Telent, the market leader in delivering technology solutions to the UK and Ireland critical national infrastructure, saw its profits from operations double in the year to 31 March. This was on the back of continuous improvement initiatives across all its major long-term projects and the successful completion of certain key project milestones.

EBITDA from Operating Activities rose to £27.8 million (2023: £14.0 million) in the year to the 31 March 2024 and the Company generated £40.2m of cash from operating activities. Turnover was down slightly at £461.5 million (2023: £476.1m) as the company refocussed on more profitable projects. Telent ended the year with a forward order book worth more than £400 million reflecting the long term nature of many of its contracts.

“This was an important year for Telent as the initiatives we have been putting in place to improve our profitability and put the business on a sound footing for growth, have borne fruit. We have great opportunities to build on our strong position with existing customers, and develop new areas of activity, and that gives us great confidence about the future of the company”, Telent, CEO Jo Gretton said.

Telent supports clients across the UK and Ireland’s critical infrastructure ranging from Transport for London (TfL) to emergency services across the British Isles, the broadband networks for homes and businesses and around a quarter of the UK’s traffic systems. Many of the customer relationships have been maintained for decades.

Among the success for Telent in the year have been significant progress on major projects for Network Rail and National Highways. Network Rail’s Traction Power Centralised Management System project has proven a very complex and technically challenging contract, involving new infrastructure and software to provide Network Rail with a completely new traction control power operating system. Telent achieved Core Factory Acceptance Testing Product Approval in July 2023 and successfully entered into service at Raynes Park in April 2024. Over the next financial year, this technology will roll out to 13 of 15 regions, covering the entire electrified rail network in England.

The Highways team successfully migrated 37,000 services into National Highways’ new transformed National Roads Telecommunications Service network, connecting all of the cameras, signs, signals and traffic monitoring systems at the roadside to the seven National Highways Control Centres. This complex technical and operationally challenging migration programme was completed without any degradation to service. Telent also replaced 6,065 roadside technology assets as the final milestone in the programme to upgrade a total of 11,880 devices across the network, allowing National Highways to retire their legacy network and to complete its Transformation Programme.

Telent has been working with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency on a new network that will connect 165 remote radio sites situated around 11,000 miles of UK coastline, replacing the existing legacy infrastructure with a combination of full-fibre and microwave technology. These radio sites carry communications, via three network data centres, between vessels at sea and 10 HM Coastguard Operation Centres.

Telent was selected to assist with the design, build and management of the Greater Manchester (GM) One Network for Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and other partners including Transport for Greater Manchester (TFGM) and Bury, Rochdale, Stockport and Oldham local authorities. The GM One Network will create faster and more resilient data connections to over 1,300 public sites across the city-region including many schools, community centres, fire stations and traffic control signals.

Within the Higher Education market, the largest current project is for the University of Bristol. Design work for the upgrade of their core IT network has progressed well, with a Proof of Concept completed and in test. This new network will be built and rolled out during FY25 before transitioning to support and maintenance.

Work for New Nuclear Build and the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset continues at pace. This project involves numerous technologies, using skills from across our wider business as well as Telent’s partners. This has led to a consultancy contract to commence development of the solution for the next planned nuclear power station build, Sizewell C. The design work for this new build is expected to start later this year.

Telent recorded another year of success by delivering all commitments to its main customer, Openreach, mobilising new workstreams for Openreach in the Fibre to the Premises (“FTTP”) connections space and delivering all stakeholder commitments across the Operations and Maintenance contract, maintaining Telent’s reputation as one of Openreach’s most reliable and trusted large-scale partners.

Over the year, there has been significant business development within the Defence market, successfully joining a number of procurement frameworks and working closely with a range of key partners. This market is a strategic growth area for the future.