If you’ve noticed that your local vet practice seems to have changed hands recently, you’re not imagining it. The UK veterinary sector has undergone one of the most rapid consolidations of any profession in recent memory, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.
In 2013, independent practices accounted for around 90% of the veterinary market. By 2024, six corporate groups owned approximately 60% of UK vet practices. The “big six” are CVS Group, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus (owned by Mars Veterinary Health), Medivet, VetPartners, and Pets at Home via its Vets4Pets brand. Between them, they have reshaped what it means to work in veterinary practice in the UK.
So yes, independent vets still exist. But the landscape around them has changed significantly, and if you’re considering a career in veterinary practice, that matters.
How did we get here?
Until 1999, only qualified and registered vets could own a veterinary practice. That rule kept practices in professional hands and made the partnership model the standard route to seniority. You’d join a practice as an assistant, build your career, buy into a partnership, and eventually have a stake in something you’d helped build.
Deregulation opened the door to outside investment. Corporate consolidators, many backed by private equity, began acquiring practices in increasing numbers. The model is straightforward: buy practices at scale, achieve efficiencies through centralised purchasing and administration, and grow revenue. The practices often retain their original names, which is why many owners don’t realise their local independent has changed hands.
What it means for pet owners
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a formal investigation into the veterinary sector in 2024, partly in response to concerns about pricing and transparency. The CMA’s own research found that independent practices generally priced below corporate-owned practices on routine services. Average veterinary invoices have risen around 60% since 2014, a rise that has run alongside, though is not solely attributable to, the consolidation trend.
In 2025, the CMA introduced a price-transparency order requiring all UK practices, corporate and independent alike, to publish prices clearly, disclose dispensing fees, and inform clients of their right to a written prescription. It’s a step toward accountability, though critics argue it doesn’t address the underlying competition concerns.
What it means if you work in the sector
For veterinary professionals, the consolidation debate is about more than prices. It touches on working conditions, clinical autonomy, career progression, and culture.
Some vets and nurses report that corporate ownership brings genuine benefits: investment in equipment, structured CPD, clear career pathways, and the stability of a larger employer behind them. Centralised HR, maternity and sickness cover, and professional support structures can be a real improvement on the underfunded independent practice model.
Others describe increased pressure on appointment times, targets that feel at odds with clinical judgement, and a sense that decision-making has moved further from the consulting room. The British Veterinary Union, part of Unite, has been vocal about working conditions in the sector, particularly in corporate-owned practices.
The reality varies considerably between employers and even between individual practices within the same group. A corporate-owned practice with strong local leadership can be an excellent place to work. An underfunded independent can be the opposite. The ownership model is one factor, not the whole picture.
Are independents worth seeking out?
If you’re looking for work in veterinary practice and the independent model appeals to you, they are still out there. Sole-practitioner practices, small partnerships, charity practices and specialist independents continue to operate across the UK, often in rural areas and smaller towns where the economics of corporate acquisition are less attractive.
Some vets who left corporate employment have set up new independent practices, partly in response to the very concerns described above. There’s also a growing number of smaller regional groups that sit between the traditional independent and the big six: professionally owned, multi-site, but not backed by private equity.
If you’re starting out
If you’re entering the veterinary sector, you’re likely to start your career in a corporate-owned practice simply because they now represent the majority of employers. That’s not necessarily a problem. The key is understanding what you’re working within: what the ownership structure means for how decisions get made, what progression looks like, and what your rights are as an employee.
Knowing how to ask the right questions at interview, understanding what clinical autonomy you’ll have, and being clear about your own values around practice culture will serve you better than approaching every corporate practice with suspicion or every independent with uncritical enthusiasm.
The sector is changing. The independent vet isn’t extinct, but the profession your predecessors trained into looks quite different from the one you’re entering. Going in with clear eyes is the best starting point.