PRE L IMINARY
RESULTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 3 0 J UNE 202 6
2 0 August 2026
PREPARED REMARKS
INTRODUCTION
< Mark Dearnley , Chief Executive Officer >
Good morning and welcome everyone. I’m Mark Dearnley, and I’m excited to
present my first set of results as the new CEO of Hays.
Our agenda for today is slightly different from the usual format because we are also
announcing our new Momentum strategy
We’ll focus on this initially and then I will hand over to James to run though our
financials.
This is my first opportunity to meet you all after my appointment as CEO so please
allow me a moment to share a few initial thoughts as we introduce our new
Momentum strategy to you today.
Hays has a tremendous heritage, an excellent client portfolio, and deeply expert
consultants. I have travelled extensively over the last few months to meet colleagues
across the globe, and many of our clients.
I would like to thank our colleagues, candidates and clients for openly sharing their
views from which I draw two main conclusions
Firstly, a consultant-led approach, enabled by advanced technology, is an important
element that clients wish to retain.
And secondly, my colleagues at Hays are genuinely excited by our new Momentum
strategy
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SLIDE 5 - FOUR KEY MESSAGES
I have four key messages for you to take away from our presentation today
To deliver improved market share and profitability we will become a more focused
specialist recruitment business, and we have already taken decisive action to
achieve this
We and our clients believe the consultant is key. A human in the loop, supported by
great technology, is critical to the best hiring outcomes
Thirdly, Momentum is first and foremost a growth strategy. We have already made
a good start - returning to year on year profit growth in the second half of FY26
And finally, over time, we will increase consultant net fee productivity by more than
50%, return Hays to a 25% plus conversion rate, and deliver superior returns to
shareholders
SLIDE 6: CLIENTS USE HAYS TO ACCESS THE BEST TALENT
Before we examine Momentum in more detail, let’s initially examine why clients use
recruitment agencies.
Our clients need to secure the best talent to build successful businesses
Candidates need the best roles to build successful careers
And in both instances, the cost of making the wrong decision is significant.
The impact of exiting an unsuccessful hire increases exponentially with seniority due
to exit packages, organisational disruption and the direct cost of finding a
replacement. As a percentage of salary, our data indicates that these costs for a
Director-level role can be more than twice as high as for an Associate.
Hays help clients and candidates to improve the probability of success. Our fee is a
modest insurance premium versus the potentially high cost of failure.
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SLIDE 7: CLEAR AND ENCOURAGING FEEDBACK FROM OUR CLIENTS
I mentioned earlier that our strategy has been shaped by what clients have told us.
The feedback from a recent survey is clear – they universally want access to the
highest quality candidates.
They also want Hays expert consultants at the centre of the process.
A strong technology platform is necessary, but our clients are clear that our
consultant-led approach is the critical element they wish to retain, so keeping a
‘human in the loop’ remains key.
Why is this?
As you can see from the charts on this slide, price ranks well below the top two
purchasing considerations for Perm and Temp & Contracting recruitment
processes.
Instead, once baseline technical skills requirements have been achieved, then
interpersonal skills are the key candidate attributes.
Hays’ consultants have deep domain knowledge – of their clients, their candidates
and of their specialisms – which they use to provide essential human insight when
assessing these interpersonal skills such leadership, communication and motivation
This presents Hays with an opportunity to differentiate and grow in our markets.
By leveraging our database of more than 10 million candidates and over 40,000
weekly interactions between our consultants and their clients and candidates
By applying proprietary search & match algorithms to assess hard and interpersonal
skills
Through this we can swiftly identify the highest quality candidates.
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SLIDE 8: WHAT CLIENTS MEAN BY CANDIDATE QUALITY IS EVOLVING
And if we move to the next slide, clients tell us that these interpersonal skills will be
increasingly important over the next five years for Managers and Directors which
represent the sweet spot of our business.
SLIDE 9: CREATING A SELF-REINFORCING “FLYWHEEL” EFFECT TO DRIVE PRODUCTIVITY
So how do we at Hays help clients and candidates improve the probability of
success?
We do this through our sources of competitive advantage with Hays expert
consultants at the centre.
Our advantages include proprietary data and technology, our people, our brand and
our reputation, how we go to market, and our operational excellence.
For example, Hays has proprietary data and tools which our consultants use to
swiftly and precisely match client demand with candidate supply.
The Hays consultant sits at the centre of this flywheel and is key
They have deep domain expertise
They provide essential human insight when assessing values and behavioural
alignment
Momentum places Hays consultants at the centre of a self-reinforcing flywheel and
enables them with the best tools through investments in technology. It forges
sustainable long-term relationships with our clients and candidates.
Clients benefit by our speed of accessing the best candidates, reducing their
recruitment costs and risk of an unsuccessful hire.
Candidates are offered the best roles, successful placement outcomes, and regular
feedback.
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Our internal data confirms a strong link between financial returns and the rotational
speed of this flywheel.
Roles for which CVs have been sent on the same day achieve materially higher fill
rates than responses over the next one to two days.
Single CV submissions perform even better, clearly demonstrating that candidate
quality and the judgement applied by Hays consultants are vital aspects of the
matching process.
By building an unbeatable matching engine we will deliver faster and better
matching, allowing consultants to fill even more vacancies and generating a selfreinforcing ‘flywheel’. This results in higher market share, productivity, and
profitability for Hays, and improved outcomes for clients and candidates.
SLIDE 10: MOMENTUM’S FIVE FORCES AMPLIFY THE FLYWHEEL
Five forces amplify this flywheel
Growth to specialism leadership
Being experts in all we do
Building an unbeatable matching engine
Powering productivity
And delivering this through the Hays Way
Let’s explore some of these over the next few slides
SLIDE 11: GROWT TO SPECIALISM LEADERSHIP; SHARPER FOCUS
Firstly, specialism leadership.
We will grow to specialism leadership through five dimensions of focus
Firstly, by concentrating on 16 countries with a £100 billion and growing addressable
market, where we can build or extend leadership positions
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Secondly, focusing on six global specialisms where Hays has the strongest
opportunity to extend or become a market leader plus local specialisms where we
already have profitable market leadership and expect growth
Thirdly, a focus on higher-value roles, where the cost of failure is higher and the
potential impact from AI on these roles is lower
Fourthly, by targeting end market industries where demand for our products is
greatest
And finally we will operate across three products. Recruitment, Solutions and
Services
We have already taken important action to sharpen our focus in FY26 including
decisive steps to reshape our country portfolio and define core specialisms
SLIDE 12: GROW TO SPECIALISM LEADERSHIP; BETTER ECONOMICS
Focus and market leadership allow our consultants to provide deep domain
expertise to our clients
Focus and market leadership also drive superior returns with data in the chart
indicating that regional specialists with a top two share of clearly defined markets,
consistently deliver stronger growth, higher margins and more resilient
performance.
As our market share increases we will secure these economic benefits through
higher productivity
To achieve this, we will invest to grow and build leadership in six global specialisms:
Technology, Finance, Construction & Property, Engineering, Life Sciences, and
Human Resources
Countries may offer an additional one or two existing specialisms beyond this (for
example, Office Support or Resources & Mining), to reflect the composition of their
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local markets, but only where there is an attractive opportunity and a clear path to
leadership.
SLIDE 13: EXPERTS IN ALL WE DO; PRODUCTS AND COMPLIANCE
We are experts in specialist recruitment across a wide range of products
Recruitment is our existing Temp & Perm activity including spot placements and
preferred supplier lists
Solutions combines our existing MSP and RPO activities
And finally Services addresses the growing Statement of Work market. Although
this may be new terminology for many of you Services primarily includes our existing
German Contracting business which has successfully provided project-based
services to clients for many years
We are also experts in compliance and need to be because our clients care deeply
about it
Around the world, regulations, largely designed to avoid ‘mock employment’, are
becoming more complicated particularly for non-Perm Recruitment, Services, and
Solutions.
SLIDE 14: UNBEATEABLE MATCHING; THE BEST CANDIDATES FASTER
As I mentioned earlier, after decades in specialist recruitment, Hays benefits from
more than 10 million candidates in our database and c.40,000 weekly interactions
between our consultants and their clients and candidates
These are proprietary inputs and are difficult to recreate
To leverage this competitive advantage we are developing a next generation Hays
Digital Platform including AI agents which provide our consultants with best-in-class
tools and powerful, personalised data and insights for our customers
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One example is our ‘Smarter Meetings’ AI agent. With permission, this analyses
client and candidate conversations, and captures structured actions, key CRM data,
and actionable insights in real time. It is already materially improving the quality and
depth of our candidate records supporting better matching, analytics and lead
generation.
We have a further pipeline of enterprise level AI agent initiatives and are focused on
generating returns at scale.
SLIDE 15: POWERING PRODUCTIVITY: TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE
In my previous position as chief technology officer at Hays, I was delighted to
discover that we own our core proprietary technology systems including our CRM,
client and candidate databases, and Vendor Management System.
These provide a powerful cost and flexibility advantage versus off-the-shelf solutions
and support the rapid training and development of proprietary AI and the analytics
which are essential to optimise staffing processes.
To augment this technology, we are also establishing a people advantage
A Hays Academy which will become our global centre for learning, performance,
reward and career development, bringing together on-boarding, leadership
development and career progression into one connected experience.
We have also introduced a potential one-off share award for all our colleagues,
satisfied by existing shares, which recognises their contribution and reinforces
alignment with shareholders. The scale of this award will be determined by preexceptional operating profit in FY27.
Through broader employee share ownership and top-quartile reward potential, we
will strengthen engagement, foster a long-term ownership mindset, and incentivise
successful delivery of our Momentum strategy.
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I would like to thank our colleagues across the Group for their professionalism,
resilience and commitment during the year. Their continued focus on supporting
clients and candidates, while simultaneously helping to reshape the business, has
been instrumental to our progress.
SLIDE 16: DELIVERING FOR OUR SHAREHOLDERS
As I mentioned earlier, Momentum will deliver a positive structural shift in our
profitability, net fee growth, cash flow, and return on capital employed.
Through sharper focus, market leadership, radically improved search & match
capability, and lower cost to serve we can increase consultant net fee productivity
by more than 50%, return Hays to a 25% plus conversion rate, and deliver superior
returns for shareholders.
I will hand over to James to run though our financials in more detail
< Mark Dearnley , Chief Executive Officer >
Thank you, Mark and good morning, everyone.
Today I will cover the financial and divisional operating reviews, along with current
trading, before handing back to Mark for closing comments.
SLIDE 18: OVERVIEW
Summarising our financial performance.
On a like-for-like basis, net fees decreased by 8% to £906 million, with preexceptional operating profit up 3% to £48.6 million. Our strong cash conversion
drove cash from operations of £92.0 million, and we finished the year in a £20.1
million net cash position.
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SLIDE 19: INCOME STATEMENT
Turnover decreased by 4%, with fees down 8%.
The higher decline in fees relative to turnover was due to the more resilient
performances in Temp & Contracting versus Perm, and in our Solutions business.
Pre-exceptional earnings per share was 1.21p, an 8% decrease versus prior year,
driven by a higher effective tax rate partially offset by higher operating profit.
SLIDE 20: GERMANY
Over the next few slides we have summarised our FY26 actions and performances
for each region.
In Germany, significant actions were taken to restructure our operations, reduce
non-consultant headcount, and secure further structural cost savings which drove a
sequentially stable pre-exceptional operating profit in the second half.
Temp & Contracting fees were resilient, while Perm remained challenging due to
lower demand and slower client decision making.
However, there were bright spots. Construction & Property performed strongly again
with fees up 44%, driven by our focus on infrastructure and the energy sector.
SLIDE 21: UK&I
The UK&I recovered from losses in the prior year to deliver a £4.0m operating profit.
We delivered further improvements in consultant productivity, up 14%, including
actively managing our consultants to focus on higher-value placements and
stronger margins.
We secured structural savings which included 30 office closures and we also
invested in growth with the launch of a statement of work Services business in the
second half
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SLIDE 22: ANZ
In ANZ we saw stable Temporary & Contracting volumes through the year but Perm
became slightly more challenging during the fourth quarter.
ANZ more than doubled its operating profit to £8.5m driven by consultant
productivity growth as we focused on higher-skilled roles, and delivered structural
cost savings including the closure of 11 offices.
SLIDE 23: ROW
And finally in Rest of World, although the division reported a slightly larger £5.1m
operating loss for the year, it returned to profitability in the second half following
significant cost & country portfolio action.
In June, we disposed our operations in six European countries and announced that
we were exploring options relating to a further seven countries.
EMEA ex-Germany remained mixed overall. France remains tough but our actions
here to address productivity and costs drove improved profit performance in the
fourth quarter, and we reported all-time record fee and profit performances in Spain
and Portugal.
As previously disclosed, the US was impacted by the loss of a material contract
although trading improved through our second half.
Net fees in Asia grew by 3%, with Japan up 10% driven by strong growth in
Contracting, and where we see huge long term potential.
SLIDE 24: PERM VS TEMP
Temp & Contracting fees were resilient and decreased by 5%. Volumes declined by
4%, with a further 1% or £6 million fee impact from lower average hours worked in
Germany.
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Temp & Contracting remained sequentially stable through the second half in our
major markets of Germany, UK&I, and ANZ, and included strong performances in
Spain, Japan and our Services businesses.
Perm fees decreased by 12% as weaker client and candidate confidence drove
slower conversion of activity to placement. Volumes declined 14% and our average
fee was up 2% as we continued to target higher value roles.
SLIDE 25: PROFIT BRIDGE
Over the next few slides we have set out the decisive actions we have taken to
manage costs and increase profitability, and structurally improve our cost base for
the longer term.
As explained, we saw a significant reduction in net fees and our pay rises in July
2025 increased payroll costs by £8m.
Our response has been decisive with our operating costs reduced by 8% or £70m.
Payroll costs were reduced by £68m by actions taken to reduce consultant and nonfee earning headcount, down 12% and 13% respectively.
Commission payments decreased in line with fees and profit, partially offset by
higher bonus payments versus prior year.
We delivered property savings of £4.5m, although the majority of exits were in June
2026 and therefore we expect a more significant cost savings in FY27. And finally
we secured £3.5m overhead savings from close control of third party spend.
SLIDE 26: COST SAVINGS COMPARISON
The next slide looks at our annualised cost savings delivered in the year.
We secured £25m from our Finance and Technology transformation programmes,
and restructuring our back-office functions in several regions.
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We delivered £15 million through restructuring our sales operations in Germany, the
UK&I, France and Asia.
And we delivered £10 million through the closure or consolidation of 74 offices
globally.
Given the weighting of the cost save activities to Q4, the in-year FY26 P&L benefit
was around £20m with the remaining £30m of P&L benefit to be realised in FY27.
As Mark has set out, our investment in technology and people will further improve
efficiency in our back-office and middle-office functions and we target a further c.£50
million pa in FY27.
In addition, our actions to better align consultant capacity to market opportunities
and improve productivity, together with the commission savings on lower fees,
delivered a further £33m per annum of cost benefit.
SLIDE 27: PRODUCTIVITY AND COST SAVING
Our improved allocation of consultants resulted in 7% productivity growth including
the UK&I up a notable 14%.
And adjusting for our seasonally quieter second quarter, productivity has increased
now for 11 consecutive quarters.
We have worked hard to balance cost reductions with maintaining consultant
capacity, and we continue to carefully allocate consultants to business lines,
targeting higher-skilled candidate roles, and investing in the best tools for our
consultants.
We secured £50 million annualised savings in FY26, three years ahead of schedule
and have now delivered £115 million since the start of FY24. And with our clear
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ambition for further savings in FY27, this will take us to over £160m per annum
cumulative structural savings.
The combined impact of our actions to improve productivity and structurally reduce
costs drove a return to year on year profit growth in H2.
SLIDE 28: EXCEPTIONAL COSTS
Our exceptional cost of £89.6m comprised three parts.
We incurred £45.1 million costs related to sales and back-office restructuring, which
drove £40 million in annualised savings. In addition we incurred a £26.6 million
charge from our global consolidation or exit of 74 offices and which drove a £10
million annualised saving.
The sale of our operations in Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Luxembourg,
Romania and Sweden resulted in an £8.0m loss on disposal including associated
transactions costs.
We also incurred a charge of £6.9m from the partial impairment of goodwill in
Belgium and Netherlands and £3.0m from the net impairment of intangible assets
from the acceleration of our digital programme.
Due to the ongoing and multi-year nature of our restructuring and transformation
programmes, which are strategically reshaping the business in line with our
Momentum strategy, we expect to incur significant further exceptional restructuring
costs in FY27, as we drive towards our £50m annualised cost saving target. The
Board is committed to materially lower exceptional costs thereafter.
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SLIDE 29: TAX & FINANCE CHARGE
Our net finance charge for the year was £13.5 million, broadly unchanged
We expect the net finance charge for FY27 to be around £12 million, due to a lower
non-cash lease interest charge.
Consistent with our half year result, our pre-exceptional tax rate increased by 10
percentage points to 45.0%, driven by the concentration of profits in countries with
higher tax rates, coupled with the impact of losses arising in countries where no tax
benefit has been recognised and the impact of disallowable items.
We expect the Group’s tax rate to be slightly lower in FY27.
The tax rate remains highly sensitive to both the geographic mix of profits and
losses, and we would expect to reduce materially to more normal levels as profits
rebuild over time.
SLIDE 30: CASH FLOW
We delivered a strong cash performance in the year, with cash from operations of
£92.0m. This represented a 189% cash conversion.
Our working capital inflow was £24.9m, driven by the reduction in Temp fees and a
one day improvement in DSO.
We paid tax of £19.8m, and net interest of £8.2m. The cash impact of exceptional
restructuring charges was £42.0 million.
Overall, this led to free cash flow of £22.0m.
Our uses of free cash flow were
- The payment of £7.0m of dividends
- Purchase of own shares for employee incentive awards of £11.7m; and
- Capex of £24.1m
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The cash flow benefitted significantly following the full pension buy-in in FY25 that
previously required annual deficit funding contributions of £18m pa.
We expect capex in the £30-35 million range in FY27 to support our ongoing
investments in technology, at a similar run rate to our H2 capex of £14 million.
SLIDE 31: NET CASH POSITION & DSO
We ended the year with net cash of £20.1m. DSOs improved by one day driven by
good collection performance, and our aged debt profile remains strong. Bad debt
write-offs were minimal and remain at historically low levels.
SLIDE 32: BALANCE SHEET
The group continues to maintain a strong balance sheet.
Provisions increased due to restructuring activity including staff and property
closure costs through the year.
Net cash decreased after paying of £7.0 million in dividends in the year, £11.7
million in respect of share purchases for employee share awards, and £42.0
million cash exceptional restructuring charges.
SLIDE 33: REBASED DIVIDEND AND CAPITAL ALLOCATION FRAMEWORK
Our business model remains highly cash generative with a strong balance sheet
and the Group maintains a clear capital allocation framework.
Our priorities for use of free cash flow are to fund the Group’s investment and
development requirements, to maintain a strong balance sheet, to fund a dividend
that is affordable and appropriate, and return surplus cash to shareholders through
a combination of special dividends and share buybacks.
The final dividend of 0.29 pence per share is consistent with the revised capital
allocation framework and dividend policy we announced at the FY25 results, and
brings the full year dividend to 0.44 pence representing dividend cover of 2.8x.
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We remain committed to maintaining balance sheet strength and 2-3x dividend
cover while investing in the business.
SLIDE 34: SUMMARY
In summary, fees declined by 8%, but excellent progress with structural cost savings
together with 7% productivity growth, drove 3% growth in operating profit.
Volumes declined in both Temp and Perm, although Temp remains significantly
more resilient. We saw improving trading conditions in several markets with around
30% of our business in YoY growth in Q4.
We remain resolutely focused on repositioning the business in line with our
Momentum strategy, and delivering further significant structural cost saves of £50m
in FY27. This will drive another material exceptional charge next year.
We maintained a strong balance sheet underpinned by strong levels of cash
conversion, and this will fund our transformation and long-term growth initiatives,
generating attractive returns to shareholders as our profitability rebuilds over time.
SLIDE 36: CURRENT TRADING
Turning to current trading.
July and August to date have been in line with our expectations, with no
significant change to activity levels from Q4 in either Contracting, Temp or Perm.
September is our largest trading month of the quarter, and it is currently too early
to assess trends.
At a Group level there are no material working-day effects in Q1.
And given our ongoing focus on driving consultant productivity, we expect overall
Group consultant headcount will remain broadly stable in Q1.
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We will also continue to deliver on our structural efficiency programmes which
will further reduce our cost base per period through FY27.
I’d now like to hand back to Mark.
< Mark Dearnley , Chief Executive Officer >
SLIDE 38: RECAP & SUMMARY
So, to recap, Momentum is our strategy to accelerate profit growth and improve
market share in our chosen markets, by helping Hays solve specialist talent
selection processes better than anyone else in the market. In addition, when market
conditions allow, we will return to net fee growth.
Our strategy anticipates changes in the world of work, shaped by our 60 years of
experience and client feedback about what they need - responding to increasingly
complex workforce challenges and the greater pressure they face to make the right
hiring decisions. Getting it wrong can be costly.
It also leverages our 40,000 weekly interactions between expert Hays consultants
and their clients and candidates to provide deep insights into specialist recruitment
markets. This is a powerful combination, a key point of differentiation, and one where
we have only just started to capture its potential.
Momentum is a compelling strategy because it is shaped by colleagues, candidates
and clients.
Compelling because it is a growth strategy delivered through sharper focus and
market leadership
And compelling because it will deliver a significant increase in profitability, cash flow,
and shareholder returns.
Over time, we will increase consultant net fee productivity by more than 50%, return
Hays to a 25% plus conversion rate, and deliver superior returns for shareholders
hays.co .uk
As you have heard we are already delivering Momentum at pace after taking
decisive action and executing strongly over the last few months.
FY27 will be an exciting year
We will accelerate our execution and start to unlock Hays’ full potential
I will now hand you back to the administrator, and we are happy to take your
questions.
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