Morning, everybody, and welcome to our FY2022 results. Personally, I don't think that we've ever had a year quite like this one. We began the year with improving momentum, which then accelerated, and we ended up delivering record fees, the largest profit growth in our history, and significant cash generation. We also held our first Investor Day for five years, and we set out our strategic stall for the next five years, which all makes for a strong story today. We've slightly modified this morning's format. As usual, I'll take you through the operating review, Paul will cover detailed financials, and then James Hilton, our incoming FD, will cover the current trading, and then I'll finish off with a strategy update. As we set out at our Investor Day, our world has changed dramatically.
We now live in a world of long-term skill shortages, new job category creation, continual upskilling, wage inflation, and changing work habits. In my view, all of these changes strongly benefit Hays, and our strategy is designed to capitalize on them. We sit right at the heart of one of the hottest areas of the global economies, that is building talented workforces. With the breadth and the depth of our global network and the insights that that gives us, we're busier than ever helping our customers navigate what is a more complex world. We also know that we live in a world of increasing uncertainties.
However, I think it's worth saying right up front that although we have seen some normalization of activity in the previously hottest parts of the market, we have made a good start to our financial year, with fees and activity sequentially stable at strong levels. Obviously, we closely monitor all of our activity levels and KPIs, and we will respond quickly should those circumstances change . But that said, we've never been busier. Last year, we helped over 350,000 talented people find their next role, and we delivered almost 1 million online training courses to candidates looking to upgrade their skills for the new economy. We also launched our new brand identity, Working for your tomorrow, to better reflect where we now see ourselves, and importantly, where we're going as a business.
We invested aggressively, increasing our consultant capacity by 26%, and we continue to reposition our business towards those areas where we see the most significant longer term opportunity. All of these actions, supported by a strong market, delivered record annual fees, including 24 country records. We also saw a very sharp recovery in profit to GBP 210.1 million, and despite our investment, our conversion rate increased by more than 700 basis points. Cash performance was also strong. We ended the year with nearly GBP 300 million in the bank. We also made huge progress in our societal priorities. Our science-based targets in support of Net Zero were approved, and we're leading our industry in this important area. We promote social mobility by bringing career training programs to our markets free of charge to help people get on in their lives.
Our Hays Helping for Your Tomorrow program completed its first full year with over 10,000 hours of volunteer work by our colleagues, bringing their expertise and passion to help many disadvantaged communities. I'm incredibly proud that through these efforts, we've helped literally thousands of people improve their own prospects. For our shareholders, the board's confidence in our strategy, our commitment to return in significant amounts of cash, is shown in the GBP 168 million that we propose to pay in core and special dividends, plus the decision to top up our share buyback program so that we start FY2023 with a full GBP 75 million pound available for buyback. I have to say, Paul and I have worked together now here for 15 years, but we've never delivered a set of results with so many positives for all of our stakeholders.
However, I also think that there's a lot more to come. Let me turn now to our financial results. Group fees were up 32% to a record level of GBP 1.189 billion, and 24 of our 32 countries delivered individual annual records. Our first half was the strongest market that we've ever seen. Growth rates moderated versus tougher comps in the second half, but they remained excellent overall. Fees and activity levels were sequentially stable at strong levels through the fourth quarter, which itself delivered fees of just over GBP 320 million. Our Perm business was the standout, with fees up 49%. Temp, which was, if you remember, relatively resilient in the prior year, grew by 21%, and both Perm and Temp benefited from increased margins and from wage inflation.
Globally, our largest specialism, technology, produced record fees and grew by 32% and exceeded GBP 300 million in fees for the first time ever. Accountancy and finance rebounded strongly, up 37%. Although its recovery started slightly later, construction and property grew 21%. We also delivered record direct outsourcing fees in our enterprise clients, up 21% and with a strong pipeline of new opportunities in both recruitment as well as HR services. We started to increase our own headcount around 20 months ago as markets stabilized, and that investment accelerated last year. We added over 1,800 new consultants, including 550 into our SGI program. Despite this, consultant productivity was excellent, and with much of our capacity now moving up their productivity curve, we're very focused on increasing this further.
With so much rapid change in markets and investments, our operating profit growth was the largest that we've ever achieved, up 128% to GBP 210.1 million, and we upgraded consensus forecasts three times during the course of the year. Now, there's a lot behind these numbers, so let me add some color, and we'll start at the other side of the world in Australia and New Zealand. Growth in ANZ was strong, with fees up 24% and operating profit up 32%. Activity improved as lockdown restrictions were removed in our second quarter, although we saw some negative COVID impacts in Q3, and fourth quarter volumes and activity were sequentially stable. Perm fees grew an excellent 60%. Temp, which stood up well in the pandemic, was up 9%.
There were some signs of skilled candidates shifting from the temp to perm markets, and our temp volumes were flat in the fourth quarter. Technology fees hit a record, up 37%, and A&F and HR also recovered very strongly, up 30% and 28% respectively. A special shout-out to New Zealand, who continue to deliver fantastic results. Their fees were up 49% to a huge record, and I'm delighted with the job that our team are doing there. We're now back to market leadership in New Zealand with a lot more to come, I'm sure. Overall, in such a strong market, our consultant headcount across ANZ increased 20% year-over-year. Turning now to our largest country, Germany. We delivered records all over the world, but in many ways, I think this was our standout performer.
Fees were up 34% in what is already a massive business, and operating profit was up 152%. Activity levels were high, with clients continuing to invest in new projects. The skill shortage in Germany is particularly acute, and there are simply not enough talented people there to fill all of the roles. That meant that our largest business of contracting produced record numbers of contractors working and fees up 28%. Temp growth was faster still at 39%, and the perm business was outstanding, up 51%. With such high activity levels, we increased consultant headcount by 24% year-on-year. Overall, I'm delighted with our progress in Germany and hitting a quarterly fee record in our fourth quarter.
I've said many times that Germany is our biggest profit growth opportunity over the next few years, and I think these results show why. There are decades of structural opportunity to go for, and as the far away leader in that market, we've got lots of options to grow. Moving to the U.K. and Ireland. Fees increased by 31%, and profit rebounded by 277%. Perm fees led the way again, up 58%, with temp up 15%. Temp was slower in the final quarter, although margins increased on slightly lower volumes. The private sector was strong, with fees up 42%, and the public sector grew 10%. By sector, a familiar theme again, with technology hitting new records, fees in technology up 56% off an already large business.
A&F, office support and HR were also excellent, up 38%, 50%, and 81% respectively, while C&P grew by 15%. Against that backdrop, we increased our consultant headcount by 24% year-on-year. To our rest of the world division, this comprises 27 countries, and 22 of them delivered record fees. Total fees grew 36% with operating profit up 234%. Perm fees again led the way, up 43%, with temp up 24%. Regionally, EMEA, which is over half of the rest of the world, grew by 31% with consistent growth across all countries. The Americas were even stronger, up 51%, led by Canada, the United States and Brazil. Asia was also excellent, up 35%, led by Japan and Malaysia.
Growth in China was 25% overall, but the strict lockdown restrictions that were imposed in our spring meant that our fees declined 4% in Q4. Thankfully now, many of those restrictions are now easing. There are plenty of structural growth opportunities everywhere across the rest of the world, and we increased our headcount by 29% year-on-year as we continue to open up the markets. In summary, I think it's been a remarkable year. To hit record fees so soon after the pandemic and to deliver such a rapid profit rebound is testament to the tremendous hard work and expertise of our colleagues worldwide. Our strategy continues to deliver as we build leadership positions in skill short markets. Wage inflation and job churn both help our business.
Clients increasingly want us to deliver more of their recruitment and more of their related HR services, and we are firmly focused on achieving this. I'll now hand over to Paul for a deeper look at our financial performance.
Thank you, Alistair, and good morning, everyone. To set the context of the results we're reporting today, we entered FY 2022 with excellent momentum in all of our regions, having delivered good sequential growth to the second half of FY 2021. Sequential growth continued in the first three quarters of FY 2022, including monthly fee records in September, November, and March. In Q4, we delivered a record quarter, which was sequentially stable at strong levels overall, and half two fees were 10% higher than half one. While the growth was perm-led, temp fees were also excellent, with both benefiting from skill shortages, wage inflation, and rising fee margins. This slide summarizes our excellent performance with record like-for-like fees and a material increase in our profitability, driving a strong cash position and enabling substantial shareholder returns.
On a like-for-like basis, net fees increased by 32% to GBP 1.189 billion, and operating profit more than doubled to GBP 210.1 million, even with the significant investments made through the year. We delivered another strong cash performance with net cash of GBP 296 million after GBP 205 million of shareholder distributions during the year. The board has proposed a final core dividend of GBP 0.019 per share, making a full year core dividend of GBP 0.0285, and a special dividend of GBP 0.0734 per share. The board has also increased our share buyback program by GBP 18.2 million, meaning we began FY2023 with GBP 75 million available for buybacks. Moving on to the income statement.
Turnover inreased by 19%, with the difference between turnover and fee growth primarily driven by the excellent growth in our perm fees and the significant improvements in temp margin. The difference between the headline and like-for-like growth rates is primarily the result of the strengthening of sterling versus our main trading currencies in the euro and Australian dollar. Overall, FX movements reduced net fees and operating profits by GBP 20.4 million and GBP 2.8 million respectively. Basic earnings per share was 9.22p, a 151% increase versus prior year, driven by the significant increase in operating profit, along with the effect of a lower effective tax rate which was boosted by one-off tax gains which I will cover shortly. Alistair covered regional trading earlier, and I'll cover two specific points.
Firstly, an update on our German temp business, where as required under German law, we employ temp workers. Temp fees increased by 39%. However, our comparative fees in FY2021 included a GBP 6.2 million in temp severance and underutilization costs. Excluding this, underlying temp fees increased by 27%. Average temp volumes improved through the year but remained below previous peak due to a slow recovery in the automotive and manufacturing sectors. Secondly, in March this year, we announced the closure of business in Russia due to the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine. The total cost of our exit, which was completed in June 2022, were GBP 4.2 million and were incurred as an expense in the second half.
Excluding these closure costs, our rest of the world operating profit would have been GBP 43.7 million at a conversion rate of 10.5%. Moving on to the performances of perm and temp. Our perm business, 45% of net fees, increased by 49% with a 42% increase in volume and a 5% increase in our average perm fee, including H2 up 7% as wage inflation increased through the year together with the actions we took to drive our perm margin in candidate short markets. In our temp business, 55% of group net fees increased by 21% due to three factors.
A temp volume increase of 10%, a 4% positive effect of mixing hours driven by the higher paid specialisms such as technology and engineering and wage inflation, although this is partially offset by the greater number of part-time contracting assignments, notably in our German business. Finally, and most importantly, a 100 basis point or 7% increase in underlying margins driven by improvements in pricing. The first annual increase in temp margin since FY2015. The first chart on this slide shows our operating profit bridge between FY2021 and FY2022. Starting with FY2021 profit of GBP 95.1 million, we subtract the negative impact of exchange on profit of GBP 2.8 million and add the 32% increase in like-for-like fees of GBP 291.7 million explained by Alistair.
Like-for-like costs increased by GBP 173.9 million or 22% comprising staff costs, excluding SGI, of GBP 132 million, of which GBP 72 million relates to our increase in average headcount as we invested in our consultant base, which including SGI headcount investment and non-consultants, was up 23%. GBP 60 million of higher commissions paid to our consultants and bonuses in the business, driven by the increase in fees and the average commission percentage paid to consultants with the excellent level of consultant productivity, especially in our perm business. We also invested GBP 20 million in strategic growth initiatives. As markets continued to open up, motor travel and entertainment costs increased by GBP 7.9 million and reached a steady state in half two at a sustainable level of cost going forward.
We incurred GBP 4.2 million of exit costs in Russia and modest increases in advertising, IT, and professional costs. On the right-hand side, we've broken out these increasing costs to show the movement in our periodic cost base, which has increased from GBP 73 million in July 2021, GBP 77 million in July 2022, and includes a GBP 2.5 million increase in group-wide salary costs effective from July 2022. On exchange, a reminder that our P&L is sensitive to changes in key exchange rates, namely the Australian dollar and especially the euro. The group does not undertake any P&L translation hedging arrangements. Sterling's recent weakening versus our main currencies is currently a headwind to FY 2023 profit. If we retranslate FY 2022 profits of GBP 210 million, the current exchange rates profit would increase by GBP 6 million.
Group conversion rate increased from 10.4% to 17.7%, reflecting a strong improvement in profitability and significant investment in capability. This represented a good like-for-like drop through rate of incremental fees to profits of 40% as we balanced driving profitability and investing for growth. Excluding Russia closure costs, conversion rate is 18% and the drop through was 42%. At a regional level, especially encouraging is the strong sequential profit growth in our German business as the higher value and longer length of contracting in temp assignments offers the greatest opportunity for profit growth for the group over the next few years. Germany delivered the biggest step change in profitability in the year and with conversion rate increasing to 24% and an excellent drop through of 57%.
Moving on to interest and tax, the net finance charge for the year decreased to GBP 5.8 million. The largest component remains a non-cash IFRS 16 interest on lease liabilities. Looking ahead, we expect net finance charge for FY2023 to be GBP 6 million, of which GBP 3 million is non-cash. Our effective tax rate decreased from 30.2%- 24.5%, and the decrease in ETR reflects positive one-off settlements with certain tax authorities, plus the recognition of deferred tax assets driven by the positive movement in the group's defined benefit pension surplus. The underlying tax rate remains at circa 30%, and we expect the ETR in FY2023 to be at that level. On this slide, we've summarized the key components of our cash flow.
The chart on the left details the sources of cash flow, starting with profit of GBP 210.1 million. We add back non-cash items of GBP 82.8 million, predominantly IFRS 16 property depreciation, other fixed asset depreciation and amortization, and share-based payments. We then subtract a working capital outflow of GBP 65 million, reflecting growth in our temp book and deduct lease payments of GBP 45 million. This leaves an operating cash flow of GBP 182.9 million, representing a conversion of profit into cash of 87%. From this, we pay tax of GBP 39 million and net interest of GBP 0.5 million, leading to free cash flow of GBP 143.4 million.
On the right-hand side, we detail how we use the cash generated, and the main items of which were the payment of GBP 150 million of special dividends and GBP 36.4 million of core dividends for the FY2021 final and FY2022 interims. Purchase of our own shares for GBP 19.8 million to satisfy the employee share based award obligations over the next two years. The purchase and cancellation of GBP 18.2 million of shares through the share buyback program launched in April 2022. CapEx of GBP 24.4 million and pension deficit payments of GBP 17.2 million. We expect CapEx in FY2023 to be GBP 25-30 million.
Our hardworking credit control has maintained a 6-day reduction in debtor days from 39 days in FY2019 to the record low of 33 days delivered in FY2021 and repeated in FY2022. This drove a cumulative cash flow benefit of GBP 90 million across FY20 and FY2021. This good cash performance meant we finished the year with a strong cash position of GBP 296.2 million, and the group has in place a GBP 210 million revolving credit facility that reduces in November 2024 to a GBP 170 million and expires in 2025. On this side, we compare the balance sheet as of June 2022 with 2021. There are three main movements.
Firstly, an increase in the IAS 19 pension accounting surplus to GBP 102 million due to changes in financial assumptions, most notably an increase in the discount rate and changes to the scheme demographic assumptions, plus company contributions, partially offset by lower expected returns on scheme assets. Second, the increase in working capital as explained earlier. Third, we have GBP 56.8 million of other financial liabilities which represent the outstanding balance under the initial GBP 75 million share buyback program and is recognized as a liability due to the nature of the cancellation clauses in that contract. During the year, the triennial valuations of the DB scheme was completed and quantified the actuarial deficit of GBP 24 million.
There's no change to our deficit recovery payments of GBP 17 million in FY 2022, which will increase at 3% per year as we position the scheme towards our long-term buyout objective. Our priorities for free cash flow remain unchanged, namely to fund the group's investments and development, maintain a strong balance sheet, deliver sustainable and appropriate core dividend, and to return surplus cash to shareholders in the most appropriate form. In line with this policy, the board has proposed a final core dividend of 1.9 pence per share, bringing total core dividends for FY 2022 of 2.85p per share or GBP 47.3 million.
This represents cover of three times underlying EPS when adjusted for the one-off tax benefits. We've declared a special dividend of 7.34p per share, equating to GBP 121.2 million. As mentioned earlier, the board has increased our share buyback program by a further GBP 18 million, means we begin FY2023 with GBP 75 million available for buybacks. Another reminder, our policy for special dividends is based on distributing all funds above the cash buffer of GBP 100 million at each financial year-end, plus any amounts outstanding on the share buyback program, and is subject to the board having a positive economic outlook. The group is highly cash generative with a strong record of returning significant levels of cash to shareholders.
This slide updates our progress on the actions we announced last August to further streamline our business and drive future annual cost savings. We made good progress in each of the cost savings initiatives, which collectively deliver GBP 30 million of annual savings versus pre-pandemic levels. Split evenly between property, by reducing our footprint and its cost. Ongoing property costs decreased by GBP 4 million through property consolidation and renegotiation of leases. Back office efficiencies through increased use of automation and existing low-cost shared service centers. All projects are well underway and have already leveraged GBP 2 million of annual savings. Travel, as better use of video technology becomes the norm, and we permanently deliver on absolute travel reduction targets in support of our Net Zero journey.
We've held on to GBP 12 million of annual savings versus pre-pandemic cost base, and expect at least GBP 10 million of this to be sustainable going forward. On cash, we continue to expect a long-term cash benefit from sustainably lower debt to date of at least GBP 45 million versus pre-pandemic levels, and this has already led to greater cash returns to our shareholders. In summary, in FY 2022, we've delivered record fees, material profit growth, and a strong cash performance. Our excellent fee performance in all regions was driven by strong client and candidate confidence, together with continued improvement in our perm and temp margins, delivered by our pricing actions and broader wage inflation. We expect the net positive benefits of wage inflation to continue through FY 2023.
We delivered our largest ever profit growth, invested to capitalize on long-term growth opportunities, increased our group conversion rate by 730 basis points, delivered record consultant productivity, and made good progress on our cost savings and efficiency programs. All of this further strengthened our financial position, and as mentioned, the board has proposed total dividends for the year of GBP 0.1019 or GBP 169 million and supplemented this with a GBP 75 million share buyback program. I will now hand you over to James Hilton, my successor, to cover current trading.
Thanks, Paul, and good morning. Overall, we made a good start to the new financial year, with fees adjusted to seasonality remaining at Q4 levels. While we're mindful of the increasing macroeconomic uncertainty, client and candidate confidence remains broadly stable at good levels and continues to be supported by skill shortages and broad-based wage inflation. Our activity levels in perm remain strong overall, albeit with some normalization in the previously most active markets. Temp volumes remain stable overall at high levels. Globally, both temp and perm continue to benefit from improving margins and broader impact of wage inflation, which we expect to continue across FY2023. Having made significant investments in FY2022, we have appropriate capacity for today's market opportunities.
We therefore expect consultant headcount growth will be minimal in our first half outside our SGI program, as we focus on driving consultant productivity and returns from our investment. At a regional level, in Australia, we see good perm activity and stability overall in temp fees, with modest volume reductions offset by margin improvements. In Germany, we see strong market conditions with record contractor volumes. Due to the timing of public holidays, there are three fewer working days in Germany in H1 versus prior year, which has a circa GBP 5 million profit impact in the half. There are a consistent number of trading days in our second half versus the prior year. In UK&I, we see good perm activity and stable temp volumes. In rest of the world, we see good market conditions in EMEA and Asia.
In North America, perm activity levels have decreased modestly, reflecting some reduced client confidence. With that, I'll hand you back to Alistair, who will update you on our strategy before we take your questions.
Thank you, James. Now, before I start, I just want to acknowledge that this is Paul's last set of results with Hays as he retires from full-time work on the thirtieth of September. Paul's been our FD for 16 years, and in that time he's delivered 95 results meetings and five Investor Days. Now, many of you, I think, know that he's a keen cricket fan, so I think it's entirely fitting that he makes his century appearance at Hays' market event here today. There can't be many people in business these days who have that kind of track record. On behalf of all of his Hays colleagues, I would like to publicly thank him for all of his hard work and wise counsel over many years. We all wish you well in what I know will be a busy non-exec career.
It's also a measure of the culture that Paul has built in our finance team that we have such a talented homegrown successor in James, and I look forward immensely to working together for the years to come.
As you know, we held our first Investor Day since 2017 in April, setting the scene for the next phase of our development. We sought to explain the reasons why we believe that Hays will be a winner in the new world of work, and there are four key themes. Firstly, our number one market positions in global infrastructure in many of the fastest-growing talent markets, including technology, life sciences, and engineering, for example. Secondly, the sheer breadth, depth, and scale of our candidate relationships in the skilled talent market. Thirdly, our formidable client base across all sizes of organization, from startups to major strategic partnerships with large enterprise clients. Finally, our clients' demands for, and our ambition to provide a broader suite of HR services, thus further deepening those partnerships.
Now, I firmly believe that our strategy will make us a more resilient and a higher quality business with stickier and more diverse earning streams. We also have the potential to double our overall profits and return significant cash, around GBP 650 million, over five years to our shareholders. Let me recap on how we intend to do all of that. Assuming a supportive economic backdrop and no significant downturn in our major markets, we see the potential to grow fees 6%-10% over a five-year period, and we have multiple routes to deliver this. For example, we believe we can grow our technology fees at 11% CAGR to GBP 500 million. We also see the opportunity to double fees in our outsourced enterprise solutions business to over GBP 400 million.
Our market-leading businesses in Germany, the U.K. and Ireland, and Australia and New Zealand all still have significant growth opportunities across many sectors. As our clients evolve, we see their demand for broader HR services also increasing as their challenges change. Now, you've already seen how we're doing by country, so let me show progress in some other areas. As I mentioned earlier, we just exceeded GBP 300 million in global technology fees for the first time ever. We've doubled that business over the last eight years, and today find ourselves as the global leader in tech talent in a market of almost limitless opportunity. Our next milestone is GBP 500 million in tech fees, and there are five pillars to achieve this. Continuing to grow our existing IT contracting and core technology business. Geographically expanding that business across all 32 countries.
Investing in new practices in high growth technologies. Deepening our client relationships by broadening the services that we offer. Then finally, by growing our technology project services business. I think this strategy is proving to be highly effective, and last year, our U.K. tech business grew by an outstanding 56%. Australia was up 37% and Germany was up 21%. Combined, our three largest countries added nearly GBP 45 million in tech fees in FY2022, and that makes our growth last year bigger than the total fees of many of our tech competitors. Again, since FY2019, we've doubled our tech fees in France and Spain to a combined GBP 20 million by scaling our IT contracting businesses there.
We've also opened new niche practices, including cyber, where we're on track to deliver GBP 15 million in fees this year from a standing start just two years ago. We're now generating around GBP 20 million in fees from our project services business, and we expect that to continue to grow fast across many countries. Strong progress across the board, but with such a massive market to go after, I hope you can see why we're so excited about what we can achieve in tech. Similarly, our contracted outsource fees, which are mainly with our largest 150 clients, have more than doubled to GBP 200 million since we globalized our enterprise business back in 2016. That's a 14% CAGR. We grew fees by 21% last year with an excellent pipeline of further opportunities that are already coming to fruition.
We also have a long list of what I'd call preferred supplier clients. These are all large organizations where typically we may only do between 20% and 40% of their recruitment, but every single one of these relationships offers us market share opportunity. Finally, we're now generating around GBP 20 million in fees from the broader advisory services. As I mentioned, we expect to see this demand increase quickly as clients face new challenges. Overall, we currently earn around GBP 450 million in fees. That's about 40% of our group total from these top 550 clients, and with scope to grow share in most of them, you can understand the size of the prize of leveraging those relationships effectively. Clearly, our position in the market is changing.
To support our growth, we recently launched our new brand identity to reinforce how we're perceived in the market, both by customers as well as by investors. Recruiting experts worldwide has served us very well for over a decade. However, as we build stronger partnerships with clients and candidates across such a broad set of services, we are much more than just a transactional recruiter. We sit at the heart of building talented, diverse, and competitive workforces globally, and we're becoming ever more deeply embedded with our clients. That's why Working for your tomorrow is now so appropriate for us. We put the customer, whether that's the client or the candidate, right at the center of our world to ensure that they have what they need to keep competing in the future.
Our new branding is being rolled out across our entire estate over the next few months, but more importantly, it sets the framework for the types of services that we will bring to market and what we will be known for. I'm incredibly excited by the possibilities that this brings us, because I think that there are a few, if any, other businesses with the existing foundations that we have to move on to this bigger stage. In conclusion, FY2022 was an excellent year, and we've made a good start to FY2023. We've refined our strategy and continued to invest to capitalize on skill short labor markets. We are realizing the benefits of wage inflation and increasing fee margins, and we have continued to open up longer-term structural opportunities. Our fees are at record levels, and our profit growth was the largest in our history.
We're driving productivity further as our newer joiners move up their own productivity curves. We also have an exciting list of areas from which we can grow further and a management team fully infused about those prospects. Of course, we also see the risks and the challenges that our world is facing today, and those are outside our control. However, we've proven over many years that we can react quickly and appropriately if conditions change. Our teams around the world are highly experienced at this, and we have the systems and the data to provide real-time insights into our markets so that we can always take the best decisions. While near-term macro uncertainties are increasing, remember that we live in a world of acute skill shortages, and Hays exists to solve that problem.
That's why the medium and the long-term potential for our business is so strong and why we are so focused on it. As Paul retires, he leaves us with a business in excellent shape and with a lot more to come in the future. We'd now be delighted to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please slowly press star one and one. We will now take the first question. One moment, please. It comes from the line of Kean Marden from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks. Morning, all. I've got a couple. Just on the SGI investment, you're obviously sustaining it at GBP 20 million for the current fiscal year. Is that likely to also require about 550 additional headcount? If that's the case, will you phase that evenly over the year, or do you have any views about sort of front-end or back-end loading it? Secondly, just looking at Germany, which is obviously quite an interesting discussion topic at the moment.
We had a low river level in the Rhine back in 2018, which caused some disruption. I don't recall it having a big impact on your business, but I mean, yes. Views, I think, on whether that and energy headwinds over the next six months are likely to impede your business in Germany, or whether tight professional labor markets are less impacted by that.
Thanks, Kean. Let me kick off. I'll take the SGI one, and then Paul, maybe you can talk about Germany. Yeah, GBP 20 million consistent with last year. I think in terms of headcount, it'll be slightly lower than the 550. You know, it'll be 400+, something like that, because we do invest in other areas, whether it's marketing, systems, et cetera. I'd expect it to be evenly spread over the course of the year. Do you wanna talk about Germany, Paul?
When it happened in 2018, there was minimal impact on our business. Clearly, so far the levels in the Rhine are lower. What does it mean? It means that there'll be greater costs for German manufacturing industry, but certainly no impact at all on our business so far. Germany remains, as James said, the strongest market that we operate in today. Thank you kindly for your comment there, Kean.
Yeah, no problem. Thanks very much, guys.
Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please slowly press star one and one on your telephone. There are no questions over on the phones at this time. Please continue.
Okay. Well, if there's no further questions, thanks to everybody for dialing in today. We'll be back in October. Great day. Thank you.