Education publisher Pearson buoyed by work skills training

Pearson, one of the world’s largest educational publishers, said that pushes by workers to learn new skills had helped the company beat its financial expectations in the first months of the financial year.

Boss Andy Bird said that Pearson’s enterprise-facing business, which upskills or reskills workers, had seen double-digit growth in the period.

Overall the company said that sales had risen by 6% over the period, excluding the impacts of a strategic review and a business unit that Pearson is selling.

Without these items stripped out, sales only grew by 2%, Pearson said.

“Pearson has had a strong start to the year with results ahead of our expectations,” Mr Bird said in a Friday morning update to shareholders.

“We delivered double-digit sales growth in our enterprise-facing businesses, reflecting our strategy to address the upskilling and reskilling opportunity around the world.

“With our new talent investment platform on track to be launched later this year, this progress reinforces our belief that partnerships with enterprises will be a strong driver of future growth.”

Feeling that it had cash to spend, the publisher said that it would buy £300 million of its own shares back from investors in the second half of the year.

Sales of the company’s English Language Learning services rose by two-thirds during the quarter, when compared to the same period a year ago, Person said.

It was unsurprising, as the business depends on people wanting and being able to travel to attract customers. A year ago the pandemic was still weighing on global mobility, while most of those restrictions have now been lifted.

The unit also gained market share in India and catered to a temporary increase in Australian skilled visas.

Mr Bird said: “With our new talent investment platform on track to be launched later this year, this progress reinforces our belief that partnerships with enterprises will be a strong driver of future growth.

“Our continuing outperformance and the proven resilience of our business underpins our confidence of delivering on our financial expectations for the full year and over the medium term.”