As we head to 2026, we are pleased to report that Habit Action has met its sales target, despite a slower than expected market, impacting invoiced sales. Our targeted investment in business development and a strengthened sales focus during 2025 has resulted in a 40% YOY increase in new opportunities into our rolling pipeline. This growth gives us confidence and underpins our long-term forecast and strategic plans for the next three years.
This performance is a direct reflection of the hard work, dedication, and commitment of our entire team.
Through the delivery of market leading design solutions, we continue to help our clients not only develop high-quality spaces but also enhance the working environment for both current and future teams. This is supported by our strong operational disciplines.
Key Highlights of 2025:
- Stable Trading Performance: Habit Action has demonstrated resilience throughout the year, maintaining a stable flow of work in a competitive and sometimes uncertain market.
- Strong Project Delivery: We have successfully delivered several key fit-out projects across offices and laboratory environments, reinforcing our reputation for quality and reliability across multiple sectors. Our continued focus within the flavours and fragrances sector has delivered further growth and remains an important area of opportunity.
- Our Team and Organisation: Throughout 2025, we have focused on strengthening both our people and our processes. In line with our strategy, we have redefined and reallocated elements of our team resource into more client-facing and sales-focused roles, ensuring we are well positioned to support our clients and sustain future growth.
External Impacts on 2024 Performance:
The outlook for the UK economy in 2026 is expected to remain broadly flat in terms of growth. Against this backdrop, we remain mindful of the external challenges that have impacted investment levels and decision-making over recent years. Inflationary and economic pressures. rising costs across materials, labour, and logistics have continued to place pressure on margins. We remain focused on improving operational efficiency and refining our cost management processes in order to mitigate these impacts.
Construction Industry Dynamics: Delays in decision-making at corporate level, alongside the well-documented impact of the (High Risk Building’s) HRB process, have continued to affect project start dates across the industry. We anticipate that several larger projects will progress in early 2026 as these pressures ease. This should have a positive knock-on effect across the construction sector and wider supply chain. However, increased activity is also likely to place pressure on subcontractor resources, making effective project planning and forecasting critical to success in the year ahead.
From a broader market perspective, demands across the commercial fit-out and specialist laboratory sectors continues to be driven by three key themes: quality, regulatory compliance, and long-term sustainability. Clients are increasingly prioritising environments that support employee wellbeing, operational efficiency, and talent retention, rather than short-term, cost-led solutions alone. Within this landscape, Habit Action is well positioned.
Our integrated approach to design, delivery, and project management allows us to support clients at an early stage, helping them unlock value through informed decision-making, buildability insight, and programme certainty. This has proven particularly effective in technically complex environments, including laboratories and regulated facilities.
The flavours and fragrances sector remains a strong growth area, underpinned by continued investment in R&D, product innovation, and UK-based manufacturing capability. Our growing track record in this sector, combined with our understanding of operational adjacencies, safety requirements, and future-proofed design, differentiates us from more generalist competitors.
Looking Ahead to 2026:
As Habit Action enters 2026 in a stable and positive position, with several key projects already secured and commencing early in the new year. Sites covering Cambridge, London, Manchester, and the Home Counties and are supported by a strong short and long-term pipeline that has continued to build year on year. This provides us with confidence that the foundations are firmly in place to support our longer-term growth ambitions.
In the year ahead, our focus will remain on:
- Defining and Developing Our Project Pipeline: We will continue to leverage our strong relationships with existing clients and agent networks, while actively pursuing new opportunities within our core sectors.
- Operational Excellence: We remain committed to delivering effective, high-quality designed solutions for our clients while driving further operational efficiencies. Maintaining our strong health and safety record across both our direct team and subcontractor network will remain a key priority.
We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all our team members, clients, and shareholders for their continued support.
Kind regards,
Darren McCarry
Managing Director
