Profits climb 12% at Skipton Group

Skipton Group, which includes Skipton Building Society, Connells group – the UK’s largest estate agency, and other group businesses, has reported a strong performance and record investment for the year ended 31 December 2023.

Group profit before tax increased to £333.4m, with underlying group profit before tax of £308.6m (2022: £297.7m).

The group highlighted £6.7bn of mortgage advances during the period, up 6.3% year-on-year.

Additionally £30.9bn of lending was generated by Connells group for UK mortgage providers in 2023 (2022: £36.9bn).

Skipton Group notes that it supported around 40% more first-time buyers, providing specific financing for 19,120 first-time buyers during the year.

And it increased its market share in mortgages – despite the UK mortgage market being stagnant for the majority of the year.

Stuart Haire, group chief executive, said: “Through our focus on helping more people have a home and making money work harder, we have significantly grown market share in deposits and mortgages, whilst maintaining our healthy share of the Estate Agency market and further growing our invoice finance and international mortgage businesses.

“Our lending now goes to more first-time buyers than ever (one in three of all loans advanced) and our savers are rewarded too, with our lowest rate on an instant access account beating the market average by some considerable distance.

“We will continue to step-up our support to members and customers through challenging times.

“Our ambition is to make a positive impact in order to tackle the UK’s housing crisis by enabling more first-time buyers to realise their homeownership aspirations.”