Under the Defence Reform Act 2014, the SSRO must provide the Secretary of State with its assessment of the appropriate rates used to determine the contract profit rate for pricing qualifying defence contracts and qualifying sub-contracts. Part of the methodology is the categorisation of comparator companies into four activity types.
- Develop, Make and Support
- Ancillary Services
- Construction
- Information Technology Services
The results of these groups are separately analysed and this factsheet describes the Information Technology Services group results.
For further information on the methodology used to calculate these rates please see the Single Source baseline profit rate and capital servicing rates methodology.
Information Technology Services
Companies undertaking comparable activities considered as ‘Information Technology Services’ (ITS) are expected to engage in the development, or operation and maintenance, of bespoke and complex IT systems; or the integration of off-the-shelf components or software to deliver a bespoke IT system/service. This could cover a broad range of IT management and consultancy services and IT system, software or application development. In addition, comparable companies may also provide the hardware for IT systems or networks, or the training necessary to operate or maintain them.
Profit on cost of production
| 2022/23 | 2023/24[1] | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | |
| Underlying rate (unadjusted for capital servicing) | 11.26% | 11.31% | 11.02% | 9.43% | 8.75% |
| Capital servicing adjustment | -0.35% | -0.11% | -0.51% | -0.79% | -0.72% |
| Underlying rate | 10.91% | 11.20% | 10.51% | 8.64% | 8.03% |
| Three-year rolling average | 10.61% | 10.92% | 10.78% | 10.12% | 9.06% |
Note: The capital servicing adjustment accounts, at an aggregate level, for different levels of capital employed across the companies in the index and so sets a baseline upon which step 4 of the contract profit rate applies.
[1] This was the first assessment year for this activity group. The ITS rates for 2022/23 are the historical profits of the 2023/24 comparator group, as the SSRO’s methodology did not include an ITS comparator group prior to this year. All other activity type factsheets represent the profit data of the groups that were assessed in that particular year.
Data sources
For further information on the data selection approach please see section 7 of the Single Source baseline profit rate and capital servicing rates methodology. A company update search of the Orbis database was carried out on 3 November 2025 on data update number 369001 using software version 369. The financial data for the calculation was extracted from Orbis at the same time.
Median capital servicing adjusted return on cost of production
Proportion of companies by country
Proportion of companies with defence keyword
Supplementary statistics
| Number of companies | 37 |
| of which profit making | 32 |
| Aggregate turnover (£billions) | 103.8 |
| Total capital employed (CE) (£billions) | 5.2 |
| Average company CP:CE ratio | 17.45 |
Source: Orbis (Cash figures shown in rounded GBP Billions)
Names of companies in the index
| Accenture PLC |
| Adesso SE |
| Akamai Technologies, Inc. |
| Alithya Group Inc. (J) |
| Allgeier SE |
| Atos SE * |
| Aubay |
| Bouvet ASA |
| Caci International INC |
| CSP INC * (J) |
| Digia OYJ |
| DXC Technology Company |
| Gofore OYJ |
| Indra Sistemas S.A. (J) |
| Infotel |
| IT Link |
| Kainos Group PLC |
| Knowit AB (J) |
| Leidos Holdings, Inc. |
| Manhattan Associates, Inc. |
| Mensch UND Maschine Software SE |
| Mnemonic AS |
| Onnec Group Limited (J) |
| Pennant International Group PLC * (J) |
| Proact IT Group AB |
| Progress Software Corporation |
| Prosource.It (UK) Ltd. |
| PSI Software SE * |
| Science Applications International Corporation |
| Siili Solutions OYJ |
| Sopra Steria Group SA |
| Sword Group SE |
| Triad Group PLC (J) |
| Trifork Group AG (J) |
| TXT E-Solutions S.P.A. |
| Withani Limited (J) |
| Witted Megacorp Oyj * (J) |
*Indicates that the company is a loss-maker in the year.
(J) Indicates a company which was not in the activity group last year but has been added this year.