16th Dec 2025 12:10
(Alliance News) - SThree PLC on Tuesday said it has entered its new financial year in a "stronger position" than before, following improvements in business as the recent year progressed.
SThree shares were quoted at 185.40 pence, up 7.8% in London at around midday on Tuesday. They remain down 29% over the past year.
SThree is a London-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics-focused staffing firm.
Financial performance in the year that ended November 30 was in line with its previously guided GBP25 million pretax profit, SThree said, though this is more than halved from GBP67.6 million in financial 2024. Net fees totalled GBP322.7 million, down 12% from GBP369.1 million the year before.
More positively, performance improved sequentially through the year, SThree said, with the US returning to growth and partly offsetting weaker conditions in Europe.
By region, US net fees rose slightly to GBP83.2 million from GBP82.0 million. Germany net fees fell 16% to GBP94.1 million from GBP111.8 million, while net fees in the Netherlands dropped by 24% to GBP54.1 million from GBP71.0 million. UK net fees declined 27% to GBP27.7 million from GBP38.3 million. Japan recorded strong growth, however, with net fees up 20% to GBP12.5 million from GBP10.6 million.
Globally, contract recruitment, which accounts for 84% of group net fees, declined by 12% on financial 2024, while permanent placement fees fell 9%. The contractor order book slipped by 2% to GBP157 million, representing around five months of net fee visibility.
SThree said it enters financial 2026 in a "stronger position", and it confirmed previous guidance for financial 2026 pretax profit to be around GBP10 million, halved again from the financial 2025 result.
"As anticipated, we have not yet seen a widespread market recovery, however we have exited the year with a period of improving new placement activity, complemented by continued resilient extensions," Chief Executive Timo Lehne said.
SThree will release its results for financial 2025 on January 27.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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