Kainos Group (LON: KNOS), the Belfast-headquartered digital transformation and IT services provider, issued an upbeat full-year trading update on April 20 confirming that revenues for the year ending March 31, 2026 are now expected to reach the upper end of the consensus range of £378 million to £393.4 million, with adjusted profit before tax in line with current forecasts.
The upgrade, which pushed the shares sharply higher in early London trading before giving back some gains, reflects a second-half recovery that had been flagged in the company’s half-year results and is now materialising faster than the market had anticipated. All three of Kainos’s Business divisions — Digital Services, Workday Services and Workday Products — are contributing to the improvement.
Digital Services, the largest division, won new contracts with the Home Office, NHS England and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in the second half, additions that drove meaningful revenue increases across the public sector and healthcare verticals that together account for around half of the division’s revenue mix. The division’s North American operations continue to outperform the UK commercial segment, where growth remains muted.
Workday Services is returning to growth after a difficult fiscal 2025, with improvements across core European and North American markets supplemented by progress in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. The Workday Products division, which develops automated testing, compliance monitoring and data-masking tools for Workday environments, continues to grow strongly, with annual recurring revenue tracking towards the company’s £100 million ARR target by the end of 2026.
A particular focus in the update was the imminent launch of Pay Transparency, the company’s fifth proprietary product, being developed in collaboration with design partners including Diageo and Linklaters. The product is designed to help businesses comply with the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires member state adoption in June 2026, a regulatory deadline creating both urgency and demand for Kainos’s solution.
Headcount has been growing in response to the stronger pipeline, with the company noting it has expanded recruitment and is utilising short-term contractors to manage both growth and strong forward order cover. That investment will weigh on margins in the near term but signals genuine confidence in the durability of the revenue recovery heading into the new financial year, with full results due in late May.