Welcome to Renishaw's final results presentation for the twenty twenty-four financial year. I'm William Lee, Chief Executive, and I'm joined by Allen Roberts, our Group Finance Director. I'll start by talking you through our business performance, and then Allen will provide a more detailed review of our financial performance and our new KPIs that we've introduced to help us measure progress against our strategy. He'll then hand back to me to cover the solid strategic progress that we've made this year, including our evolving approach to environmental, social, and governance issues. Finally, I'll conclude with the outlook for the 2025 financial year. So let's get started. This was a solid performance overall, despite challenging conditions in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment market and currency headwinds. Revenue improved as the year progressed, and we had a record H2, including a strong final quarter.
Manufacturing technology revenue was flat overall, although 3.4% higher at constant currency rates. All our industrial metrology product lines grew, with record revenue for our shop floor and CMM systems product line, boosted by demand from the consumer electronics sector. Our additive manufacturing systems also had good growth, with a strong second half for sales to key customers in the medical sector. Position measurement revenue for the year as a whole was lower compared to FY 2023, with weaker demand for laser encoders. These are supplied into front-end semiconductor applications. However, during the year, we did see four quarters of sequential growth in this position measurement group, with signs of recovery and demand for our open optical encoders from semiconductor equipment builders.
There was 7% growth in analytical instruments and medical devices, with record revenue for our spectroscopy product line, helped by growing sales of our Virsa Raman Analyzer. This resulted in a headline revenue increase of 0.4% for the group. At constant exchange rate, excluding the impact of forward currency contracts, revenue would have been 3.7% or GBP 25 million higher than the previous year. The APAC region delivered 8% growth at constant currency, boosted by sales from industrial metrology, especially into the consumer electronics sector. However, weaker demand from the semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector remained a drag on growth. Our EMEA region had a more challenging year, with revenue down 1% at constant currency. It saw reduced sales for all the manufacturing technologies product groups, which offset strong growth from our spectroscopy products.
Revenue in the Americas was up 2% at constant currency, with a strong second half of the year. This included constant currency growth from manufacturing technologies, most noticeably from AM, shop floor gauging, and CMM systems. In a year of marginal revenue growth, we continued to control our fixed costs and focus on our long-term growth ambitions. We therefore maintained investment in our engineering, sales, and manufacturing infrastructure to pursue the many opportunities that we see due to our position in attractive markets with long-term growth drivers. Our adjusted profit before tax was 13% lower at GBP 122.6 million. This reduction in group profits was concentrated in our manufacturing technologies segment, where adjusted operating profit was 18% lower, in a year of flat revenue.
The picture for analytical instruments and medical devices was much better, with adjusted operating profit up 12% as a result of stronger revenue. At group level, adjusted operating profit margin of 15.7% was 3.2% below last year. Allen will go into more detail about our profitability shortly, but in summary, the reduction in profit was mainly due to increases in employee pay and the impact of currency on revenue. Adjusted PBT was also affected by several specific costs, which are worth highlighting. As previously reported, our first half results included GBP 2.1 million of severance costs. In the final months of the year, we incurred GBP 3 million of capitalized development cost impairments, GBP 1.9 million of realized currency losses, and GBP 0.9 million of costs relating to R&D restructuring.
These resulted in our adjusted PBT being near the bottom end of our published range. I'd now like to hand over to Allen.
Thank you, Will, and good morning, everybody. As Will has already reported, following a strong final quarter, we achieved record revenue for the year of GBP 691.3 million, compared to GBP 688.6 million last year, a 0.4% increase. This was a 3.7% increase at constant exchange rates, with the difference mostly relating to an appreciation of sterling relative to the US dollar. We have continued to invest in our people and increased employee pay, which together with adverse currency effects, are the main reasons for the 17% reduction in adjusted operating profit of GBP 130.4 million to GBP 108.7 million. This was an 8% reduction at constant exchange rates.
Adjusted profit before tax also reduced from GBP 141 million to GBP 122.6 million. I'll cover this in more detail on the next slide. This year, the adjusted profit before tax is the same as our statutory profit before tax. The effective tax rate has increased from 20% last year to 21% this year, largely as a result of the increase in the UK corporation tax rate from 19% to 25% in April 2023. The resulting adjusted earnings per share was 133.2 pence, compared to 155.1 pence last year. The board has proposed to maintain a final dividend of 59.4 pence per share to be paid on the fifth of December.
As noted last year, our labor costs are our largest cost, and this year we focused on striking the right b Allence of investing in our people to retain, reward, and motivate them, while also seeking sustainable profit growth. Salary increases, in addition to an increase in the average headcount of 77, are the main drivers for total labor costs increasing by 4% to GBP 289.4 million, from GBP 279.5 million last year. This also includes severance costs of GBP 2.1 million, which mostly relates to a mutually agreed severance scheme in the UK, and a GBP 4.6 million currency translation benefit. The profit bridge shows the movements reconciling the adjusted profit before tax of GBP 141 million for the previous year to the GBP 122.6 million this year.
This year's gross margin, excluding engineering costs, was 61% of revenue, compared with 64% last year. This change is mostly due to the adverse impact of currency on revenue, combined with higher labor pay rates. We have made targeted price increases, although these have been offset by pricing pressures, particularly in the APAC region. We invested GBP 71.1 million in research and development expenditure, compared with GBP 72.5 million last year, as we continued to support our strategy, delivering growth by developing innovative and patented products. Including our expenditure to support existing products and technologies, gross engineering expenditure totaled GBP 106.8 million, compared to GBP 106.6 million last year.
Net engineering costs increased from GBP 90.2 million to GBP 98.1 million, which includes GBP 4.3 million from the capitalization of development expenditure net of amortization, compared with GBP 5.3 million last year, a GBP 3.3 million impairment of capitalized development expenditure, with GBP 1.6 million recognized last year, and GBP 7.7 million from R&D tax credits, compared to GBP 6.6 million last year. This is a result of a rate applicable to qualifying spend, increasing from 13% to 20% in April 2023. In distribution and administrative expenses, in addition to the labor cost increases, we have spent a further GBP 4.7 million on consultancy and software this year, notably on our global ERP system and an upgraded e-commerce platform as part of our initiative to improve productivity across the business.
We deployed the first instance of the new ERP system during the year and have developed in-house expertise to reduce third-party costs and implementation risk as we deploy this globally over the next few years. Finally, financial income for the year was GBP 12.3 million, compared to GBP 9.7 million last year, and includes a GBP 2.8 million increase in interest on bank deposits, mainly due to higher interest rates. Turning to cash flow, we continue to have a strong liquidity position, and this bridge tracks the movements from our opening cash and bank deposits b Allence of GBP 206.4 million at the first of July 2023, to the closing position of GBP 217.8 million at the thirtieth of June 2024.
Our operating profit before non-cash items and research and development costs totaled GBP 203.9 million this year. Within working capital, we focused this year on reducing our inventory holding. While we continue to recognize the importance to our current and potential customers of holding sufficient finished products to meet their needs, we have reduced both finished goods and component inventories following the easing of supply chain challenges experienced in recent years. This has meant we've reduced inventory from GBP 185.8 million at the start of the year to GBP 161.9 million. Meanwhile, trade receivables increased from GBP 123.4 million to GBP 134.1 million due to increased trading in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, relative to the previous year.
With good credit management practices across the group, debtor days remain constant year-on-year at 63 days. We have received GBP 9.1 million of bank interest and GBP 8.5 million as a short-term deposit from a joint venture, from which we are both earning interest. We have invested GBP 65.5 million in capital expenditure, compared to GBP 73.8 million in the previous year, which I'll cover on the next slide. We also paid GBP 55.4 million of dividends during the year, in line with our progressive dividend policy, and GBP 21.8 million of corporation tax. We regularly review the capital requirements of the group to maintain a strong financial position to protect the business and provide flexibility to fund future growth. This year, our capital expenditure mostly relates to new production plant and equipment and the expansion of our Miskin production facility in Wales, U.K.
The Miskin project will ultimately increase our global manufacturing floor space by 50%, with the first of the two new halls becoming operational during the year. Thanks to the project team, who were responsible for delivering the first phase of this project on time and within budget. We have also purchased a distribution facility in the UAE and completed the construction of a distribution facility in Brazil. Our planned CapEx for fiscal year 2025 is around GBP 40 million. Property spend will be significantly lower, but we are continuing to invest in new equipment to grow our capacity, boost our productivity, and meet our net zero goals. This year, we have added four new KPIs to reflect our focus on long-term value creation. Through-cycle revenue growth assesses our ability to achieve sustainable long-term revenue growth.
We measure this by calculating compound annual growth rate over a five-year period, and we aim to achieve high single-digit growth. The cyclical nature of our markets means that our five-year average growth will see a degree of year-to-year volatility, but we believe that smoothing for these effects over time, this long-term growth is eminently achievable. Our confidence in this objective is underpinned by our long-term value creation strategy, which Will is going to discuss shortly. Adjusted operating profit margin is the second key metric, and we aim to exceed 20%. It is derived by calculating adjusted operating profit as a percentage of revenue. This metric reduced in fiscal year 2024, as operating costs increased at a greater rate than revenue growth. We are focusing on productivity to control future cost growth to drive this metric back above our target.
Our third new metric is return on invested capital, or ROIC, which we use to assess our efficiency in allocating capital to profitable investments, and we aim to exceed 15%. We calculate ROIC as adjusted profit after tax, before bank interest receivable, as a percentage of invested capital. We are currently below our target as a result of lower profits and planned increases in our asset base. With this period of elevated investment now concluded, we would expect returns to improve in the near term. We have also introduced a metric for adjusted cash flow conversion from operating activities, and we aim to convert at least 70% of our profits into cash. This metric is calculated as adjusted cash flow from operating activities as a percentage of adjusted operating profit.
It improved significantly in fiscal year 2024, as it is affected by changes in working capital, which fell significantly this year, as well as capital expenditure, which was also lower. We expect our cash conversion to further improve in the years ahead. I'll now hand back to Will.
Thank you, Allen. I'd now like to focus on our purpose, our ambition, and the strategic progress we've made during the year before ending with the outlook for financial year 2025. In most of our investor presentations, I like to remind everyone about our purpose, because it underpins everything that we do within our business. By working closely with our customers to help them and to achieve their goals, we are well-positioned to meet our own growth ambitions. In the world of manufacturing, we enable the automated production of accurate components and products, whether that is the manufacturing of semiconductor chips, the production of metal components, or the operation of robotics. We're also making a difference in the fields of analytical instruments and medical devices, where we're helping to automate materials analysis and surgical procedures.
As we are gradually evolving our approach to investor relations, we felt that it is important to have a clear statement of our ambition and what we are aiming to achieve in the future. Fundamentally, we are building a manufacturing technology powerhouse, which will play a key part in a global transition to a more sustainable future. Our innovations will continue to enable the factories and products of the future, freeing up people from repetitive tasks and using energy and materials more efficiently. As part of this, we continue to develop leading positions in established markets, and we are also expanding into close adjacent areas where there are attractive growth opportunities. In financial terms, our goal is to continue our track record of long-term organic growth into the future. Allen has already discussed our KPIs and targets.
And of course, we will do all of this whilst acting responsibly and supporting all of our stakeholders, our customers, suppliers, employees, local communities, and the wider society. Renishaw operates an organic growth model built on solving customer problems with innovative products, global service, and world-class in-house manufacturing. We first introduced you to our long-term value creation model during our interim results presentation, and we spoke about it at greater length during our Capital Markets Day in June. The model explains our markets, our commercial strategy, as well as our approach to capital allocation and portfolio growth. I won't go into detail on all of this today, but I did want to remind you of the three areas of strategic focus which supplement the underlying growth in our markets to deliver consistent outperformance.
Our three strategic priorities are: to grow our existing markets, to increase the value of the technology that we sell, and to extend into new high-growth markets. Over the next few slides, I'll talk about the progress we made in these areas during financial year 2024. Here, we are aiming to increase revenue by driving up probe fitment levels, offering higher value sensors, and by winning more machine builder customers. This requires ongoing investment in R&D to keep creating the products that will differentiate us from our competitors and help us to make the most of new opportunities as they arise. This year, we launched the RMP24-micro, the world's smallest wireless machine tool probe. We are targeting compact machine tools used to make high-precision miniature components for the medical, watchmaking, and micromechanic sectors, where probe fitment wasn't previously possible.
This compact probe is the first of a new generation of smart factory sensors to use our RMI-QE radio transmission technology. Now, we introduced this back in FY 2022, and one of the benefits of this technology is it allows the use of much smaller batteries due to its lower power consumption. We are also now supplementing our market-leading machine tool probes with our Fortis range of enclosed optical encoders, where we see significant opportunities. We launched Fortis three years ago, and it's now designed in by around one hundred machine builders. We also won new business for our open optical, magnetic, and laser encoders from machine builders in a wide range of sectors. Our second strategic focus is to grow revenue by providing our end user customers with complete solutions, allowing us to capture a greater proportion of their investment.
We are focused on growing our sales of systems like our Agility CMMs and Equator gauges and expanding our metrology software offering. The strong growth we're seeing in our Equator gauge sales is helped by the continuing trend for greater automation of process control and shop floor machinery. Given our relatively low market share in these newer markets, we see significant opportunities to continue this growth. During the year, we have been trialing the first of our new generation of metrology software, MODUS IM Gauging Control. This aims to widen the process control market for our Equator gauging system through simpler programming. It was also a good year for AM system sales, and we took an important step forward with the launch of our new Tempus technology for our RenAM 500 machines.
Tempus allows the lasers to continue to operate even while a new layer of metal powder is being laid down. This can reduce the time it takes to build a component by up to 50%, therefore reducing cost per part and opening up more applications for additive manufacturing. Our third strategic focus is to diversify into close adjacent markets where we have a strong market understanding and brand awareness. Our new industrial automation products, which we launched at the end of FY 2023, are a good example. We have seen a positive response from customers during the first year, and we are confident we have an effective range of products to enhance robot precision.
That confidence was boosted when FANUC, one of the world's largest manufacturers of industrial robots, chose to include our products in a demonstration at Automatica, which is the world's leading trade show for smart automation and robotics. We also saw early success with a major aerospace company that will be equipping twelve worldwide facilities with our kits to ensure consistency of robot operation. Our current focus here is to expand our regional sales teams to make the most of this opportunity. Increasingly, engagement with our stakeholders includes discussions on the part Renishaw can play in supporting the transition to a more sustainable future. During the year, I was very pleased to become chair of our new ESG steering committee. This formalizes our management of sustainability-related issues, including our climate-related financial disclosures.
One of the committee's first tasks was to oversee the development of a new comprehensive ESG strategy with support from specialist advisors. This involved interviews and surveys of internal and external stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and investors. Within the ESG strategy, we have set three key goals: an environmental goal to innovate with our customers and suppliers to achieve more with less, working towards net zero carbon emissions while minimizing all environmental impacts, a social goal to develop a diverse and inclusive team who are inspired to work for a responsible business, and a governance goal to ensure that we have appropriate governance arrangements in place to provide accountability, transparency, compliance, and integrity as a responsible business. During the year, we continued to make strong progress towards our target of net zero for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2028.
And we also see significant commercial opportunities, as decarbonization is one of the structural drivers that underpin our markets, with more of our customers pursuing their own net zero goals. We ran our first global employee survey during the year, with 63% of employees responding in 23 different languages. Our engagement score was 74%, which was 1% above the global average recorded by our survey provider. This is a good result, but we want to improve. We'll use this year's score as our baseline to track future progress, and we'll use the feedback to refresh our people strategy. I'd like to thank our teams all around the world for their contributions to our progress this year. To achieve the results that we did in a challenging environment is testament to their skills and efforts.
In October 2023, we launched our code of conduct, which sets out our expectations of anyone who works for and with Renishaw. It includes guidance on how to make good decisions, report concerns and non-compliant actions, and provides what-if scenarios to bring ethical issues to life. Our key governance objective is to ensure compliance with the code of conduct, which will help us act as a responsible business. Looking forward, we feel that we are in a good position. In the early months of FY 2025, we are continuing to see an improvement in demand from the key semiconductor market. We are also well-positioned to benefit from a range of growth opportunities in metrology and additive manufacturing systems. We therefore expect to achieve solid revenue growth this year.
We also expect to improve our operating profit margins through a combination of higher sales volumes and our continued focus on productivity in all areas of the business, offsetting the impact of inflationary pressures. The strategic progress that we have made during a period of significant headwinds continues to give us con-