Palantir's £240 million UK defense contract remains unpublished, six months past the legal deadline

Palantir▼−3.69% — Palantir, down 3.69 percent today, the US data-analytics firm behind ICE immigration systems and the NHS data platform, holds a £240 million UK Ministry of Defence contract awarded without competition in December 2025, and nobody outside the department has read it ¹. The Procurement Act 2023 gave the ministry 90 days to publish it or formally justify withholding it ¹. More than six months past that deadline, neither has happened ¹.

The ministry missed the duty, then offered a route the law does not contain

Democracy for Sale reports the MoD instead published a note offering a redacted copy↗ "on request", a provision the Act does not contain ¹. Asked, an official said the lapse was an "admin error"; on November 6 the ministry promised a redacted copy "imminently" ¹. It has not appeared ¹.

By the FT's count↗, the MoD paid Palantir £282 million over the decade to March 2026 against £95.9 million in listed contracts, a £186 million gap partly explained by at least one contract withheld for national security, though it remains unclear whether classified deals account for the whole difference; more than 80 percent of the spend went through non-competitive processes ².

America carries Palantir's growth

Palantir's growth story is American. Q3 revenue was $2.31 billion, up 96 percent↗, with US commercial at $984 million and US government at $953 million; US commercial overtook the government book for the first time ³. International revenue was about $376 million, up 26 percent ³⁴.

The UK book looks bigger, and more fragile, than the public record

The UK is the most prominent customer on that small international line, so the unpublished £240 million carries a weight its size does not suggest ¹²⁵. By the FT's count, the unaccounted £186 million suggests the UK book runs bigger than the public record shows; the politics, from committees to unions, suggest it runs fragile ¹²⁵.

Committees want a break clause, and NHS England retracted its claim

Commons committees want a break clause in Palantir's £330 million NHS contract, and this week NHS England deleted its claim that 137 trusts benefit from the platform↗ after the Guardian found 29 barely using it ¹⁵.

Ministers lean the other way, and Palantir helps write the rules

Yet ministers are reportedly set to extend the NHS deal two more years, the Labour peer Tom Watson has been hired as a full-time Palantir lobbyist and recently wrote to the health secretary, and the MoD has put Palantir in charge of reviewing its own software-buying rules ¹⁵. Palantir keeps its flagship customer while taxpayers fund a contract nobody can read.

Publication would answer the question, and it has not come

The Procurement Act sets out two outcomes. Publication would reveal the £240 million terms: scope, duration, and why no rival was invited to bid ¹. Continued absence, past the November 6 "imminent" promise, deepens the accountability question on one of Britain's most scrutinized suppliers ¹.