The Key Group - Company results

02 July 2026

The Key Group, the provider of the Arbor school management information system and online sector knowledge content and tools to over 20,000 UK schools, has reported an adjusted EBITDA of £24.2m for the year ended 31 August 2025 (2024: £14.4m), on revenue up 41% to £75.6m (2024: £53.5m). Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 510bps to 32.0% (2024: 26.9%).

In November 2025, Permira, the global investment firm, acquired a 68% stake in The Key Group, with management and other minority shareholders holding the balance. The transaction, executed through Kant Bidco Limited, valued The Key Group at an enterprise value of c.£800m, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Commenting at the time of the acquisition, Michail Zekkos, Partner and Co-Head of Technology, and Pierre Pozzo, Partner at Permira, said: “The Key Group’s mission to serve schools across the UK and make a meaningful difference to the way they operate through technology highly overlaps with the core tenets of our culture. Alongside the management team, we look forward to serving this mission, investing behind the company’s product leadership, deepening its AI capabilities and providing schools with the technology they need to deliver measurable outcomes for students as the education sector continues to evolve.”

The Key Group currently operates two strategic business units: Arbor Education, which following the retirement of ScholarPack and Integris in February 2026 serves the market through Arbor, SAMPeople (acquired August 2024), TimeTabler (acquired May 2024) and Habitude (acquired January 2025), and Leadership & Governance, which comprises the brands The Key, Governor Hub and Robin, an AI-powered compliance service. At the end of calendar year 2025, The Key Group had a 51% share (by number of schools) of the MIS market in state schools in England, up eight percentage points from the prior year (2024: 43%; 2023: 37%).

The average number of staff employed by the company in FY25 was 540, up 29% from the prior year (2024: 419). The increase was principally due to the acquisition of SAMPeople, an HR system for schools and trusts.

At 31 August 2025, The Key Group had net debt of £153.6m (2024: £152.4m), including preference share capital treated as debt of £95.5m (2024: £95.4m) and accrued interest on preference shares of £50.7m (2024: £37.4m). The preference shares, including accrued interest, with a total value of £149.3m, were acquired by Kant Bidco as part of the November transaction.

Commenting in the company’s filed accounts, Chris Kenyon, The Key Group’s CEO, said: “The financial results are robust and testament to the intelligent and hard work of the group's employees. Turnover growth is a mixture of organic and strategic acquisitions, with Arbor continuing to perform well and increasing market share, Margins have also improved as the group has become both more operationally efficient but also as school cohorts have matured and year one costs have reduced.”