Half-year profits have plunged 75% at global STEM workforce consultancy SThree plc.
The London-headquartered firm says costs associated with its cutbacks are responsible for the drop. Revenue for the six months ended 31st May 2026 fell 8%.
SThree operates major hubs across Europe, the United States and Asia.
For the half-year it said revenues were £598.8m, down from £648.8m a year earlier, with profit before tax of £2.7m down from £10.1m.
It said the 75% PBT drop “reflects lower net fees and £6.4m of non-recurring costs primarily attributable to planned expenditure associated with the cost optimisation programme, partially offset by disciplined cost management and operational focus”.
Net cash at the end of the period was £43m, down from £47.8m a year before.
SThree said a share buyback programme of up to £20m, launched in February 2026, resulted in £6m worth of shares being purchased and subsequently cancelled during H1 FY26. £8.8m have been purchased as of today.
“Trading momentum improved through the first half despite continued macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, with strong performances in the USA and Japan, stable year-on-year new business activity and a return to growth in our contractor order book,” said CEO Timo Lehne.
“While market conditions remain mixed across our geographies, 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.
“We anticipated early on how our industry was set to evolve and, over recent years, implemented clear strategic initiatives. The benefits of these decisions are increasingly visible.
“We have simplified the business, focused on markets where we have the right balance of scale and opportunity, and successfully completed the rollout of our technology improvement programme.
“Operating on a single global cloud-based platform has enabled us to build an operating model centred on shared services and economies of scale, which is delivering productivity gains, improved execution, and the data and process backbone to deploy AI and new capabilities at scale and pace.
“We are now a focused, scalable, less complex and tech-enabled business with a clear operating model.
“These characteristics are vital. As workforce needs become more complex, clients increasingly require partners that can combine specialist expertise, workforce solutions and technology-enabled delivery.
“While we remain cautious on the near-term market outlook, 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.”
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