SThree Stock

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SThree's Q3 Trading Update of FY '26. I'm joined by our Interim CFO, Damian Fehrenberg. And today, we will give you an overview of our Q3 performance, following which we will be happy to take your questions.

Our Q3 performance showed continued sequential improvement with further positive new business activity, supporting growth in our contractor order book. We are encouraged by the improving trends we're seeing in the growing numbers of countries and by the continued resilience of our contract business.

While market conditions remain mixed, we're seeing encouraging signs of stabilization supported by growth in U.S.A., moderating declines in several markets and continued productivity gains across the group. Alongside these market dynamics, the actions we have taken to strengthen our operating model and sharpen our focus on higher growth opportunities are supporting our improved performance.

Operating entirely on a single standardized end-to-end platform, we're now seeing sustained and visible benefits across the business, supporting greater efficiency, higher quality execution and faster delivery for our clients.

I will now pass over to Damian to talk us through the financials. Damian, over to you.

Thank you, Timo. Let me start with a key takeaway from the quarter. The direction of travel continues to improve. In the last quarter itself, our net fees were down 2% year-on-year. When compared with declines of 6% in Q2 and with 8% in Q1, this is another sequential improvement. A highlight is Contract, where Q3 net fees were broadly in line with the prior year. On the Permanent side, the decline was 8%.

So market conditions remain mixed, but we have now seen a consistent moderation in the rate of decline throughout the year. And improving trajectory can be seen in 3 areas: improving demand trends, productivity, broadening signs of recovery. All of those 3 moved in the right direction during the quarter.

So let's start with improving demand trends. One of the most positive developments in Q3 was that Contract new business activity grew year-on-year and also improved quarter-on-quarter. Encouragingly, 6 out of 11 Contract countries delivered growth year-on-year. This includes 4 in Europe. Extension activity also remained resilient.

Contract represents around 84% of group net fees. And unlike Permanent recruitment, where revenue is recognized in full when a candidate starts, Contract net fees are recognized over the life of the contract. As a result, there's always a lag between improving placement activity and the impact becoming visible in reported net fees. It also makes it more resilient in a downturn. That is why new business activity is such an important leading indicator for the group.

Today's placements become tomorrow's net fees. We started to see positive signs in new placement activity towards the end of last year. In the first half of this year, activity was stable year-on-year, but improved quarter-on-quarter. That momentum has continued in Q3. This underpins our confidence in future performance.

The second area is productivity. Throughout FY '26, we have remained disciplined in how we manage the business. Period-end headcount was down 7% compared with the end of the last financial year, reflecting selective hiring, careful management of natural attrition and the ongoing delivery of our cost optimization program. At the same time, we continue to see positive signs from the technology investments and the operating model changes implemented over recent years.

Productivity remains one of the most important indicators we track because it tells us how efficiently the business is operating. The group's historic measure of productivity increased 9% year-on-year in Q3, maintaining the momentum delivered since the second half of last year.

We are generating more net fees per employee. That remains an important source of confidence as we continue to navigate mixed market conditions. It also supports our belief that the investments we have made in technology and operational efficiency are delivering.

The third area is the broadening signs of recovery we are seeing across the business as we expected. While the regional picture remains mixed, the recovery is becoming broader. The U.S.A. delivered another strong quarter with net fees growing 11% year-on-year. Demand remained healthy across a number of areas, particularly Life Sciences and Technology, supported by focused execution in attractive end markets. Engineering was broadly stable against a record prior year comparative with the underlying demand outlook remaining positive.

Japan was lower in Q3 against a particularly strong prior year comparative following 5 consecutive quarters of growth. Importantly, demand indicators remain encouraging, and we continue to see significant long-term opportunity in what remains a strategically important growth market for the group.

Europe remains more challenging, but the trend is improving. Germany continues to operate in a challenging environment, although the rate of decline moderated. The German Perm business has yet to reflect the broader recovery in trading momentum. The Netherlands grew against softer comparatives, while the U.K. also delivered a further moderation in its rate of decline.

So the simplest way to summarize the dynamic is the U.S.A. continues to lead the recovery, whilst Europe is becoming less of a headwind.

Turning to our skills verticals. After 4 years, Life Sciences returned to growth, increasing 8% year-on-year and benefiting from strong demand in the U.S.A., the group's largest life science market. Engineering declined 2% with growth in demand for roles in Germany and the Netherlands, a resilient performance in the U.S.A. against a record prior year comparative alongside declines in Japan and several smaller markets.

Technology declined 6% as growth in the U.S.A., the Netherlands and several smaller European countries only partially offset softer demand in other countries, albeit with moderating rates of decline in Germany and the U.K. The underlying theme across our markets and skill sets remain unchanged. Demand is evolving. Clients remain focused on critical STEM skills and continue to invest in areas aligned with their long-term strategic priorities.

The contractor order book provides further evidence of improving business momentum, increasing 5% year-on-year. The order book provides visibility equivalent of around 5 months of future net fees and reflects the improving momentum we are seeing in new business activity.

Finally, turning to costs, cash and the balance sheet. Our FY '26 cost optimization program remains on track. Costs associated with delivering the program were weighted towards the first half, while the benefits are weighted towards the second half. Those savings provide additional support to performance. We also continue to maintain a robust balance sheet with net cash of GBP 36 million at the end of August.

Alongside this, we have continued to execute our share buyback program with GBP 10.5 million worth of shares purchased as of yesterday. As noted in today's announcement, we now expect FY '26 profit before tax to be at least GBP 12 million, ahead of our previous guidance of around GBP 10 million. The increase primarily reflects a focus on working capital efficiencies and other one-off benefits, which are not expected to recur.

So to conclude, the direction of travel continued to improve in Q3. Demand trends strengthened, productivity gains were sustained, signs of recovery continue to broaden as expected. Taken together, these indicators reinforce our confidence in the improving trajectory of the business.

Thank you. I'll hand back to Timo.

Thanks, Damian. To summarize, we're seeing continued sequential improvement with positive new business activity giving us strong visibility to the growth in our contractor order book. This provides us with greater confidence in our trajectory as we look ahead. More broadly, the strategic investments and transformation initiatives we put in place years ago are creating a stronger platform for scalable growth. We believe that our differentiated platform positions us to lead through this next stage of development with the use of AI and return to growth. And finally, as Damian referenced, we now expect to deliver PBT of at least GBP 12 million in FY '26.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining us today for our half year results briefing. I would like to introduce you to Damian Fehrenberg, our Interim CFO since 30th of April. Damian has extensive experience working at SThree, most recently as the Senior Vice President of Finance for our U.S. business, and it's great to have him here today presenting the results alongside me.

Hello.

Together, we will be walking you through the half year numbers, our strategic progress and discussing the outlook. This year marks SThree's 40th anniversary. So it feels like a fitting moment to reflect on how much the business has evolved and acknowledging that this evolution has been shaped by 4 decades of specialist networks, client relationships and STEM expertise, which continue to underpin the business today. From these foundations, we have grown into STEM workforce consultancy that is deeply embedded in client operations across Europe, the U.S.A., and the Middle East and Asia. Despite turbulences in recent years, STEM skills have only become more important and sit at the heart of innovation, workforce change and long-term client demand.

Today, you will hear how the strategic decisions we have been making will position us well for the next 40 years. As most of you know, our well-established strategy sits at the heart of 2 long-term growth trends, STEM and flexible talent. In its simplest, we help clients access the specialist STEM skills they need through a contract-led technology-enabled model that gives us a clear proposition, attractive economics and exposure to long-term structural growth trends. Our focus on these trends has never been more relevant from AI adoption and data center investment to the energy transition and health care innovation, specialist STEM skills remain critical to the markets we serve.

At the same time, skill shortages remain a persistent challenge with demand for expertise continuing to outpace supply in many areas of engineering, technology and life sciences. All of these dynamics point to the same conclusion. Long-term demand for STEM capabilities remain strong, and we are well positioned to support clients through this transition. The first half of FY '26 has been an important one. TIP is now fully embedded. We saw improvement in trading momentum through the period, and we're building an organization that is future-ready. We saw strong performances in the U.S.A. and Japan, stable year-over-year new placement activity underpinned by productivity gains and a return to growth in our contractor order book.

We are encouraged by the improving trends we are seeing in a growing number of countries and by the continued resilience of our contract business. H1 marked the first full reporting period in which the group operated entirely on a single standardized end-to-end platform, and we're now seeing more sustained and visible benefits across the business, supporting greater efficiency, higher quality execution and a faster delivery for clients. Looking ahead, we are cautiously optimistic. As workforce needs become more complex, clients increasingly require partners that can combine specialist expertise, workforce solutions and technology-enabled delivery. We believe SThree is well positioned to meet those needs. We are at the forefront of change, and we intend to build on this position by continuing to develop and deploy new capabilities at pace. I will now pass over to Damian to talk us through the financials.

Thank you, Timo. It's a pleasure to be here today and to be presenting my first set of results as interim CFO. Before I begin, I would like to thank my predecessor, Andy, for the smooth handover and all his hard work over the past 5 years. He has significantly strengthened both the finance and IR functions, which leaves us in a really strong position. Let's start with a summary of the half year performance. Over the last 6 months, together with more than 2,000 colleagues around the world, we generated around GBP 600 million of revenue from our 6,000 clients. We captured around GBP 148 million of that in net fees, which was 7% lower than a year ago. Of this, we converted 2.3% into operating profit, which stands at GBP 3.4 million.

Whilst this is 67% lower than last year, it is important to remember that H1 was not a normal period. In addition to lower net fees, reflecting ongoing soft market conditions, particularly in Europe, the first half was impacted by nonrecurring costs to deliver our cost optimization program. Some of that pressure was offset through disciplined management of the cost base. This drop in OP, which we anticipated, is worth exploring further. A year ago, we made GBP 10 million OP. That was already an unusually low level of profit for SThree, reflecting the prolonged downturn. This year, on an underlying basis, we made GBP 9.8 million of OP. That was despite a further decline in net fees as the benefits of prior cost actions and disciplined cost management helped to offset some of that pressure.

We also paid for GBP 6.4 million of one-off costs. A core element of that funded the centralization of key operational activities into our Glasgow Center of Excellence. Our underlying profit is broadly in line with the prior year. These cost optimization actions will support a return towards more historic levels of profit. Reported profit still includes these one-off costs paid during the period. This gives us GBP 3.4 million of OP for the half year. So you can see that the figure looks lower than it would have otherwise been. The benefits of those actions will start to come through in the second half of the year, providing additional support to meet our full year guidance.

Let's come back to the key factors behind the 7% decline in net fees. While net fees remained below last year, the rate of decline moderated through the half as strong growth in the U.S.A. increasingly offset ongoing softness and parts of Europe. Much of that performance can be explained by what we are seeing across our largest skills. Starting with technology, our largest skill set by net fees, which declined 14% year-on-year. In DACH, our largest region for tech, vacancies for software developers fell 22% this year. However, client spending has increasingly shifted towards the AI value chain. A key phase is the migration to the public cloud so they can access AI functionalities from the ERP providers.

So far, just over half of German businesses are on paid cloud computing services. As a result, ERP is now a bigger part of our tech offering than software development. Engineering, our second largest skill, was broadly stable in the half, declining just 1% year-on-year. In the U.S.A., our largest region for engineering, rising electricity consumption is generating growing demand for our services to help power utilities with multiyear CapEx projects around grid hardening, grid expansion and power generation. Life Sciences declined 8% year-on-year, but the rate of decline eased through the half. This was supported by the U.S.A., our largest Life Sciences business, returning to growth in Q2. That was its first quarter of growth in 4 years following the post-COVID boom.

A growing niche is the construction of new life science facilities from companies reshoring production. Taken together, these dynamics help explain the performance we are seeing and highlight how client demand is shifting across our markets and skill sets. Demand is evolving. One of the most significant changes in our business has been the shift towards employed contractors. Back in 2019, most of our workforce augmentation for clients was delivered by independent contractors. Over the years, this has shifted decisively to employed contractors who now generate 42% of group net fees. Employed contractor margins are higher because we assume additional risks and complexity on behalf of our clients. Our services are subject to a complex and constantly evolving regulatory environment. They require compliance expertise, efficient operational infrastructures and a strong balance sheet. This creates a moat. The barriers to entry are high, and we continue to benefit from the ongoing trend towards flexible workforce models.

This net fee mix sets us apart from larger industry peers and is further reinforced by our focus on STEM disciplines. Looking now at the future visibility of our contract business. The contractor order book represents the value of contracts written up to the contractual end date, assuming that all contracted hours are worked. The book returned to growth, increasing 3% year-on-year. This was our first period of growth in the contract book since Q1 of 2023. It reflects strong momentum in the U.S.A. alongside Japan and Spain and a broader moderation in the rate of decline across the rest of the contract countries. The order book provides reliable forward visibility relative to more perm-focused staffing businesses with the equivalent of around 5 months' worth of future net fees already booked. In addition to the momentum in the order book, the underlying indicators across our contract businesses remain resilient.

New business activity in the first half was stable year-over-year and improved quarter-on-quarter. Encouragingly, 6 out of 11 contract countries delivered growth year-on-year. This includes 4 in Europe, while the remaining European countries saw reductions in their rates of decline. Extension rates remained resilient over the half, supporting average contract lengths of 58 weeks. Contract margins increased slightly to 21.7%, reflecting disciplined pricing control, particularly on extensions. The group's historic measure on productivity increased 9% year-on-year as net fees declined less than average headcount, building on the improvement delivered in the second half of the last year, which was up 5%. In other words, we are generating more net fees per employee.

Looking ahead, we continue to expect to deliver sustainable productivity gains over the midterm as the benefits of our strategic investment in digital infrastructure come through as anticipated. Six months after completing the global rollout of our new technology platform, we continue to see encouraging indicators of benefit realization, which Timo will expand on later in the presentation, supporting our confidence in the productivity opportunity ahead. Looking at our net cash. Despite mixed market conditions, we continue to maintain a robust net cash position. Consistent with historical trends, our half year cash balance is typically lower than our year-end position. The reduction in net cash since the end of last year primarily reflects lower operating profit generated in the period and increased working capital investment.

As shown in the bridge, we then see our usual outflows, including tax, lease principal payments and CapEx, share purchases for the employee benefit trust and dividend payments. Following the purchase of GBP 6 million worth of shares under the buyback program, we closed the half year with net cash of GBP 43 million. Moving on to look at dividends and our capital allocation policy. Our overarching intention is to always maximize value for our shareholders. We look to maintain a strong balance sheet to underpin our strategic ambition while also providing shareholders with a sustainable through-the-cycle dividend. We then prioritize our deployment of capital in the order shown.

Despite the reduction in near-term profitability, we continue to have strong confidence in the future of the business. So I'm pleased to confirm that we will be paying an interim dividend of 5.1p per share, in line with the last year. The Board's decision to maintain the dividend represents another departure from our stated dividend policy. It reflects a considered assessment of the group's trading performance, future outlook and the strength of the balance sheet. So to sum up, the trend in net fees improved through the half, supported by continued growth in the U.S.A. Contract extensions remained resilient and new business activity was stable year-on-year with momentum improving across a growing number of countries.

Profit reflects lower net fees and nonrecurring costs, partly offset by disciplined cost management. Excluding these nonrecurring items, underlying operating profit was broadly in line with the prior year reported profit. With the benefits of our first half cost optimization weighted towards H2, we remain confident in delivering our full year expectation. We also maintain a robust balance sheet, providing the flexibility to fund shareholder returns while positioning us well to support our future ambitions. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Timo.

Thank you, Damian. We will now turn to look at what we have achieved strategically throughout the period in more detail. We anticipated earlier how our industry was set to evolve and over recent years, implemented clear strategic initiatives that are now being seen across our operations. Looking at these initiatives in turn, let's start with our places. More than 3 years ago, we simplified the business, actively reducing our footprint from 16 to 11 countries. This enabled us to focus on markets where we have the right balance of scale and opportunity. Our deliberate focus is delivering with 10 of our 11 contract markets seeing improvements in new business activity.

More recently, we proactively increased our emphasis on the U.S.A. and Japan, 2 markets where the scale of STEM demand and structural growth trends present significant opportunity. We aligned ourselves to industries undergoing long-term transformations. In U.S., demand for energy is being supported by investments in grid hardening and electrification, with roles related to data center construction and AI-linked energy infrastructure. Additionally, we are seeing the demand for technology role shifting towards the AI value chain, an area where we have strong expertise. In Japan, we continue to see an attractive permanent market across all skills verticals, particularly technology. We believe that U.S. and Japan would be the first to rebound, and this prediction has been proven right with both markets delivering strong growth in period.

In Germany, we expect the stimulus announced last year to build progressively and flow through more meaningfully from 2027 onwards as implementation gathers pace. The increased investment is expected to support activity across areas such as public sector, including defense, construction and other STEM-intensive fields, areas where we're well positioned to support. Turning to our platform. We have a video to highlight how things are progressing now that TIP is fully embedded, the positive impact it's having across our organization and how the foundations built over the last years are enabling us to continue deploying new digital and AI-enabled capabilities at pace.

At our full year results in January, we explained how TIP had been successfully deployed across the group and was beginning to deliver results. Six months on, TIP is now embedded and the operational benefits are becoming increasingly clear, particularly in contract. Importantly, TIP was never just a technology program. It was designed to transform how we operate, how we serve customers, how we scale and how we create value across the business. Today, we will focus on 3 things: First, the operational benefits already being delivered. Second, the strategic advantage created by a single global platform and data model; and thirdly, how TIP is changing day-to-day behavior across the organization.

Ultimately, TIP was an essential investment in SThree's future. We recognized early that the industry would increasingly be shaped by data, automation and AI. But none of those capabilities can be fully realized without standardized processes, integrated systems and high-quality data. TIP has delivered that foundation. As TIP has moved from rollout to being embedded in how we operate, we have been able to deliver annualized cost savings that already show a very strong ROI on our investment. But equally important is how we are seeing the benefits of giving our people best practices at their fingertips, freeing them up to spend more time on building relationships, applying judgment and deepening the specialist market knowledge.

To demonstrate this, we will compare contract in H1 FY '26 with H1 FY '23, which provides a clean baseline as the last complete half year period before the rollout. Looking at performance across the key steps of the contract life cycle. First, client engagement is increasing, reflecting the increased time consultants can spend on client-facing activities. Client meetings are up 69% per consultant, supporting stronger relationships and better access to job opportunities. Second, pipeline quality is improving, not just volume, A-graded jobs, which represents the highest quality mandates and the conversion probability is strongest are up 41% per consultant. Third, delivery efficiency is improving. Time to placement across contract is now 1 day faster, equivalent to a 4% improvement within 6 months of the rollout completing, which when you consider that we are working with around 9,000 contractors at any point in time represents a marked difference.

And at an overall contract level, this means candidates are being deployed and revenue is being generated earlier. Finally, this is translating into higher consultant productivity with placements per consultant up 6% across the group. Taken together, these KPIs demonstrate that TIP is delivering tangible operational benefits in contract. It's improving engagement, accelerating delivery and driving consultant productivity. In turn, this has supported the stable new business performance in H1 despite lower headcount. To bring this to life, we will now hear directly from colleagues across the business on how TIP is embedded in their day-to-day work and the impact it's having.

Hello. I'm Matt McManus. I've been at SThree for 30 years and was recently appointed Chief Commercial Officer after leading our U.S. business as President. Over that time, I've seen firsthand how the organization has changed from how we operated before TIP to how we run the business today. For me, as a leader, the benefits are hugely strategic. TIP has given us one global platform, standardized processes and crucially one view of our clients and candidates. We've moved from multiple systems, fragmented data and inconsistent workflows to a fully integrated technology environment. Today, our CRM, operational systems and data platform work together as one connected ecosystem. One of the key benefits of the platform is the data that's embedded in the dashboards and the daily management routines.

For me, the dashboard is how I start my day. It's the first thing I look at because it gives me an immediate view of the leading indicators we track, where the order book is, where jobs and interviews are coming from, where client growth is building and where we need to act quickly. So I'm not starting with assumptions or anecdotes, I'm starting with facts. That improves the quality of my decisions because I can see where I can need to focus my time, where the team needs support and where we have the opportunities to move faster. But technology only matters if it changes how people work every day, and that is where we're seeing real change. Let's hear from Daniel about the workflows they're using.

Hello. I'm Daniel Goldhammer, and I'm Head of Sales, DACH. The biggest change for me is that TIP is now embedded in how we work every day together across the DACH region. It has enabled us to have better tools, deeper insights and a more consistent way to manage activities across the sales process. In terms of business development, it has transformed how we research and develop customers. The result is not simply more activity. We are helping consultants identify better opportunities earlier, deepen client understanding and build stronger relationships. This improves access to higher quality mandates, includes more exclusive assignments where conversion rates typically strongest.

On the candidate side, AI integration is making searches more accurate and efficient while more tailored candidate summaries and sales pitches help us to deliver stronger matches faster. What I find particularly exciting is that the platform continues to evolve. New functionalities, automation and AI capability are being added regularly, allowing us to extract even greater value for the stronger foundation TIP has created. It has not changed what we are trying to achieve as a business, but it has significantly improved how we achieve it. The impact of TIP extends beyond the front office. Karen will explain next how it's transforming our operating model.

Hello. I'm Karen Chalmers. I've been with SThree since 2018. And today, I'm Director of Global Operations, leading global candidate operations function. As part of our Transformation Program, we established a Global Centre of Excellence in Glasgow, bringing together key operations activities into a single hub. This wasn't just a relocation. We mobilized around 90 roles across 3 core functions: placement support, ECM payroll and service support. We built a diverse global capability from scratch, while simultaneously addressing years of operational complexity, including data gaps, backlogs and inconsistent processes. TIP gave us a systems foundation to consolidate regional operations into Glasgow. We documented and standardized global processes, including common service levels being rolled out and established a consistent operating model supported by the new platform.

That has improved both control and service quality, creating greater consistency across our global operations. The results speak for themselves. The new model has delivered meaningful efficiency benefits while creating greater operating leverage for future growth. At the same time, service levels have improved significantly. Since March 2026, we've reduced ServiceNow query SLA from 141 hours to 54, a 60% improvement. We've also supported 6,500 global placements and introduced new capabilities that didn't exist before, including a dedicated VIP concierge support for our highest-performing sales consultants, helping reduce administrative burden and protect revenue generation. This centralization was underpinned by the wider Microsoft ERP and technology integration delivered through TIP. Combined with ServiceNow, it gives us real-time visibility of service performance, operational trends and customer issues, allowing us to move from retrospective reporting to active management.

In short, TIP hasn't just modernized our systems. It has enabled an entirely new operating model. We've moved from fragmented regional operations to a more consistent, scalable and data-driven global service model, capable of supporting future growth without proportional increases in costs.

The message from today is simple. TIP is delivering measurable benefits today while creating significant strategic advantages for tomorrow. Firstly, better performance, stronger client engagement, faster delivery and higher consultant productivity. Secondly, better infrastructure, one global platform, one data lake and standardized ways of working. And thirdly, better future readiness, a foundation for automation, digital innovation and AI, which I will talk through now. By integrating our systems, standardizing processes and creating a single data environment, we have built an operating platform that is simpler, more scalable and capable of developing and evolving over time. As a result, we can deploy new digital capabilities faster and more consistently across the group.

Looking ahead, we believe AI will fundamentally reshape Workforce Solutions. However, the biggest winners won't be those with the most AI tools. They will be those with the best data, the most integrated platform and the most scalable operating models. TIP redesigned our end-to-end processes to give SThree those foundations. That is already driving change in the operating model, as Karen mentioned. Put simply, we are breaking the old link between growth and back-office complexity. That creates a business with greater operational leverage. While the full benefit of the leverage will come through as market volumes recover, we are already seeing gains in efficiency, better decision-making and the foundations for future automation and effective use of agentic AI-enabled capabilities. That is the strategic significance of the transformation we have delivered. The platform is in place, the benefits are coming through and will create strategic value for many years to come.

Our customer pillar is focused on driving growth through deeper client relationships, stronger candidate networks and greater exposure to larger enterprise accounts where demand has been more resilient. As we centralize and automate routine activity made possible through TIP, our consultants are increasingly freed to do what technology cannot. Build trusted client relationships, understand workforce challenges, advise on solutions and mobilize the right specialist talent at pace. The case study on the left side demonstrates how we help clients navigate regulatory change while maintaining operational performance. Our client, a leading U.S. natural gas transmission company was undertaking a $4.6 billion asset modernization program to upgrade critical pipeline infrastructure across its networks and meet increasingly stringent safety and reliability requirements.

The scale and pace of the program created significant workforce challenges, particularly given tight project windows and ongoing contractor attrition. Leveraging our existing sector expertise and relationships, we partner closely with the client to source and deliver 26 highly skilled professionals, helping the client maintain project time lines and support the successful delivery of its asset modernization program. Importantly, energy infrastructure investment and regulatory-driven asset upgrades continue to generate sustained demand for specialist STEM talent, providing SThree with exposure to resilient and attractive long-term market. The right-hand side highlights our ability to deliver critical talent in one of the most challenging data center recruitment markets.

The client needed a highly skilled team to support a major hyperscale data center program where stringent compliance requirements, a difficult tax environment and shortages of specialist electrical talent created significant challenges. By leveraging our specialist data center expertise and providing a fully compliant talent solution, we rapidly deploy project managers, construction managers and senior electrical engineers helping keep critical work on schedule. The result was the successful delivery of a full team within weeks of initial engagement with full compliance achieved throughout. Demand for hyperscale data centers is high, driven by the need for cloud infrastructure and AI, providing SThree with exposure to a structurally attractive source of STEM demand.

The full value of our transformation is realized through our people. This would not have been possible without the support and willingness of our teams across the globe to embrace change. The long-standing SThree sales blueprint is being brought to life through the TIP implementation being paired with investments in training and change management. We are continuing to push a high-performance culture across our sales function through our performance frameworks and unified people platform. As our colleagues explained in the video earlier, TIP enables us to have a truly common and defined way of operating across all our markets, leveraging best practice. And we're equipping our consultants with the tools, training expertise to deepen client relationships and strengthen their roles as trusted STEM workforce consultants.

Underpinning these, as Karen mentioned, with our shared service centre in Glasgow is a more fundamental reshaping of how our organization is structured to drive consistent, high-quality execution across the group. We have improved control, strengthened data quality and importantly, have begun to decouple growth in net fees from growth in support costs. This creates a more scalable operating model in which higher volumes can be absorbed. And finally, our proposition pillar. At our full year results, we talked about how we see ourselves as a workforce consultancy and the broad suite of our solutions. Today, I want to highlight the increasingly complex workforce challenges our clients face and the strategic advantages that position us to help solve them. Those challenges include scarce STEM skills, the need for speed and scale without compromising quality, increasing regulatory complexity, ongoing cost and productivity pressure and crucially, partner accountability.

Our response is underpinned by a number of strategic advantages. It is built on deep STEM expertise, global workforce delivery capability, specialist talent networks and workforce intelligence deployed over decades. Together, these strengths enable us to convert STEM workforce complexity into value for our customers, deepening client relationships and helping us to win more complex, higher-value opportunities as we have seen in U.S.A., where this model is already well established. To sum up, whilst mindful of our continued macro and geopolitical uncertainty, particularly in Europe, we entered the second half with cautious optimism with our full year guidance being reiterated. We are seeing improving momentum in selected markets, notably the U.S. and Japan, where our target initiatives are delivering. Pleasingly, new placement activities have shown improving momentum across the group through the half, supported by stronger productivity and greater operational efficiency.

The strategic and proactive initiatives we made years ago will support more scalable growth over time. These foundational changes were incredibly important as whilst we believe that the future winners will be AI-enabled businesses, including agentic AI, having the technology is not enough. The data, the end-to-end processes and the people that sit behind the technology are just as important. This supports our conviction that the end-to-end transformation we have undertaken across all aspects of our business positions us at the forefront in addressing these barriers and sets us up for the continued innovation and return to growth.

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At our full year results in January, we explained how TIP had been successfully deployed across the group and was beginning to deliver results. 6 months on, TIP is now embedded and the operational benefits are becoming increasingly clear, particularly in Contract. Importantly, TIP was never just a technology program. It was designed to transform how we operate, how we serve customers, how we scale and how we create value across the business.

Today, we will focus on 3 things: First, the operational benefits already being delivered. Second, the strategic advantage created by a single global platform and data model; and thirdly, how TIP is changing day-to-day behavior across the organization. Ultimately, TIP was an essential investment in SThree's future. We recognized early that the industry will increasingly be shaped by data, automation and AI.

But none of those capabilities can be fully realized without standardized processes, integrated systems and high-quality data. TIP has delivered that foundation. As TIP has moved from rollout to being embedded in how we operate, we have been able to deliver annualized cost savings that already show a very strong ROI on our investment. But equally importantly is how we are seeing the benefits of giving our people best practices at their fingertips, freeing them up to spend more time on building relationships, applying judgment and deepening their specialist market knowledge.

To demonstrate this, we will compare Contract in H1 FY '26 with H1 FY '23, which provides a clean baseline as the last complete half year period before the rollout. Looking at performance across the key steps of the Contract life cycle. First, client engagement is increasing, reflecting the increased time consultants can spend on client-facing activities, client meetings are up 69% per consultant, supporting stronger relationships and better access to job opportunities.

Second, pipeline quality is improving, not just volume, A-graded jobs, which represents the highest quality mandates and where conversion probability is strongest are up 41% per consultant. Third, delivery efficiency is improving. Time to placement across Contract is now 1 day faster, equivalent to a 4% improvement within 6 months of the rollout completing, which when you consider that we are working with around 9,000 contractors at any point in time represents a marked difference. And at an overall Contract level, this means candidates are being deployed and revenue is being generated earlier.

Finally, this is translating into higher consultant productivity with placements per consultant up 6% across the group. Taken together, these KPIs demonstrate that TIP is delivering tangible operational benefits in Contract. It's improving engagement, accelerating delivery and driving consultant productivity. In turn, this has supported the stable new business performance in H1 despite lower headcount.

To bring this to life, we will now hear directly from colleagues across the business on how TIP is embedded in their day-to-day work and the impact it's having.

Hello. I'm Matt McManus. I've been at SThree for 30 years and was recently appointed Chief Commercial Officer after leading our U.S. business as President. Over that time, I have seen firsthand how the organization has changed from how we operated before TIP to how we run the business today. For me, as a leader, the benefits are hugely strategic.

TIP has given us one global platform, standardized processes and crucially one view of our clients and candidates. We've moved from multiple systems, fragmented data and inconsistent workflows to a fully integrated technology environment. Today, our CRM, operational systems and data platform work together as one connected ecosystem.

One of the key benefits of the platform is the data that's embedded in the dashboards and the daily management routines. For me, the dashboard is how I start my day. It's the first thing I look at because it gives me an immediate view of the leading indicators we track, where the order book is, where jobs and interviews are coming from, where client growth is building and where we need to act quickly.

So I'm not starting with assumptions or anecdotes, I'm starting with facts. That improves the quality of my decisions because I can see where I can need to focus my time, where the team needs support and where we have the opportunities to move faster. But technology only matters if it changes how people work every day, and that is where we're seeing real change.

Let's hear from Daniel about the workflows they're using.

Hello. I'm Daniel Goldthammer, and I'm Head of Sales DACH. The biggest change for me is that TIP is now embedded in how we work every day together across the DACH region. It has enabled us to have better tools, deeper insights and a more consistent way to manage activities across the sales process. In terms of business development, it has transformed how we research and develop customers. The result is not simply more activity.

We are helping consultants identify better opportunities earlier, deepen client understanding and build stronger relationships. This improves access to higher-quality mandates, includes more exclusive assignments where conversion rates typically strongest.

On the candidate side, AI integration is making searches more accurate and efficient while more tailored candidate summaries and sales pitches help us to deliver stronger matches faster. What I find particularly exciting is that the platform continues to evolve. New functionalities, automization and AI capability are being added regularly, allowing us to extract even greater value for the stronger foundation TIP has created. It has not changed what we are trying to achieve as a business, but it has significantly improved how we achieve it. The impact of TIP extends beyond the front office.

Karen will explain next how it's transforming our operating model.

Hello, I'm Karen Chalmers. I've been with SThree since 2018. And today, I'm Director of Global Operations, leading our global candidate operations function.

As part of our transformation program, we established a global Center of Excellence in Glasgow, bringing together key operations activities into a single hub. This wasn't just a relocation. We mobilized around 90 roles across 3 core functions: placement support, ECM payroll, and service support. We built a diverse global capability from scratch, while simultaneously addressing years of operational complexity, including data gaps, backlogs and inconsistent processes.

TIP gave us a system foundation to consolidate regional operations into Glasgow. We documented and standardized global processes, including common service levels being rolled out and established a consistent operating model supported by the new platform. That has improved both control and service quality, creating greater consistency across our global operations.

The results speak for themselves. The new model has delivered meaningful efficiency benefits while creating greater operating leverage for future growth. At the same time, service levels have improved significantly. Since March 2026, we've reduced ServiceNow query SLA from 141 hours to 54 hours, a 60% improvement. We've also supported 6,500 global placements and introduced new capabilities that didn't exist before, including a dedicated VIP concierge support for our highest-performing sales consultants, helping reduce administrative burden and protect revenue generation.

This centralization was underpinned by the wider Microsoft ERP and technology integration delivered through TIP. Combined with ServiceNow, it gives us real-time visibility of service performance, operational trends and customer issues, allowing us to move from retrospective reporting to active management.

In short, TIP hasn't just modernized our systems. It has enabled an entirely new operating model. We've moved from fragmented regional operations to a more consistent, scalable and data-driven global service model, capable of supporting future growth without proportional increases in costs.

The message from today is simple. TIP is delivering measurable benefits today while creating significant strategic advantages for tomorrow. Firstly, better performance, stronger client engagement, faster delivery and higher consultant productivity. Secondly, better infrastructure, one global platform, one data lake and standardized ways of working. And thirdly, better future readiness, a foundation for automation, digital innovation and AI, which I will talk through now.

By integrating our systems, standardizing processes and creating a single data environment, we have built an operating platform that is simpler, more scalable and capable of developing and evolving over time. As a result, we can deploy new digital capabilities faster and more consistently across the group. Looking ahead, we believe AI will fundamentally reshape Workforce Solutions.

However, the biggest winners won't be those with the most AI tools. They will be those with the best data, the most integrated platform and the most scalable operating models. TIP redesigned our end-to-end processes to give SThree those foundations. That is already driving change in the operating model, as Karen mentioned. Put simply, we are breaking the old link between growth and back-office complexity. That creates a business with greater operational leverage.

While the full benefit of the leverage will come through as market volumes recover, we are already seeing gains in efficiency, better decision-making and the foundations for future automation and effective use of Agentic AI-enabled capabilities. That is the strategic significance of the transformation we have delivered. The platform is in place, the benefits are coming through and will create strategic value for many years to come.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SThree's Q1 Trading Update of FY '26. I'm joined by our CFO, Andy Beach. And today, we will give you an overview of our Q1 performance. And as you may have seen, we have also made an announcement regarding Andy's position at SThree, which we will cover shortly. After our update, we will be happy to take questions.

FY '26 has started in line with our expectations with Q1 consistent with the outlook we shared at our full year results. We're seeing continued stabilization across the business with ongoing momentum in U.S.A. and Japan and a significant improvement in the year-on-year rate of decline in group net fees. This reflects the conclusion of an important contract renewal period for us alongside encouraging new business performance that is broadly consistent year-on-year.

Significantly, this performance highlights much higher productivity and improved operational efficiency. We have delivered this output with a much lower headcount. What we see is that our teams are both busier with higher activity, both -- but importantly, much more effective, delivering more placements per head. We've talked for 3 years about the importance of productivity alongside the implementation of our TIP, and it is encouraging to see this coming through with our strongest Q1 since FY 2022.

Our performance as well has been achieved against the backdrop of ongoing macroeconomic volatility, including geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological change, which continues to influence business priorities and investment decisions in our end markets. However, what we are seeing is that as workforce needs evolve in response to these factors, more organizations are turning to partners who can help manage increasing complexity, a trend that's only accelerating with the growth of AI. That plays directly to our strength and is reflected in the resilience of the employed contractor model as organizations shift away from purely transactional hiring towards a more scalable end-to-end workforce solution.

We have a clear view of what our operating model needs to be, and we are well underway in evolving it, ready for the new world of workforce consulting. At the same time, our chip has created a highly scalable operating platform built on a unified digital and data backbone with modern tech-ready workflows already deployed across the business. This platform enables us to integrate the latest advanced technologies, including generative AI, and we expect this to enhance candidate quality, increase delivery velocity and improve overall efficiency, strengthening the value proposition we offer to clients.

Taken together, this means we are uniquely positioned for the new world of work. In Europe alone, [ use at ] data shows that just other half of enterprises have yet to migrate to cloud infrastructure, creating a significant barrier to scale and a clear opportunity for us to support clients through the digital transformation journeys with our workforce solutions.

Before I hand over to Andy, after 5 years and a lot of hard work, we have announced this morning that he is stepping down. I would really like to take a moment to thank Andy for his contribution and significant commitment setting up an exceptional finance function, delivering things on time and on budget and leaving us at a point where our performance has stabilized, and we're confident of delivering our full year expectations. We're looking forward to Andy's continued support over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition as we carry out a thorough process to identify his successor.

With that, I will hand over to Andy.

Well, thanks for the kind words, Timo. The past 5 years have been incredibly rewarding for me. And although we faced a prolonged challenging backdrop, I think we definitely use this period wisely to strengthen the business and lay the foundations for the future. So after an orderly handover, I will be leaving SThree confident that the company is stable, well positioned and ready to seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

But now let's get on with the Q1 numbers. Group net fees were down 8% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, reflecting continued stabilization and trading conditions remaining largely consistent with the prior quarter. Our contract business, which represents 83% of group net fees, declined by 10%. New placement activity was broadly stable year-on-year and in line with our expectations. And as Timo mentioned, in the context of a mid-teens percentage reduction in sales headcount, this underlines the meaningful improvement in productivity that we are seeing, supported by our new technology platform.

Additionally, the first quarter included our key contract renewal period, and I'm pleased to say that extensions continue to demonstrate resilience and also delivered in line with our expectations. Notably, Contract net fees in the U.S. were up 13%, its third consecutive quarter of growth, partially offsetting a weaker performance in the Netherlands. Our permanent net fees were flat, marking our strongest quarterly year-on-year performance in over 3 years, supported by particularly strong trading from Japan, our second largest permanent business in the group.

So let's take a closer look at what's driven trading in the quarter, starting with the skill mix. Engineering, our second largest skill, declined by 5%, although the Energy segment continues to grow, reflecting strong demand for roles in the U.S.

Life Sciences, our third largest skill, was down 10% as strong growth in Japan only partially offset reduced demand across our other major markets. And technology, our largest discipline, declined by 14%, reflecting soft demand for roles, particularly in the Netherlands and Germany, which contributes around 60% of net fees.

I'll now go through our top 5 countries in turn and call out some of the key trends that we're seeing. In Germany, the moderation in the rate of decline year-on-year relative to Q4, was supported by a smaller year-on-year decline in Life Sciences and stronger demand for banking and finance roles.

For the period, Contract was down 11%, primarily reflecting lower demand for tech skills with a similar trend observed in permanent. In the U.S., Contract, which accounts for nearly 90% of net fees, delivered another strong performance, supported by demand across all of the skill verticals, but especially for energy and technology roles. This performance was partially offset by softer trading in permanent as demand moderated across most skill verticals with the exception of our other category where we've seen robust demand for banking and finance roles.

In the Netherlands, the market remains challenging with trading marginally softer than in Q4 due to the modest impact of new regulation introduced in January. In addition, the performance also reflects the fact that the Netherlands sustained growth for longer than our other larger markets, resulting in a continuation of strong prior year comparatives.

Contract, which accounts for over 90% of net fees, declined 29%, reflecting reduced demand for technology and engineering roles. In the U.K., we saw a 9 percentage point moderation in the rate of decline year-on-year relative to Q4, supported by smaller year-on-year declines across most skills.

Contract, which represents the majority of net fees, was down 21% in the period, primarily driven by lower demand for technology roles. And finally, Japan, which delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of growth and saw strong demand across all of the skill verticals, but especially for technology roles.

Turning to head count. At the end of February, group headcount was down 4% compared to the end of FY '25. This reflects careful management of natural churn, a highly selective approach to hiring and the realization of early cost optimization actions. On the [ latter, ] our FY '26 program is progressing as planned. As previously announced, we expect the costs to deliver the program to be weighted to the first half of the year with savings weighted to the second half.

The contract order book of GBP 152 million is down 7% year-on-year and continues to represent sector-leading visibility with the equivalent of around 5 months of net fees. When the FY '26 portion of the contractor order book is combined with the net fees delivered year-to-date, we have visibility of around 60% of full year market consensus net fees. This, combined with our cost optimization program, extensions and new placement activity tracking in line with expectations, underpins our guidance for FY '26. And finally, we have a robust balance sheet with net cash of GBP 51 million. We launched our share buyback program of up to GBP 20 million in February with GBP 1.6 million purchased as of yesterday's close.

With that, I'll hand back to Timo.

Thanks, Andy. To summarize, we've seen a continued stabilization with the first quarter being in line with expectations. While it's too early to call a broad-based sustained recovery, we remain cautiously optimistic with the consistent new business performance versus the prior year delivered despite a much lower sales headcount, demonstrating improved productivity and operational efficiency.

We are also mindful that recent events in the Middle East, which contributed around 2% of net fees have heightened geopolitical uncertainty. However, it's too soon to determine the potential impact on the global economy and our wider markets. Our immediate priority is the well-being of our teams in the regions and ensuring that they're fully supported.

Over the medium term, I believe our opportunity is clear. By putting clients at the center of everything we do, creating an agile organization and continuing to invest into our people proposition and innovation. We will stay at the forefront of industry dynamics and outpace change.

Overall, I want to again thank Andy. I think the 4.5 years have been really great also from my side, great partnership, learned a lot and sad to see him leave. I totally appreciate that. Overall, I think we're in a great shape as an organization. Our strategy is in place for multiple years, and we're just going to continue to further execute on that.

And with that, we're always open for any questions, if anyone has them, reach out to us. But thank you all once again for joining us this morning, and we're speaking with you again at the half time -- at the time of our half year results on the 25th of July. Thank you all, and have a great week.

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our full year results briefing. I'm joined by Andy Beach, our CFO. Andy, how's it going?

Really good. Thanks, Timo. Looking forward to sharing our results this morning.

Excellent. Thank you. So together, we will be walking you through the full year numbers, our strategic progress and discussing the outlook.

This year, SThree celebrates its 40th anniversary, a significant milestone that speaks to our heritage, our resilience and the deep expertise we have built across our focus areas of STEM and flexible talent. That history has shaped who we are today. SThree is more than a transactional staffing business. We partner with our clients to design, deliver and manage workforce solutions from compliance and project delivery to workforce structuring, supporting around 9,000 contractors across 11 countries. In short, we are the global STEM workforce consultancy.

As most of you know, the charts on this page illustrate how our well-established strategy sits at the heart of 2 long-term growth trends, STEM and flexible talent. Looking at STEM skills scales on the left-hand side, whilst our end markets are experiencing ongoing change as the nature of work evolves and the specific roads we place, particularly in technology, are adapting, the core skills and disciplines underpinning those roles remain constant and aligned to long-term demand. Our focus on those skills is as relevant today as ever.

Independent research reinforces this. For example McKinsey estimates that demand for stem professionals could grow by strong double digits in Europe and the United States through 2030, even as after 30% of work hours could be automated in these regions. Anecdotally, when I speak with CEOs, 3 priorities come through very clearly.

First, how do I get my technology in place to be future-ready. Second, how do I get my organization moving faster and third, how do I think more strategically about workforce planning.

All of these priorities at the same conclusion. Long-term demand for STEM capabilities remain strong, and we're well positioned to support clients through this transition. This is our opportunity. We support organizations as their workforces evolve, placing the STEM skills, they need to stay competitive. And because this work is often project-based, fast-moving and flexible, it naturally aligns with contract.

Today, contract accounts for 84% of the group. It gives us a more resilient, more profitable revenue stream with better visibility and is a real point of differentiation for us. If I was to summarize the year in just a few key words, they would be resilience, improvement and disciplined execution. I don't need to remind anyone of the persistently challenging global talent markets.

But despite this, we delivered on the expectations we set at the start of the year and we have delivered growth in 2 of our top 5 countries, U.S.A. and Japan. The standard success for us this year is the conclusion of our TIP rollout across all 11 of our countries. This marks a pivotal milestone in our journey. The organizations can point to a program of this scale completing on time within budget and importantly, delivering to an enhanced scope. I can't overstate how proud I am of what we have achieved together over the past 3 years.

We now have a fully integrated end-to-end digital backbone that drives innovation, accelerates upgrades and importantly, elevates the experience for clients and candidates. It's a game-changing advantage, companies that haven't invested yet risk falling behind as the pace accelerates. We sit here today faster, smarter and more adaptable.

From a macro perspective, a broader recovery is yet to materialize, particularly in Europe. However, we closed the year with stronger new business momentum, particularly in key markets like U.S. a clear signal of the opportunities ahead. In addition, we start FY '26 currently seeing our contract renewal period being on track, underpinning our rebased expectations for the new year.

With the global rollout of TIP complete, I want to take a moment to reflect on our journey and how SThree has become a stronger, more focused business than the one I took over in 2022. One of the many benefits of TIP is its capability that has driven us to scrutinize every aspect of our business, from our proposition and strategy to our people and processes, helping us drive real improvements right across the organization.

Looking at each of our strategic pillars. Within places, since early 2023, we have been intentionally rebalancing towards a more focused footprint guided by our market investment model to identify where our capabilities and the market opportunities are most aligned. This disciplined approach has enabled us to deploy resources more effectively, strengthen our competitive position and ensure that we are investing in the right markets with the greatest potential.

Within customers, we have been focused on driving deeper client engagement and stronger Canada relationships becoming more client-centric. We're increasing our focus on large enterprise accounts and refining our account management approach to enable deeper penetration of our strategic accounts with early positive results.

Within People, TIP is enabling us to run our global operations more cohesively and consistently on one unified system. By consolidating multiple legacy systems, our leaders now have access to clean, reliable data to inform decision-making and workforce planning. And we now have harmonized people processes right across the group, making the business more efficient and better able to scale.

Within Proposition, as we now also looks and sees a lot different, bringing our go-to-market brands together under the strength and endorsement of the SThree parent brand is sharpening our position as a trusted global partner and enables our people and business to be more closely aligned. And today, we have an evolving and broad portfolio of STEM workforce solutions, including the capability launched this year to place both contract and permanent roles with full compliance in up to 145 countries.

And finally, on Platform, I will leave Nick to deep dive in more detail on this later, but TIP has not only modernized SThree's technology foundations. It has also redefined how the organization competes by rebuilding our core infrastructure on a unified cloud-based architecture. It has created the platform for complementary next-generation technology, including agentic AI, which could further enable our people to truly innovative tools and processes.

Looking at our progress through this lens has challenged us to reflect and to question what truly changed. It's clear we haven't stood still. Even in a macro environment that might have encouraged caution, we have made bold changes that would benefit us for years to come. Today, we have the technology, the foundations of the operating model and the financial profile to grow at scale. I will now pass over to Andy to talk us through the financials.

Thank you very much, Timo. Let's start with a summary of the full year performance.

Net fees are down 12% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. Pleasingly, the rate of decline improved sequentially quarter-on-quarter through the year supported by the U.S., our second largest country returning to growth after 2 years of decline.

Contract, which represents 84% of net fees, declined 12%, as softness in new business activity earlier in the year outweighed the benefits of the recent improvement and consistently resilient contract extensions. Contract performance in the U.S. was a notable highlight returning to growth this year and helping to partially mitigate softer performances in both Germany and the Netherlands. Permanent, which is a smaller part of our business, declined 9%, reflecting challenging market conditions across most of our regions. This was still a marked improvement on the rate of decline in the prior year, supported by strong growth in the U.S. and Japan this year.

Operating profit for the year was GBP 26.1 million, which is down 60% on a constant currency basis. This primarily reflects the effect of our operational gearing on lower net fees across key markets, partially offset by disciplined management of operating costs and the realization of operational efficiencies. This has resulted in a conversion ratio, the ratio of operating profit to net fees of 8.1%.

Profit before tax is GBP 25.5 million, down 62% year-on-year, reflecting the lower operating profit and higher net finance costs, driven by lower interest income earned on the group's bank deposits. We continue to index calendar quarter net fee performance since 2019, the last full year before the pandemic to show more clearly our performance compared to other staffing businesses.

As the chart shows, we are less cyclical, which we believe is due to our strategic focus on flexible talent and STEM. We clearly outperformed the market through COVID. And over the last 3 years, we have sustained that outperformance. This shows that we are less volatile through a period of market disruption with our contract order book, providing a runway of contract net fees due to be recognized as they are earned on a month-by-month basis over the life of a contract.

As we have seen historically, when markets recover and new placement activity increases, the recovery in net fees tends to be smoother and from a higher overall level, resulting in a more even through-the-cycle net fee profile compared to permanent dominant businesses where net fees are recognized almost immediately. Overall, this demonstrates that we have the right strategy and that our business is high quality through the cycle.

Looking at the regional and skill mix for the period. We have critical mass and a well-diversified business across key STEM markets and skill verticals. The first ring chart shows the split by region with DACH remaining the largest region in the group, representing 33% of net fees. Looking to the far right, you can see net fees were lower in 3 of our 5 regions with a partial offset from growth delivered in the U.S. and the Middle East and Asia.

The second ring chart shows our strong and unique position in providing STEM skills. Technology continues to be our largest skill, and it represents 45% of net fees. Engineering, our second largest scale, declined 6% year-on-year against a strong prior year performance. Encouragingly, within this vertical, our energy business continues to perform strongly, growing 5% year-on-year and now accounting for 19% of group net fees.

We've also delivered growth of 7% year-on-year in our Other segment, which reflects increased demand for banking and finance roles, particularly in the U.S. and Belgium. This was offset by softer demand for skills in Technology and Life Sciences, reflecting the ongoing challenging trading environment throughout the year. We continue to benefit from the ongoing trend towards flexible working.

This slide looks at our net fees by service. Our contract business can be split between independent contractors and employed contractors. The most notable shift over the last few years has been the trend towards the employed contractor model, or ECM, which has grown from 23% of net fees in FY '19 to 41% of net fees in FY '25.

This is significant because our ECM segment generates net fee margins around 30% to 40% higher than those generated by independent contractors as our clients are willing to pay for the risk and complexity that we assume on their behalf. With the rollout of our new future-ready digital infrastructure, there will naturally be fewer manual touch points, eliminating the need to constantly increase head count to service our contractors thereby helping us to achieve higher profit margins and scale more efficiently.

Additionally, although acting as the employer record, which is what we do with our ECM offering, is not a service unique to it remains out of reach for most subscale recruiters due to the high barriers to entry, driven by the complexity of compliance, operational infrastructure and the balance sheet strength required to support it. Where SThree stands apart from larger industry peers is in our comparatively higher net fee exposure to ECM, further reinforced by our focus on STEM disciplines.

Looking now at the future visibility of our contract business. The contractor order book represents the value of contracts written up to the contractual end date, assuming that all contracted hours are worked. The book was down only 2% year-on-year, reflecting the recently improved new placement activity and our consistently resilient extensions performance. Even with the decline, the order book continues to provide us with sector-leading forward visibility compared to permanent focused staffing businesses with equivalent around 5 months' worth of future net fees already booked.

The resilience of the contract order book demonstrates that whilst new placement activity continues to be soft overall this year, all other underlying metrics around our contract business are strong. We've seen excellent extension rates over the last year, and this has resulted in average contract length increasing by 10% compared to the prior year to 60 weeks. To sustain contract margins at 21.7%, we've maintained tight pricing control, especially on extensions and the average salary of the contract roles that we placed is up 2% year-on-year, now reaching GBP 107,000.

The group's historic measure of productivity was moderately lower year-on-year, reflecting a slightly faster decline in net fees than the reduction in average headcount. However, it's important to note that productivity improved sequentially each quarter with second half productivity up 5%, demonstrating clear momentum through the year.

Looking ahead, we continue to expect to deliver sustainable productivity gains over the midterm as the benefits of our strategic investments in digital infrastructure begin to come through as anticipated. We are already seeing early indicators of the benefits from TIP, which gives us confidence in the future uplift in productivity, which Nick will expand on later in this presentation. The successful delivery of the TIP rollout on time, on budget and to an enhanced scope demonstrates strong cost discipline and project governance.

By the end of FY '25, we have spent a total of GBP 32 million which is below the middle of the expected range for the program. OpEx this year of around GBP 3 million was at the lower end of the expected range for the year, taking the total OpEx incurred for the program up to GBP 13 million. We also incurred around GBP 6 million of CapEx in the period, also at the lower end of the expected range for the year, taking total CapEx incurred up to GBP 19 million.

The delivery of the TIP provides the technological foundation for our digital first approach and for achieving sustainably higher profit margins. The platform will continue to be enhanced with functionality evolving over time. Investment will continue, but at more moderate levels focused on maintenance and targeted developments. Whilst trading conditions have remained challenging and operating profit is lower this year, we are confident that the investments we have made through TIP position us to deliver higher margins over the mid to long term as conditions normalize.

Turning to the year-on-year operating profit bridge. You can see the decrease in both contract and permanent net fees is partially offset by people costs being down year-on-year. This is primarily due to the 10% average decrease in head count compared to last year, which is partly reflective of the operational efficiencies coming through and lower commissions.

Additionally, we made good progress on cost savings this year with the FY '25 efficiencies program, delivering net savings of circa GBP 7 million, marginally ahead of plan. You can then see the GBP 4.6 million year-on-year increase in IT costs. This reflects the additional cost of the new systems as well as the absence of the R&D claims that in prior years offset a portion of the TIP expenditure. Without those claims this year, the underlying OpEx charge increases.

Lastly, there is a GBP 2.3 million increase in other operating costs, driven by higher professional fees, advertising and bad debt provisions. This leaves profit for the year at GBP 26.1 million. Looking at our net cash position. Excluding the impact of the GBP 20 million share buyback program, we would have been significantly above our FY '24 year-end position.

After the uplift for operating profit and noncash items, we recorded a net increase in working capital as movements in receivables materially offset the movements in payables. This results from a strong final quarter of cash collection recovering aged debts that followed from the transition of a certain number of clients onto the new billing platform.

We then see our usual outflows, including tax, lease principal payments and CapEx of which around GBP 6 million was incurred on the TIP, a share purchase for the employee benefit trust and payments of dividends. Then after the purchase of nearly 8 million shares under the share buyback program, we end the year with a strong cash balance.

Now turning to EPS. Our profit after tax is down 64% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, reflecting the lower profit before tax and a higher ETR, partially offset by the decrease in the number of shares relating to the share buyback, resulting in an earnings per share decrease of 63% to 13.7p. Notwithstanding the reduction in our profitability, we continue to have strong confidence in the future of the business and a strong balance sheet.

So I'm pleased to confirm that despite the drop in profits, we'll be paying a final dividend of 9.2p per share, which brings the full year dividend in line with last year at 14.3p per share. Additionally, in line with our capital allocation policy, we are also initiating a further share buyback program of up to GBP 20 million. The Board's decision to declare a dividend beyond our typical range and commence a further buyback reflects a considered assessment of the group's trading performance, future outlook and strong track record of cash generation. It also underscores the Board's commitment to returning surplus capital to shareholders where appropriate.

So to sum up, we're reporting an in-line performance with the rate of net fee decline improving sequentially quarter-on-quarter through the year. Operating profit that reflects the lower net fees, partially offset by disciplined cost control. A robust balance sheet, which provides the flexibility to fund shareholder returns and positions us well to fund our future ambitions.

Looking to the current year, the weighting of our profitability will look different to historic phasing, reflecting the impact of our first half weighted costs to deliver our FY '26 efficiency program. We remain confident in delivering our full year expectations. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Timo.

Thank you, Andy. We will now turn to look at what we have achieved strategically throughout the year in more detail. Starting with our places as we strive to lead in the markets we choose to serve. We have increased our emphasis on the U.S.A. and Japan where scale of STEM demand and structural growth trends present significant opportunity.

We were pleased to have delivered growth in both during the year, reinforcing our approach and the early initiatives we put in place to improve our market positioning. We have also been aligning ourselves to industries, undergoing long-term transformations. For example, our U.S. Energy segment continues to expand as the sector response to rising electricity demand and the need to modernize grid infrastructure.

Likewise in Germany, our largest market, while trading conditions have been challenging, we have been proactive. We have analyzed the government stimulus plans and identified the sectors where investments are most likely to materialize. These are all sectors in which we already operate, and we have used this time to ensure our teams are properly sized and positioned to capture opportunities as they emerge.

Turning to our platform. Nick will talk us through the details in a moment. But from my perspective, I would like to say again that the completion of the TIP rollout is a huge achievement. In implementing a program of this scale across our global operations, our teams have consistently demonstrated the expertise and commitment needed to navigate challenges presented by a country-by-country rollout.

I would like to thank everyone for their commitment, persistence and resilience. Now over to Nick to cover what we have achieved to date and why it positions the business for success ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Nick Folkes, Chief Operating Officer at SThree, and I oversee the group's technology improvement program, or TIP. Today, I want to take a step back and talk about what the TIP has delivered so far. And importantly, why those outcomes matter for the business going forward.

While the rollout of TIP was only completed at the end of FY '25, we are already seeing the early evidence of clear structural benefits coming through. These proof points include an uplift consultant productivity, improved sales engine quality and greater operational velocity alongside recurring efficiency gains.

Before we get into the detail of these improvement gains, let us first look at what it set out to achieve. When we launched TIP, our technology estate had evolved organically over many years. While it's supported growth, it also introduced fragmentation, manual workarounds and limited visibility. That constrains scalability and slowed execution, particularly more complex, compliance-heavy contract markets, precisely where workflow accuracy and data integrity are most critical.

TIP was therefore not an upgrade around the edges. It was a full reengineering of our operating backbone, replacing all the core systems while the business continued to run at scale. Now with the rollout of TIP successfully delivered across all 11 markets on time and on budget, we now operate on a single unified global platform.

We have transformed data integrity, replacing fragmented records with a validated governed data foundation. This serves as a single source of truth across clients, candidates and assignments and fees automation and insight. And we've embedded standardized workflows end-to-end from front office through order to cash. with compliance built in by design.

So why does this matter? What I want to do now is focus on the early outcomes we are seeing from TIP and walk through them in a logical way. Firstly, let's examine cost efficiency. Through automation, system consolidation and simple operating processes, the program is generating structural recurring cost efficiencies. These efficiencies come from a simplified, standardized ordered cash operating model and automation of core transactional activity, reducing duplication and rework rather than relying on one-off measures.

On a pure cost-out basis, the investment has been financially compelling to date, with more cost efficiencies to come in FY '26. As of today, this equates to GBP 6.5 million of annualized cost efficiencies already delivered. That matters because it means the program stands up financially on its own, providing a baseline return on investment case before considering the wider value outcomes.

Before turning to those, it's worth noting that for several of the KPIs I'm about to reference we've used FY '23 as a baseline. That was the point at which our first market went live on TIP in Q4 and it provides a sensible reference period for the changes we're seeing today. As with any transformation of this scale, it's impossible to fully disentangle market effects or attribute performance with precision. However, the indicators are walk-through represents some of the strongest evidence we have. And the final example is as close to a control comparison as we are likely to get.

Next, let's review pipeline quality, not just volume. One of the clearest operational signals is the improvement in what we call A and B-grade jobs per consultant across the group. A and B jobs are higher quality, more committed vacancies, roles where clients have engaged meaningfully and conversion probability is structurally higher. Since FY '23, we've seen a 38% increase in A and B grade jobs per consultant across the group.

This improvement is a direct consequence of cleaner CRM data, stronger pipeline hygiene a more disciplined sequencing of sales activity through the CRM. This ensures opportunities progress in a consistent structured order from job creation to placement, meaning consultants are spending more time on the right opportunities earlier in the cycle. The sales engine is therefore becoming stronger in composition, simply busier.

At this point, we'll look at operational velocity. We've seen a meaningful reduction in time to placement across the group, improving 9% since FY '23. This reflects faster placement execution and more effective use of data and workflows. Our U.S. contract business where the platform has been embedded for longer, provides a mature proof point of this cycle time improvement. This means the results are more pronounced, improving 22% over the same time period.

Most importantly, though, is consultant productivity, some of the strongest evidence of productivity uplift comes from our U.S. contract business. This was the first market to roll out TIP in FY '23 and therefore, has the longest live operating history on the platform. FY '24 was the first full year of TIP deployed at scale and should be viewed as a stabilization period as new workflows and operating routines bedded in.

When we compare a 12-month prep period being FY '23, with the post-TIP position in FY '25, we see a material improvement in placements per head for contract consultants, up 18%. This demonstrates that in the U.S., TIP supported stabilization and recovery at scale following an initial bedding-in period rather than an immediate step change uplift.

However, one of the clearest causal proof points for TIP output comes from our German contract business, where it's a unique business combination allows us to show that TIP is the primary driver of resilience and performance improvement. In Germany, the 2 contract divisions, independent contractor and employed contractor model or IC and ECM, operate under the same leadership to serve the same clients and face the same macro conditions.

Historically, they moved in line with each other. The only structural difference that has been introduced was the timing of the TIP deployment. When a performance diversion started to emerge only after the IC business transition onto the platform in early 2024.

What we saw after this point was that despite a deeper reduction in sales consultants in IC, the TIP-enabled division preserved relatively stronger throughput than ECM under the same leadership and client base, with the divergence emerging only after TIP deployment. In concrete terms, I see new placement weekly net fees outperformed ECM by 10 percentage points when we compare Q3 year-to-date FY '25, the period of time prior to ECM going live on the platform this year with the same time period in FY '23.

That matters because it isolates the effect of the operating model. It shows that fewer consultants can generate relatively stronger throughput that productivity improvements persist even as head count contracts and that the divergence is explained by the platform, not leadership, client mix or market timing. This strikes at the heart of what TIP was designed to do, make the organization more resilient, more efficient and less dependent on linear head count growth.

So what do these positive indicators mean in aggregate? What we have now is a truly new global way of operating. Tech has put the foundations and tools in place to drive efficiency, scalability and more consistent execution across the group. This has enabled a fundamental shift in how we run the business globally. We have moved from reactive retrospected performance reviews to proactive real-time operational control using live performance and behavior dashboards such as build your business and build our network, managers can now see leading indicators as the week unfolds, not just lighting outcomes after the fact.

That creates a new operating rhythm, enabling earlier intervention in cycle, tighter coaching on the right behaviors and faster course correction while deals still matter. In short, we have supercharged the SThree way. Unified data and standardized workflows reinforced by visible and coachable behavior frameworks, which are driving improvements in pipeline quality, speed operational velocity and ultimately consultant productivity.

Together, these effects create a durable operating engine that improves economic efficiency over time. Achieving this level of change inevitably came with complexity, data migration challenges, drill running systems, adoption challenges local disruption during go-lives, and an expected learning period for teams as they adapted to new ways of working. It's important to acknowledge that reality.

The program tested the organization, but working through that complexity was the price of achieving a positive and lasting structural outcome rather than a temporary fix. The price has been meaningful. TIP raised our productivity floor and improved resilience through the downturn. With clear evidence and robust economics, it has given us a very strong foundation to develop and iterate the platform at pace. The emphasis now shifts from building the platform to executing and scaling the benefits already in place.

Next, we'll compound the foundation through targeted intelligent automation and next-generation technologies, including agentic AI, further enabling our people through truly innovative tools and processes. The work ahead is about optimization, refining, scaling and compounding what is already in place. While there is more to do, particularly around consultant retention. We now have the data, visibility and insight to focus our efforts far more precisely in the areas that matter most.

Tip has moved our technology from being a constraint to being a durable enabler of execution with the ability and scale efficiency to support long-term growth. The heavy lifting of TIP is over but the overall technology journey continues. Thank you.

Thank you, Nick. Now looking at our customers. Our increased focus on becoming more client-centric and evolving our services to meet the changing needs of our clients is already delivering results. We have seen double-digit growth across our top client cohort demonstrating the benefit of our sharpened focus on our enterprise clients. The value of our services is further evidenced by resilient contract extensions, robust and sustained pricing and an increase in average contract length over the year.

Our long-term valuable client relationships underpinned by a suite of workforce solutions is exemplified by 2 case studies shown here. The left-hand side demonstrates how we typically deepen and grow a relationship over time, resulting in repeat and expanding services. In this case, our relationship has evolved over an 11-year engagement from placing niche specialists initially to expanding into a managed service agreement underpinned by our governance expertise. The result was a fourfold increase in the contractor footprint.

The right-hand side shows our ability to move SThree delivering AI scales needed in the fast-paced U.S. market. In this case, the clients need to identify STEM expertise intensified as they prepare to launch a major AI-driven initiative at scale. We streamlined the process enabling rapid mobilization, selling relevant candidates within 48 hours and delivering a wide range of critical hires in under 3 weeks.

Moving on to our people pillar. As expected, with the transformation of the scale of TIP, the rollout has brought both opportunities and challenges with change management, a major area of focus. Engagement levels have understandably been affected by the pace of change internally and compounded by the wider market backdrop. Our global E&PS score was 21, still placing the group within the middle range of the professional services sector.

We have learned a great deal through this journey. And with this infrastructure now embedded, our teams are adapting quickly, giving us the ability to tailor the platform to better support them going forward. This year was marked by the launch of our unified HR platform alongside the rollout of our performance framework and a refreshed global sales onboarding program.

Together, these initiatives created a strong foundation designed to empower our people, strengthen our sales culture and enable faster productivity for new hires over time. And finally, our proposition pillar. We have talked about how we see ourselves as a workforce consultancy, having long provided more than just transactional staffing to our customers.

This slide shows the broad range of solutions we deliver, addressing challenges ranging from unpredictable workforce demand to the need to hire quickly and at scale without compromising on quality through to partnering with customers and advising them on risk, compliance and regulatory requirements. This combination results in positive outcomes for our clients. We provide them with predictable access critical capability, enable them to reduce risks across regulation, compliance and delivery and importantly, have one account with partner for workforce performance.

To sum up, New business activity has been encouraging in key markets such as U.S., while wider recovery, especially in Europe, is still unfolding. Strategically, I believe we're in a great position. We now have the technology and data foundations in place with modern tech ready workflows already deployed across the business. We have a clear view on what our operating model needs to be, and we are well underway in evolving it, ready for the new world of staffing and workforce consulting.

We understand where technology can remove nonvalue-added activity and where human expertise delivers the greatest impact. We have been proactive in our planning and as a result, we're well positioned as the advantage for forward-thinking firms continues to grow. And ultimately, by putting clients at the center of everything we do, creating an agile organization and continuing to invest into our people, proposition and innovation, we will stay at the forefront of industry dynamics and outpace change.

Yes. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SThree's Q3 Trading Update of FY '25. I'm joined by our CFO, Andy Beach, and today, we're giving you an overview of the performance in Q3 before moving on to outlook and the guidance we have published, and then we will then take your questions. So guys, looking at Q3 FY '25, it will come as no surprise to you when I say that the market conditions in which we operate remain challenging.

However, across certain segments and markets, our Q3 performance demonstrates a continuation of the positive momentum that we highlighted at our half year results with growth delivered in our U.S. and Middle East and Asia markets.

These regions, together with consistently strong extension rates have contributed to a modest sequential improvement in group net fee performance. What is key for us and is currently offsetting this growth is the challenges within our 2 largest markets in Continental Europe, Germany and the Netherlands, and we are fully focused on ensuring we are well placed for when these markets turn. Turning now to TIP. Our TIP technology improvement program is nearing completion. During the quarter, 2 additional markets went live on the new platform, bringing the total to 10 out of 11 markets now onboarded globally.

In Q4, we plan to complete the rollout of this program across our whole organization. This journey has been challenging, but also bold and strategic and it has seen us transform our position into a digital-first STEM workforce consultancy. This new digital backbone is already helping to unlock early signs of scalability with efficiencies realized to date. It is also enhancing productivity, including improved placement levels amongst our most junior cohorts and a reduction in time to first interviews in our early adopter markets.

So whilst we're seeing pockets of positive momentum, overall levels of new business activity remains subdued, we have also taken proactive action to invest into our future. I will explain the impact of this later and talk more about how we see the landscape evolving. But first, I will hand over to Andy, who will take us through the numbers for Q3. Andy, over to you.

Thank you very much, Timo, and good morning, everyone. Now despite ongoing sector-wide headwinds, we saw a modest improvement in the pace of decline compared to Q2, with net fees down 12% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. Our contract business, which represents 83% of group net fees, declined by 13% with continued softness in new placements, partially offset by resilient extensions. Notably, contract in the U.S. returned to growth this quarter, helping to partially mitigate softer performance in both Germany and the Netherlands.

Our permanent net fees were down only 5%, a strong sequential improvement in the rate of decline compared to Q2, reflecting growth in both the U.S. and the Middle East and Asia regions. So let's take a closer look at what's driven the performance in the year, starting with the skill mix. Engineering, our second largest skill, was down only 1%, supported by strong demand in our U.S. Energy segment. Life Sciences declined 12%, reflecting continued global market pressures in the sector. However, the pace of decline moderated versus Q2, led by the U.S., our largest country in the segment, where demand for roles fell at a slower rate. And Technology, our largest discipline, declined by 22%, reflecting the ongoing market uncertainty across most end markets.

I'll now go through our top 5 countries in turn and call out some of the key trends that we're seeing. In Germany, the overall performance reflects a tough prior year comparative with Q3 last year being the strongest quarter of FY '24. Contract was down 18%, primarily reflecting lower demand for technology skills with a similar trend observed in the permanent business. In the Netherlands, the market remains challenging. Contract, which accounts for 94% of net fees, declined by 34%, reflecting continued reduction in contractor numbers. This trend was particularly pronounced across our technology and our engineering verticals.

In the U.K., Contract, which represents nearly all of the net fees, was down 27%, primarily reflecting lower demand for technology roles. In the U.S., contract net fees, which account for 86% of the total, returned to growth for the first time in over 2 years, up 13%, which is underpinned by strong demand for skills in energy. This U.S. performance was complemented by their third consecutive quarter of growth in permanent, driven by demand for roles across life sciences, engineering as well as finance roles. And finally, Japan, which delivered its second consecutive quarter of growth, reflecting strong demand for technology roles.

Turning to headcount. Group headcount at the end of August was down 16% compared to the end of FY '24. This reflects careful management of natural churn, a highly selective approach to hiring and the continued delivery of operating efficiencies. On the latter, we have made good progress this quarter and remain on track to deliver the GBP 6 million in-year net savings target for FY '25. As you may recall, around GBP 2 million was realized in the first half of the year and with the majority of costs to deliver incurred in that period, we will present an uplift in savings in the second half.

The contract order book of GBP 156 million is down 6% year-on-year, reflecting the protracted soft new placement activity, but partially offset by our resilient contract extensions. This represents a modest improvement in the pace of decline compared to the end of Q2 and continues to offer sector-leading visibility. When the FY '25 portion of the contracted order book is combined with the net fees delivered year-to-date, we have visibility of over 90% of full year market consensus net fees. This, combined with our careful cost management, underpins our reiterated guidance for FY '25. And finally, we have a robust balance sheet with net cash of GBP 42 million. With that, I'll hand back to Timo to take us through the outlook.

Thank you, Andy. To summarize Q3, we have seen a modest improvement in our net fee performance. Importantly, 4 out of our 11 markets are back in growth, including our U.S. market, which we signaled would be the first of our top 5 to rebound. Our focus for the short term is on driving improvement in Continental Europe, fully leveraging the rollout of our TIP and ensuring that we're well positioned to meet the requirements of a changing world. This performance, coupled with a disciplined cost base reinforced by operational efficiency means we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our FY '25 PBT guidance.

Looking beyond the current year, we remain encouraged by pockets of improving momentum. However, we have not seen a broader market recovery and prudently don't think this will start to materialize in the near term, but not worsen. At the same time, we have committed to make certain investments into our future, which will be fully funded through careful cost management and are enabled by our TIP. This includes investments in the use of the agentic AI following our initial evaluation to capitalize on new opportunities emerging in our industry and build on the foundations we now have in place through TIP.

We will also invest in further optimization program to deliver future benefits, again, enabled through our TIP rollout. As a result, persistent softness in new business activity is expected to impact FY '26 PBT consensus by roughly GBP 20 million due to the group's operational gearing. This, alongside the investment initiatives is expected to result in a reduction in FY '26 PBT consensus from GBP 30 million to GBP 10 million. At the same time, in line with our commitment to shareholder returns, the Board is announcing today its intention to commence a further share purchase program in early FY '26.

Whilst the prolonged market environment is obviously frustrating, we are focused on making sure that we're building a business that can win in a changing market. This means building a business that is efficient, scalable and is technology first. This will enhance our position as the global STEM workforce consultancy. As we explained at our TIP briefing in January 2023, we have for why we believe that decoupling headcount from net fees is the way forward alongside ensuring that client services are enhanced through digital tools.

Our TIP, which will soon be rolled out across all 11 markets was our first important step towards this. It provided us with the foundation to innovate at pace and now with technological progress moving rapidly, our platform allows us to integrate advanced functionalities such as agentic AI. We will be delighted to give you some more detail on our plans at the time of our full year results. Whilst the world around us is shifting rapidly, challenging the traditional recruitment model, we are well placed, not only because of our technology foundation, but because we specialize in high-value, complex, flexible talent at scale.

An example of this is the early success of our global onboarding capability, where we can now engage candidates across 145 countries with full compliance oversight. There aren't many other staffing firms that can provide the range of solutions that we do alongside our experience and regional knowledge.

So to summarize, whilst the prolonged market conditions are frustrating, we have been and continue to be laser-focused on pushing the boundaries and building a business with foundations to make us even better. One that is at the forefront of technology adoption in the industry, provides a range of complex workforce solutions is efficient and at scale.