Northcoders has successfully secured further funding from the Department for Education Skills Bootcamps Wave 4 bid.
The new round of funding provides Northcoders with a further £4.5 million to train individuals on its market-leading bootcamp and provides the company with strong revenue visibility for H2-2023 and FY-2024.
The new funding also provides the group with a 12.5 per cent increase in funding per student which is expected to increase the gross profit margins of the Group’s training products and assist in covering recent inflation-linked cost increases.
The news came as Northcoders published its H1 2023 results which also revealed a 50 per cent revenue increase to £3.5m over the same period last year, a strong balance sheet with £2.9 million of cash and net cash of £2.0 million as at 24 July 2023 and strong revenue visibility with the Skills Bootcamp funding and multiple corporate contracts in place meaning it has already hit 70 per cent of its full-year targets.
Northcoders also reported significant investment into sales, marketing and partnership functions to ensure success against current economic backdrop, while Tech Returners, which was acquired in February 2023, has now been fully integrated into the Business Services division and is performing well.
In H1-2023 Northcoders’ Business Solutions division secured a number of significant new contracts with large corporate clients including Deutsche Bank and BAE Systems. The group also has confirmation of a repeat programme from KPMG to begin during Q4-2023 and a healthy business development pipeline which the Board is “confident” will further boost full-year revenue visibility during the coming months. In addition, to strengthening corporate business, the Business Solutions division has also secured its first public sector consultancy contract with a major government department.
The Training Bootcamps division grew its graduate hiring network by a further nine per cent, engaging with 76 new organisations for the first time this year. Northcoders now has a network of over 450 partner companies to sustain graduate hiring from training bootcamps.
The group has also seen increased demand from individuals wanting to enrol on its core coding bootcamps and Returner Programmes. Application numbers in the six months to June 2023 stood at 3,494, which compares favourably with the 3,662 applications in the 12 months to December 2022.
Despite the positive momentum made by the group in H1-2023, the current financial year does present a market challenges that “demand the board’s full attention.” The Group acknowledges the prevailing headwinds encountered by the technology market, including budget constraints, workforce reductions and recruitment freezes that are affecting many of the group’s partner companies, which potentially might affect the vacancies available to Northcoders Training Bootcamp graduates.
The board “remains resolute in its approach and continues to inject significant investment into the group’s corporate sales and partnerships teams across all Northcoders’ divisions.”
Outside of business development activity, the Group is making significant progress with its investment into its Technology platform, Ncore, which remains on track for roll-out across all its Training Bootcamps in early 2024. Ncore is expected to grow capacity, increase gross-profit margins in the Training Bootcamps division and bring multiple new ways of taking its Training Bootcamp products to market, such as the part-time/distance learning delivery of its courses.
Chris Hill, CEO of Northcoders, said: “In spite of challenging market conditions, the board is confident of achieving further growth for the full year. During the period Northcoders won a number of contracts with large corporates as well as securing further funding from the Department for Education, providing the group with good forward visibility of revenues. The company is financially strong and we are well placed to further invest in the business for growth.”
