Staffline, the UK-based staffing and employability organisation, today announced a trading update and expects trading for the financial year ended 31 December 2018 to be in line with market expectations.

Revenues are anticipated to be 18% higher than the £957.8 million reported for 2017.

The group stated that its recruitment division has continued to grow, with the acquisitions completed during the year performing ahead of management expectations. The acquisitions includes July 2018’s acquisition of Grafton Recruitment’s Irish business. Also during the same month, Staffline announced that it had completed its acquisition of LDA, a UK-based Apprenticeship Levy provider from Learndirect Apprenticeships Limited. In March 2018, Staffline announced that it completed the acquisition of Endeavour Group Limited ("Endeavour") and its subsidiary Vital Recruitment Limited. On 1 October 2018, the group announced that it had acquired Passionate About People.

Yesterday, the group announced that its PeoplePlus division had secured contracts in the latest round of prison education tenders worth a total of £104.6 million over a four-year period.

“The investment in technology by the group has also created a clear differentiation in our recruitment offering and is delivering strong traction across Staffline’s customer base,” the group stated. “The PeoplePlus division has now successfully transitioned into the UK’s leading Skills and Training provider, making good progress in the year. The apprenticeship levy continues to present an excellent opportunity for growth in this area, and, along with Prison Education contract wins, is offsetting the reduced activity from the run-off of the Work Programme.”

As part of the completion of the transformation of the group’s PeoplePlus division away from reliance on the Work Programme, significant one-off costs have been incurred in 2018, which the group has classified as exceptional items in 2018. No further exceptional costs relating to the end of the Work Programme are expected in 2019.

Excluding amortisation charges on intangible assets arising on business combinations and non-cash charges for share-based payment costs, total exceptional costs will be £20 million in 2018, principally due to the aforementioned PeoplePlus transformation.

While the Group remains highly cash generative, these costs, together with the consideration paid for acquisitions in the second half of the year, have resulted in an increase in net debt to £63 million as at 31 December 2018.

Staffline will announce its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2018 on Wednesday 30 January 2019.