The biggest care home operators in the UK, 2026
The UK's biggest residential and nursing care operators ranked by the turnover in their own filed Companies House accounts. For-profit and charitable providers ranked together; property holding companies, audit-exempt opco shells and acute hospital groups are excluded, and the famous names that don't file comparable accounts are named, not guessed at.
What the filings show
Care is a people business at its purest: the 31 operators here employ 111,726 care staff and bill £5.16B between them — and the staff column, not the revenue, is the truest measure of scale. Barchester leads at £967M, but the more telling fact is who runs the most beds: HC-One operates more homes than Barchester earns revenue, a reminder that fee rates (private vs council-funded) drive the rankings as much as size.
The charitable sector is not an afterthought here: 7 of the operators are charities or not-for-profits — MHA, the Orders of St John Care Trust, Turning Point, Greensleeves — billing £995M and competing head-to-head with private-equity money. Growth is broad and double-digit across the table (Orders of St John Care Trust (+42%), Agincare (+24%), Exemplar Health Care (+23%), The Disabilities Trust (+22%) lead), driven by fee inflation as much as new capacity.
Ownership is where this sector hides its size. Private equity has wrapped many operators in property/operating-company splits, offshore holdcos and audit-exempt structures — which is why Bupa's care arm, CareTech and Voyage sit in the can't-rank list, why Four Seasons (once the largest of all) barely files, and why Anchor, England's biggest not-for-profit provider, doesn't appear at Companies House at all. We rank the entity that actually delivers the care and name the rest.
Top 30 care home operators in the UK by filed turnover
Latest accounts filed as of August 2026 · refreshed monthly
| # | Firm | Turnover | YoY | Staff | Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Barchester Barchester Healthcare Limited, consolidated — the UK’s largest elderly-care operator. | £967M | +11% | 17,200 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 02 | Care UK PE-backed care home operator Care UK Community Partnerships Ltd; the group’s primary-care arm files separately. | £581M | — | 12,043 | FY to Dec 2025 |
| 03 | HC-One Private equity-backed care home operator The UK’s largest care-home operator by bed count; HC-One Limited. | £434M | +1% | 10,207 | FY to Sept 2025 |
| 04 | MHA (Methodist Homes) not-for-profit care Charitable care home operator One of the largest charitable care providers. | £271M | +2% | 4,698 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 05 | Exemplar Health Care specialist care PE-backed complex care provider Complex-needs nursing care. | £237M | +23% | 5,511 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 06 | Orders of St John Care Trust not-for-profit care Not-for-profit care home operator | £233M | +42% | 4,335 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 07 | Sanctuary Care Residential care home operator The care arm of the Sanctuary housing group. | £211M | +11% | 5,015 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 08 | Turning Point social care charity Health and social care charity Learning disability, mental health and substance misuse services. | £192M | +16% | 7,624 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 09 | Runwood Homes Residential care home operator | £191M | +13% | 3,937 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 10 | Aria Healthcare Care home operator | £160M | +12% | 2,841 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 11 | Shaw Healthcare Employee-owned care home operator Shaw Healthcare (Group) Limited, consolidated. | £151M | +8% | 3,314 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 12 | Maria Mallaband Maria Mallaband Care Group Limited, consolidated; the wider MMCG/Minster entities file separately and are not summed here. | £133M | +13% | 2,955 | FY to Sept 2024 |
| 13 | Bondcare Residential care home operator Bondcare (London) Ltd. | £95M | +14% | 2,114 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 14 | Colten Care Residential care home operator Premium South-coast operator. | £94M | — | 1,965 | FY to Feb 2025 |
| 15 | Greensleeves not-for-profit care Greensleeves Homes Trust. | £88M | +13% | 1,845 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 16 | CHIC specialist care Community Homes of Intensive Care and Education — complex-needs care. | £87M | +14% | 2,032 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 17 | Avery Avery Homes (Nelson) Limited; the Avery Healthcare Group topco files full accounts but discloses no turnover line. | £81M | +8% | 1,699 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 18 | Agincare Agincare Homes Holdings Limited, consolidated. | £80M | +24% | 1,673 | FY to Jul 2025 |
| 19 | Myriad Myriad Group Limited, consolidated. | £79M | +9% | 1,541 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 20 | Brandon Trust learning disability charity | £78M | +2% | 2,509 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 21 | The Disabilities Trust specialist care charity | £73M | +22% | 1,800 | FY to May 2025 |
| 22 | Beaumont Care Homes | £72M | +18% | 1,756 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 23 | Healthcare Homes Healthcare Homes Group Limited, consolidated. | £71M | +9% | 1,784 | FY to Sept 2024 |
| 24 | Eleanor Health Care | £67M | +19% | 1,529 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 25 | Akari Care | £67M | +12% | 1,846 | FY to Oct 2024 |
| 26 | Colleycare | £66M | +8% | 1,204 | FY to Sept 2025 |
| 27 | Country Court Country Court Care Homes 2 Limited. | £64M | +5% | 1,498 | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 28 | Ideal Carehomes Residential care home operator Ideal Carehomes (Number One) Limited. | £63M | — | 1,167 | FY to Sept 2025 |
| 29 | North Bay North Bay Group Ltd. | £61M | +10% | 1,441 | FY to Jun 2025 |
| 30 | Care South not-for-profit care | £60M | +8% | 1,287 | FY to Mar 2025 |
The next 1
Firms ranked 31–31
| 31 | Renaissance Care | £53M | +15% | FY to Nov 2025 |
The firms we can't rank
In care, the missing names are the story: private-equity structuring and mutual/charitable status keep some of the biggest providers off a filed-turnover ranking.
- Priory, Cygnet, Elysium — independent mental-health hospital operators (£500M–£800M each) — an adjacent healthcare market, not residential care homes
- Four Seasons Health Care — the former giant restructured through administration; its remaining entities file offshore or without comparable turnover
- Bupa Care Homes — reports inside the Bupa group; no separate UK care-arm turnover filing
- CareTech / Caretech — taken private; files audit-exempt with no rankable UK group turnover
- Voyage Care — audit-exempt opco filing; the group’s bond accounts carry no comparable turnover line
- Anchor — England’s largest not-for-profit care and housing provider — a community benefit society, not a company at Companies House
How this list is built
Source. The latest annual accounts each firm filed at Companies House. Where a firm files consolidated group accounts, the group figure is used; the entity ranked is named under each firm. Where a firm filed a transition period longer or shorter than twelve months (flagged in the Accounts column), the table shows the filed figure but the firm is ranked on its annualised equivalent.
Who counts as a care home operator. Residential and nursing care providers — elderly, specialist and supported-living, for-profit and charitable, tagged by type. We exclude property holding companies (rent, not care fees), opco shells that file a large turnover against a handful of staff, acute mental-health hospital groups (Priory, Cygnet, Elysium — an adjacent market), and intra-group subsidiaries of ranked operators.
Scope. The entity that actually delivers the care is ranked, not the propco or acquisition holdco above it. Where a group files only audit-exempt opcos with no consolidated turnover (Bupa Care, CareTech, Voyage), or restructured through administration (Four Seasons), or isn't a company at all (Anchor, a community benefit society), it is named in the firms we can't rank rather than estimated.
Cadence. Rebuilt monthly as new accounts land. Spot a operator we've missed or misread? Tell us — the methodology only works if it's challenged.
Quick answers
- Who is the biggest care home operator in the UK?
- Barchester — £967M in its latest filed accounts with 17,200 staff. Care UK and HC-One follow; HC-One runs the most homes, while Barchester earns the most revenue.
- Why aren't Bupa, Four Seasons or CareTech ranked?
- Their numbers aren't filed in a comparable way: Bupa's care arm reports inside the global Bupa group, Four Seasons was broken up through administration, and CareTech was taken private and now files audit-exempt. Each is named in the firms we can't rank rather than estimated. Anchor, England's largest not-for-profit provider, is a community benefit society and doesn't file at Companies House at all.
- Are charities and not-for-profits included?
- Yes — 7 of the operators here are charities or not-for-profits (MHA, the Orders of St John Care Trust, Turning Point, Greensleeves and others), billing £995M between them. They file at Companies House like any company and compete directly with the PE-backed groups.
- Why are some big-sounding care numbers excluded?
- Private-equity ownership has wrapped many operators in property/operating-company splits and acquisition holdcos. Where a filing is a propco (rent, not care fees) or an opco shell with a handful of staff against a huge turnover, we exclude it and rank the entity that actually delivers the care. Mental-health hospital groups (Priory, Cygnet, Elysium) are a separate market, noted not ranked.