Coding specialist planning for further growth after achieving forecasts

Coding specialist, Northcoders, said it has traded in line with expectations during the year ended December 31, 2022.

In a trading update today, the Manchester-based independent provider of training programmes for software coding and data engineering which also has sites in Leeds, Newcastle and Birmingham, said cash at year end stood at £2.8m, providing substantial resources for continued investment and growth.

During the period the Northcoders Business Solutions product suite successfully launched, with Rolls Royce renewing and growing its Incubator contract

An oversubscribed placing was used to fund the development of four new training courses – Cyber Security, Platform Engineering, Quality Assurance and Agile Project & Product Management – and the development of NCore, the group’s core technical delivery platform.

Further growth opportunities were identified in adjacent product areas and geographies to expand the profile and brand of the group.

And there was continued growth in demand, with 8,852 training bootcamp applications in the period, compared with 3,662 applications in the year to December 31, 2021, an increase of 141%.

In 2022 Northcoders’ hiring partner network grew by 94 new companies, which is a 30% increase on 2021. This list includes well known companies such as SAGE, BBC, Missguided and SEGA.

This brought the group’s hiring partner network to 409 companies by the end of the period. Over the course of 2022, the group placed 379 Northcoders into their first roles in technology. This is an increase of more than double (114%) in placements compared with 2021.

Revenue visibility for the forthcoming year currently stands at £5.4m, an increase of 79% compared with the same time last year. Contracted revenue represents 57% of the market expectation for fiscal year 2023.

January 2023 saw the group embark on its largest training Bootcamp cohort to date, 125 learners, with 98 choosing Software Development and 27 Data Engineering.

There is continued growth in demand, with 1,207 training bootcamp applications received in January so far.

Also, the group has been accepted onto the Department for Education’s dynamic purchasing system (DPS) for Skills Bootcamps. The DPS will run for six years with a value of approximately £1.5bn, giving the group confidence in the long term government support of its Training Bootcamps

With demand continuing to achieve record highs, the board said it is confident about the group’s prospects for the forthcoming year. The strong performance of the group has given the board confidence to invest additional funds to support the growth this year and beyond, and it intends to launch new growth initiatives to broaden the opportunities and appeal of the group’s courses.

The proceeds from the group’s successful placement in November 2022 are already in deployment. Northcoders’ Data Engineering course was successfully launched and is in flight with 24 learners recently completing the first Alpha Cohort and 36 learners are enrolled on the group’s Beta Cohort, which commenced this month.
Platform Engineering is due to start its Alpha Cohort early in Q2-23, with marketing, learner and employer acquisition commencing earlier this month and running in parallel with product development. The board is reviewing the right time to design and launch further courses, including Cyber Security, later in the year, but the emphasis on quality, as measured by employability outcomes, is paramount for any new products, it said.

In January 2023, the group placed 23 Northcoders into roles and added six new hiring partners to its network, bringing Northcoders’ hiring network to 415 companies.