The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has directly awarded a £240.6 million contract to US technology company Palantir to continue to licence and support its data analytics work.
The MoD signed the three-year deal, starting on 1 April, with the company’s UK unit on 30 December. A contract notice published on 23 January describes the work as “a follow on enterprise agreement… for continued licensing and support to data analytics capabilities supporting critical strategic, tactical and live operational decision making across classifications across defense and interoperable with Nato and other allied nations Palantir systems”. The ministry says in the contract notice that a redacted version of the contract itself will be available on request 90 days after its award date.
The department used a defense and security exemption to justify awarding the contract directly rather than running a procurement competition.
In an article about the deal on Saturday, OpenDemocracy, an investigative website, said that Palantir hired four MoD officials in 2025, including in September Barnaby Kistruck, a former director of policy, a few days after he left the ministry. The Register confirmed this with MoD transparency data.
“We conduct comprehensive due diligence on any business appointments that may lead to concern,” an MoD spokesperson said. “We work diligently to enforce any conditions placed on individuals, fully investigating instances raised of breached policy and, if found valid, take appropriate action.” In December the MoD published restrictions it had imposed on Kistruck in his new job under its business appointment rules.
These included not drawing on information available to him from working for the government to provide his new employer with an unfair advantage over competitors, not making use of government contacts, and not advising on a specific bid or contract relating the MoD within 12 months of leaving. Palantir, chaired by former PayPal chief executive Peter Thiel, is known for its work for defense and government security bodies including the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Earlier this week hundreds of US technology staffers called on their employers to demand that ICE end deployments in American cities after its agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis.
In September last year, the UK government agreed a deal with Palantir under which it would base its European defense work in Britain, creating up to 350 new jobs. The most recent accounts [PDF] for the company’s British subsidiary, Palantir Technologies UK Ltd, reported that it employed an average of 749 people in 2024, down from 842 in 2023.
Palantir provides the National Health Service in England with a Federated Data Platform under a £330 million ($453 million) seven year contract awarded in November 2023. Green party leader Zack Polanski said last week that the government should terminate the contract when it is reviewed next year: “This Trump-supporting military surveillance outfit has no place in Britain’s most important institution,” he said. The integrated care board for Greater Manchester, which covers 2.8 million people, has delayed joining the Federated Data Platform saying it needs more evidence this would be in the best interests of Mancunians. ®
