Hello, welcome to RM's Full Year Results for 2025. I'm Mark Cook, Chief Executive, and I'm joined by Simon Goodwin, our Chief Financial Officer. In today's update, I'll share an overview of RM's Results for 2025. Simon will cover a more detailed review of the financials. I'll update on the progress we're making on our strategy. As a global edtech company, we're proud of the part we play in education and the difference we make to the lives of learners every day. Every product we launch, every classroom we kit out, every assessment we enable makes a real impact. 2025 was a year of building momentum. We focused on three things. Firstly, positioning ourselves to capture the major market opportunity in digital assessment and marking. Secondly, strengthening our financial position and improving profitability. Thirdly, setting our business up for sustainable long-term growth.
That growth will help us keep improving educational outcomes around the world. I'm really proud that profitability has grown significantly over the course of 2025, reflecting our focus on key growth areas, improved margins, and the benefits we're seeing from cost-saving measures. Adjusted operating profit was up 33.2%, and adjusted EBITDA, excluding share-based payments, improved 20% on the same period last year. Profit before tax was GBP 3.2 million, marking the first reported statutory profit since FY 2021. Overall, revenue was marginally lower than 2024 due to the challenging U.K. schools market impacting our Technology and TTS divisions. Revenue in our core Assessment division grew around 20% as the market continues to transition from paper to hybrid or fully digital assessment and marking. We're making good headway with plans to simplify the business.
By separating systems, processes, and legacy IT, we're giving our three divisions the flexibility to run in a way that best supports their growth. This separation also supports the disposal of non-core assets, facilitating net debt reduction. An equity raise in Q4 brought in GBP 13.5 million gross of new investment to support our transformation. It was significantly oversubscribed, with all of our major shareholders taking part and several new investors joining, which is a strong vote of confidence in our investment proposition. This puts us in a strong position to accelerate on our strategy in 2026.
Our business operates through three divisions: assessment, helping customers move from paper-based exams to hybrid or fully digital assessment and marking on our world-leading platform; TTS, creating our own products and supplying other learning resources that support effective teaching; and Technology, delivering IT and IT services that make learning environments more exciting, inclusive, and safe. While all three divisions offer different products and services and predominantly to different parts of the education sector, everything is focused on one purpose, to enrich the lives of learners. Taking each of these in turn, our assessment division continues to deliver strong performance with revenue up 20% and with adjusted operating margin increasing from 17.5%- 22.9%. The most exciting milestone last year was the launch of RM Ava, our new adaptive virtual accreditation platform. Ava marks a major step forward in our assessment-focused growth strategy.
It brings our best tools into a single cloud-based platform, making it easier for our customers to move from paper to hybrid or fully digital assessment. The platform handles everything from building the exam content and running the tests, to marking and feedback. It creates a seamless way for our customers to work and a brilliant experience for their candidates. Our results show we are getting this right. We had another strong year of customer renewals, with 99% of revenue up for renew successfully renewed. Our operational performance reinforces that picture. Last year saw a record number of exams sat and marked on our platform. We're also winning new work. We recently welcomed Trinity College London, who will use our platform to assess thousands of music and drama performances. It's a huge step forward in how those types of qualifications are assessed.
For our TTS division, FY 2025 was a challenging year, with U.S. tariffs and pressure on U.K. schools budgets. Revenue was lower at GBP 67.3 million, which was also in part due to the delay of major international orders, which are now expected to land in FY 2026. We're confident in future growth in TTS. We've invested more internationally and grown our Dubai office. Last year, we saw a 20% increase in sales in the Middle East and North Africa region. What really makes us proud is our own products, the ones we create and build ourselves. A good example is our robotics range. It teaches programming from early years right through to age 12 and beyond, helping prepare young people for an exciting future. It's a privilege to see products like these make such a positive impact.
Last year alone, we launched 130 products using our own IP, further strengthening our portfolio. We have some great new product ideas coming to life over the next 18 months, these focus on programming as well as language and communication skills. Our RM Technology division held up well in a tough year for the U.K. schools market. We saw delays to key initiatives like Connect the Classroom funding, alongside a general slowdown due to tighter budgets in schools. While revenue was lower at GBP 47.2 million, operating profit improved marginally to 7.5%. Despite the challenges, the team secured key renewals, including with South Lanarkshire Council , Brooke Weston Trust, and HFL Education, and we won the First Federation Trust Managed Service, Connectivity and Filtering contract. These are important wins that represent recurring revenue for years to come.
This shows we're a partner who knows the education sector inside out and provides the IT products and services that are needed in schools, even when difficult times exist. Looking ahead, there's an anticipated infrastructure refresh, recycle alongside a growing need from schools around security and data protection. We understand these requirements deeply, and we'll be building that expertise into our growth plans. Everything we've achieved across the business in FY 2025 has given us real momentum. It gives us a fantastic platform to build on in 2026. I'll now hand over to Simon, who will take you through our financial performance for the year.
Thank you, Mark. As Mark said, FY 2025 was a year of momentum. This is showing through in our financial results. The clearest indication being our return to profit before tax for the first time since FY 2021. Like-for-like revenue moderately declined by 2.5% to GBP 162.1 million, reflecting the challenging schools market facing our Technology and TTS divisions. U.S. tariffs and delays on awarding key tenders impacted the TTS international business. We now expect those tenders to be awarded in FY 2026. Our Assessment division had a standout performance with a 19.9% growth in total revenues and a 56.8% increase in adjusted operating profit.
Even with the dip in revenue, overall, the business delivered an adjusted operating profit of GBP 11.5 million compared to GBP 8.6 million in FY 2024, and EBITDA, excluding share-based payments, increased 19.9% to GBP 16.5 million. EBITDA is now greater than 10% of revenues again. This significant increase in profitability comes from a combination of more of our total revenue coming from the higher margin assessment division, as well as the full-year impact of the significant cost savings we've delivered in recent years. Corporate overheads alone reduced by 13.8% in FY 2025 and are now only 12.9% of total revenue, down from 14.6% in FY 2024. There is more to do.
New savings were also achieved from right-sizing the senior management team and continuing to renegotiate third-party contracts, especially across IT. The next wave of significant cost savings and efficiency improvements will come from the separation project, which has now started, and we expect to deliver material benefits over the next two to three years. Adjusted net debt reduced slightly during the year by GBP 1.1 million to GBP 50.6 million due to the equity placing last October, while a further circa GBP 6 million has been invested in RM Ava in support of our assessment-focused growth strategy. We remain focused on improving operating cash conversion, and we're also committed to reinvesting that operating cash into the development of RM Ava in the immediate term to capitalize on that major market opportunity in front of us.
The business operated within our hard liquidity and EBITDA covenants throughout FY '25. Here we show a summary income statement for FY '25. You can see straight away that this is a much cleaner set of accounts than we have been able to publish in recent years. FY '25 saw no impact of the previously discontinued Consortium or Integris businesses. The level of accounting adjustments is also significantly reduced compared to previous years. You can also see from this table that, despite the small reduction in total group revenue, the profitability of the group, both at a divisional contribution level and at an adjusted operating profit level, improved in absolute terms and as a percent of revenue in FY '25. Net finance costs reflect debt facility interest charges and net finance income from our DB pension schemes.
This charge to the P&L is GBP 0.2 million lower than last year due to slightly higher investment income in those pension schemes. Actual debt interest and bank charges were broadly level year-on-year. In FY 2024, we recognized a deferred tax asset resulting in a credit to the P&L of GBP 9.2 million . In FY 2025, we have utilized some of those losses to offset taxable profits made in-year. The adjusted FY 2025 tax charge of GBP 1.3 million is a mix of taxes relating to our operations in India and the utilization of current year losses. Adjustments after tax in FY 2025 are GBP 2 million compared to the GBP 13.3 million of adjustments last year. In FY 2024, the biggest adjustments related to a GBP 9.3 million impairment for TTS.
There is no equivalent impairment this year. A GBP 4.6 million of restructuring costs, which has reduced to GBP 1.8 million in FY 2025. This has all resulted in the group generating a positive statutory profit after tax in FY 2025 of GBP 2.2 million compared to the GBP 4.8 million loss of last year, an improvement of GBP 7 million year-on-year. Turning to revenue, here we bridge the 2.5% decline compared to FY 2024. RM Assessment revenues increased by almost 20% to GBP 47.6 million, and encouragingly, with a 17.3% growth in core platform revenues. Scaling our platform offering was a priority last year as we reshaped our portfolio for the future. TTS and Technology saw less progress, which accounts for the total revenue decline.
TTS revenues decreased by 7.2% to GBP 67.3 million. Revenue in the UK education market was impacted by the budgetary pressure facing schools. This was especially true at the start of FY 2025, although we saw some improvements in H2. Internationally, following a strong start to the year, particularly in the Middle East, performance was then affected by the introduction of US tariffs on our predominantly Chinese-manufactured own IP products. This was compounded by delayed decisions on significant European tenders, which have slipped into FY 2026. International sales still account for 25% of total TTS revenues, and this remains a strong focus for growth in the coming year with significant opportunities.
RM Technology revenues decreased by 12.5% to GBP 47.2 million, with the biggest reductions coming in at transactional revenue streams of hardware and associated installation services, which are most immediately impacted by schools' budgetary constraints. Looking forward, we expect an uptick in this area, driven by an anticipated post-COVID infrastructure refresh cycle across U.K. schools. Revenue was further impacted by scope reductions for one significant customer. Importantly, this important customer has now been renewed for a further seven years minimum and will continue to provide strong recurring and transactional revenues. Assessments divisional contribution to group profitability increased from GBP 14.4 million in FY 2024 to GBP 16.6 million in FY 2025. Adjusted operating profit increased significantly from GBP 6.9 million to GBP 10.9 million.
Adjusted operating margin increased from 17.5% - 22.9% as the division also benefited from the reductions in corporate overheads coming through via the central allocation. There was a slight reduction in direct contribution margin from 36.4% - 34.8% of revenue as the division saw increases in hosting charges alongside planned investments in sales and marketing overhead in support of our growth strategy as we continue expanding our global digital assessment offering. TTS's contribution reduced to GBP 7.4 million due to the market challenges I've referred to, but was partly offset by improved operating efficiencies as we continue to see positive progress in most of the core operational metrics of that business. Adjusted operating profit decreased to GBP 4.2 million after centrally allocated corporate overheads, and adjusted operating margin decreased slightly to 6.2%.
We expect this to recover going forward. Technology's divisional contribution decreased to GBP 8.3 million on the back of the lower revenue. Contribution as a percentage of revenue was stable at 17.5% due to a more profitable revenue mix as well as further operational efficiencies. Adjusted operating profit decreased fractionally to GBP 3.5 million, but adjusted operating margin increased to 7.5% after centrally allocated corporate overheads. RM Technology remains a stable and consistently profitable business. Over the year, we put a lot of focus into positioning the Technology division to get the most out of its prominence within U.K. schools over the years to come. On a statutory basis, net cash inflow from operating activities was GBP 7.5 million, a slight reduction from GBP 8.4 million in FY 2024.
FY 2025 cash flows include GBP 1.4 million of deficit recovery payments made to the group's defined benefit pension schemes. We agreed on the triennial funding for all three schemes, resulting in no further contributions being required over and above those previously agreed. We have now subsequently agreed with the trustees to cease the payments from the last valuation, which were originally due to run until the 31st of December 2026. As a result, the group is now not required to make any further contributions to any of its defined benefit pension schemes over this next cycle.
Adjusted net debt closed the year at GBP 50.6 million as the GBP 7.5 million net cash inflow from operating activities, and GBP 12.7 million of net proceeds from the equity raise were offset by GBP 9.7 million of capitalized expenditure, primarily relating to RM Ava, GBP 5.5 million of interest paid, and GBP 2.9 million of lease repayments. We previously stated that part of the proceeds from the equity raise would be used to manage general working capital. Profitability is up. We're investing those profits in the development of Ava, which will complete in 2027. Our business remains very second-half weighted in cash generation, which we are working on, for example, during key contract renewals. These factors are what have driven the working capital requirements.
Our current banking facility runs until July 2027. We've already started constructive discussions with our lenders around revised agreements. Our lenders remain very supportive of our strategy. I'd like to personally thank them for their ongoing partnership and support. Moving on to the outlook for the coming year. Revenue from continuing operations is expected to grow with a higher proportion coming from our high-margin assessment division. Assessment has a strong contracted order book, which gives us good visibility into future revenue. This includes significant platform revenue from our two largest customers, the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Both contracts are on track, with digital assessment volumes increasing later in the contract period as they transition to fully digital assessments. We are continuing to invest in RM Ava and the sales and marketing to support it.
Having a single platform makes it easier to cross-sell and upsell to our existing customers. It will open up a wider range of customer sizes and types, including professional qualification bodies. It also allows us in the future to expand further into mocks and in-classroom assessments. Reducing net debt remains our focus. The separation work, which is now fully underway, supports the simplification of our business, further reduction in overheads, as well as the disposal of non-core assets, which would all facilitate this reduction in net debt. In short, we are in a strong position. Between the stable banking facility, the recent successful equity raise, the progress in our pension schemes, and the high-margin digital assessment and marketing growth ahead, we're confident in our financial outlook. I'll now hand back to Mark to provide an update on our strategy.
Thank you, Simon. We're entering our next chapter with a very clear intent. We're going to build on what we do well, go after the major opportunity in front of us, and make our business simpler. As we shared during the equity raise, we have four key priorities this new investment will support. We will complete the work to simplify the business, strengthen RM Ava and speed up its development, invest in sales and marketing to meet our new business goals, and improve working capital flexibility. These four areas are about giving us the focus we need to grow. Simon has covered the requirement for working capital flexibility. The focus over the next few slides will be on the simplification and accelerating the development and growth of RM Ava.
The first of those priorities is to simplify the business. We've made good headway with that plan. We are legally and operationally separating our divisions so each of the divisions can stand on their own feet. By separating shared systems, processes, and legacy IT, we're giving each division the flexibility to run in a way that best supports their specific customers and markets. Assessment is moving to its own legal entity later this year, which means all three divisions will have their own entity, providing a stronger base for future growth. We have also confirmed a new ERP system to replace several legacy platforms. This won't just improve our processes and give us a more modern system; it will also provide each division with the tools to manage their own workflows and data. This will then allow them to act more independently while remaining aligned with enterprise standards.
Assessment will move onto the platform from Q2 2026, with the other two divisions transitioning later in the year. The next strategic priorities are to strengthen RM Ava, along with the sales and marketing, we need to drive our ambitions. The global e-assessment market is forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 16% between 2024 and 2029. A key driver of this market shift from paper to hybrid or fully digital assessment, which provides a big opportunity for RM. We are already a leader in this space with long-term contracts and long-standing customers. Our aim now is to be a world-class platform for learner assessment. 2025 saw a major step forward in that with that aim with the launch of Ava, which brings our best assessment tools together into a single cloud-based platform.
It's built for everything from school exams like GCSEs and A-levels to professional certifications and licensing. Having everything in one place really does matter. As our customers move to digital at scale, they need a solution that grows with them while providing a seamless experience for their teams and candidates. RM Ava is designed to scale rapidly and reach learners wherever they are in the world. There are no restrictions on the number of candidates and learners we can bring onto the platform as we scale globally. Building RM Ava is about taking the best of our existing tools, making them even better, and bringing them together with brand-new modules in a single platform. Maintaining one platform instead of two reduces our technical overhead and allows us to focus on our development spend. The full transition will be complete in 2027.
By then, all of our current and upgraded tools will have migrated over. This will give our customers a single sign-on, end-to-end assessment solution and a host of new features. This isn't a one-off project. Ava creates the platform for continuous innovation, allowing us to roll out new functionality more easily and respond to customer needs as they emerge. Several new modules and features were launched in 2025. First is the learner portal. This will be the simple entry point for everything connected to a learner's assessment, from seeing scheduled exams to sitting the tests and getting their results. It avoids the friction of multi-supplier systems and makes the whole candidate experience much smoother. We also launched RM Echo, our malpractice module. It helps assessors verify the originality of written work and can be added to RM Ava or used alongside our customers' current systems.
Finally, our AI marking pilots are giving customers the chance to see how artificial intelligence marking compares with human markers. The findings to date have been very interesting. In essay marking, we found our AI was more consistent than human markers, and a paper that took a person 40 minutes to mark took the AI just 5 seconds. In business and finance papers, the AI marked consistently with the criteria where it was explicit, allowing accurate marking at a massive scale. Following this year's pilots, we'll build the AI marking module into RM Ava in 2027, giving customers the choice of how much AI involvement they want to use. Trading in the first months of the year has been in line with the board's expectations; the full-year outlook remains in line with market expectations.
As we look forward in 2026, our priorities are to progress plans to simplify the business, paving the way for future efficiencies and disposals and facilitating net reduction. To accelerate the development of RM Ava, building new functionality collaboratively with our accreditor customers, and continue to build a high-growth, high-margin assessment business and deliver a meaningful increase in profitability. As we grow, so does our impact. This growth will help us continue improving educational outcomes around the world. Our performance is only possible because of the work happening right across our teams, and I want to thank all of my colleagues for everything they do. I'd also like to thank all of our customers for their continued support on our transformation journey. Everything we do remains focused on our goal to provide a brilliant experience for customers and learners globally. Thank you.