspection Service Providers, being responsible for school inspections in the English Midlands.
Leisure
Serco Leisure Operating Ltd works with clients throughout the UK, running gyms, swimming pools, cycle hire schemes and National Sports Centres.
In February 2024, the UK Information Commissioner's Office issued an enforcement notice against Serco Leisure Operating and several associated leisure trusts over their use of facial recognition and fingerprint scanning to monitor staff attendance, finding that the biometric processing was not necessary or proportionate under UK data protection law.
Information technology
Starting in 2005, Serco administered the publicly funded UK Business Link website until its closure in 2012. During 2007, it was awarded a five-year tender to run the IT Infrastructure for the London Borough of Southwark.
Waste and recycling services
Serco operates recycling and waste collection services for various local councils.
