DAVA February 19, 2026

Endava Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call - AI-native pivot compresses margins, sets up Q4 recovery

Summary

Revenue slipped to GBP 184.1 million, down 5.9% year over year but up 3.3% sequentially, as Endava accelerates a costly pivot to an AI-native delivery model. Management argues the short-term pain is deliberate: heavy investment in Dava Flow, partner licensing, talent and an outcomes-first pipeline create measurable enterprise traction today and a firm pipeline into Q4, even as margins and free cash flow bear the hit.

The call read like a staged transition. Endava highlighted two live Dava Flow engagements, multiple hyperscaler and OpenAI partnerships, several strategic payments and vertical wins, and a venture program to commercialize startups. Market headwinds remain real, from FX to fewer working days and a cautious enterprise buyer, but management says contracted orders and recent January wins underpin a stronger fourth quarter in constant currency. The question now is whether the AI bet pays back before the margin squeeze becomes a narrative problem for investors.

Key Takeaways

  • Revenue was GBP 184.1 million in Q2 FY2026, down 5.9% year over year, and up 3.3% sequentially from Q1.
  • Adjusted profit before tax was GBP 10.7 million, with an adjusted PBT margin of 5.8% versus 11.2% in the prior-year quarter.
  • Company reported a loss before tax of GBP 7.2 million for the quarter, compared with a profit of GBP 2.5 million in the prior-year period.
  • Endava estimates its AI-native investments reduced adjusted PBT margin by roughly 3% through Q2 FY2026, and management expects continued investment into H2.
  • Adjusted diluted EPS was 16 pence for the quarter, down from 30 pence a year earlier; Q3 guidance is 18-21 pence, full-year guide 80-86 pence.
  • Management emphasized Dava Flow as the AI-native engagement lifecycle, citing faster delivery, full traceability, autonomous agents under Policy as Code, and two live engagements.
  • Endava highlighted multiple partnerships that underpin Dava Flow and go-to-market: OpenAI (one-year services partner), AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Miro and Cognition, plus the Endava Rise venture program with Octopus Ventures.
  • Key client wins include: PayNet NETS selecting Endava to build a cloud-native cross-border payments switch on AWS; Accor Plus payments and loyalty overhaul that lifted product page conversion 39% in 30 days; a 3-year strategic partnership with Boax; replacement of a competitor for an electric vehicle manufacturer to deliver an AI-enabled CRM; and expanded work with payments customers.
  • Top 10 clients accounted for 35% of revenue, average spend per top-10 client fell to GBP 6.5 million from GBP 7.1 million year over year, with FX responsible for about a 2% downward effect on that metric.
  • Geography mix: North America 40% of revenue, Europe 23%, UK 31%, rest of world 6%. North America revenue declined 5.1% year over year, driven by FX headwinds and the prior loss of a media client; rest of world revenue rose 21.8%.
  • Management called out FX as a meaningful headwind: recent dollar weakness versus GBP reduced reported revenue growth, they used a 1.37 USD/GBP assumption for the guide, and said constant currency growth is stronger by roughly 1% for the full year.
  • Q3 revenue guidance is GBP 182 million to GBP 185 million, implying a constant currency decline of 4% to 2.5% year over year; full-year revenue guidance is GBP 736 million to GBP 750 million, constant currency decline of 3.5% to 1.5%.
  • Working days materially affect quarter-to-quarter comparisons: management cited about a 3% headwind from fewer working days in Q3 versus Q2 and a roughly 1.5% FX headwind quarter on quarter.
  • Pipeline and booking confidence: Q3 bookings are ~95% contracted and committed at the midpoint, while Q4 contracted and committed sits around 70-75%, with management pointing to January wins underpinning Q4.
  • Capital and cash management: adjusted free cash flow was GBP 20.1 million versus GBP 31.6 million a year earlier; cash and equivalents were GBP 68.5 million at quarter end; borrowings rose to GBP 202.7 million to support the share repurchase program.
  • Share repurchase activity: as of January 31, 2026, Endava bought approximately 8 million ADSs for $121.9 million, with $28.1 million remaining under the authorization.
  • Capex jumped to 4.4% of revenue from 0.2% a year ago, driven by a one-time spend on an internally developed payments accelerator intended to win more payments engagements.
  • Headcount was 11,385 Endavans, down 2.4% year over year, reflecting streamlining in softer-demand areas and targeted upskilling to build AI talent.
  • Management argues AI increases the enterprise services opportunity, not destroys it, because large-scale adoption requires governance, data access, legacy modernisation and outcome-driven delivery models that vendors like Endava claim to provide.

Full Transcript

Conference Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Endava second quarter 2026 results. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Laurence Madsen, Head of Investor Relations and ESG. Please go ahead.

Laurence Madsen, Head of Investor Relations and ESG, Endava: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Endava second quarter of our fiscal year 2026 conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Joining me today are John Cotterell, Endava’s Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Thurston, Endava’s Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, a quick reminder to our listeners. Our presentation and our accompanying remarks today include forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding our guidance for Q3 fiscal year 2026 and for the full fiscal year 2026, the impact of headwinds facing our industry and business, trends in our industry, including with respect to development with AI, enhancement to our technology and offerings, the benefits of our partnerships, demand from clients for our technology services, our ability to create long-term value for our clients, our people, and our shareholders, and our business strategies, plans, operations, and growth opportunities.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Actual results and the timing of certain events may differ materially from the results or timing predicted or implied by such forward-looking statements, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Please note that these forward-looking statements made during this conference call speak only as of today’s date, and we undertake no obligation to update them to reflect subsequent events or circumstances other than to the extent required by law. For more information, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 4, 2025, and in other filings that Endava makes from time to time with the SEC. Also, during the call, we’ll present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures.

While we believe the non-IFRS financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with IFRS. Reconciliations of such non-IFRS measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures are included in today’s earnings press release, as well as the investor presentation, both of which you can find on our investor relations site or on the SEC website. A link to the replay of this call will also be available on our website. With that, I’ll turn the call over to John.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Thank you, Laurence, and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for our second quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call. Earlier this month, Endava passed 26 years since its founding. During these years, we’ve been through significant technology shifts, each time with a founder mindset intent on driving transformation as fast as possible in order to emerge as a leader. Today, my mindset is no different as the AI shift is underway. Over the past several quarters, we’ve been investing heavily in our pivot towards AI to establish Endava as an AI leader. These investments have encompassed recruitment and training of next-gen talent, introducing a shift towards becoming AI native, building our partner ecosystem, and evolving our engagement strategy. I’d like to flag some highlights of the quarter.

Revenue totaled GBP 184.1 million, representing a 5.9% decrease year-on-year, and up 3.3% from Q1 FY2026. We are seeing strong initial interest with clients on Endava Flow, our AI-native engagement lifecycle. We continued to expand our network of strategic partners and broaden several existing relationships, further extending our reach. A PayNet NETS joint venture, recently appointed as Nexus technical operator by Nexus Global Payments, has selected Endava to design and build its cloud-native cross-border payment switch on AWS, underscoring our depth in the payment vertical. We believe we are building the operational agility required to achieve sustainable long-term growth. Over the quarter, we advanced several enterprise-scale AI projects that illustrate both the breadth of client demand and the speed at which AI-native delivery models can create measurable impact.

We’re helping a leading global payments network modernize a critical driver of revenue, the chargeback dispute system, that currently needs more than 1,000 people to run. The challenge is a rule book that amounts to thousands of pages and is hard for anyone to follow. Our system uses AI to read those rules, turn them into clear, checkable logic, and link each one to the right data, so cases can be routed and analyzed automatically. Halfway through the six-month projects, early results are promising. The new system is easy to use, fully auditable, and will sharply cut manual effort while making decisions more consistent when it goes live. Over several years, we’ve helped a leading global specialty insurer use AI and data science to streamline pricing, insight generation, and automated data ingestion.

Traditional operating models limited impact, so facing increasing competitive pressure and new entrants, the insurer committed to a faster AI-native approach. Working with the client, we set up a ring-fenced incubator inside the organization that can build an end-to-end AI-native insurer while keeping clear governance and visibility for leadership and underwriting teams. The program has three linked work streams: digitization, the automation of submission, data enrichment, pricing, and quoting; hypothesis-driven change, which tests value-add ideas such as new data sources and new revenue models; and tactical value creation, which feeds proven ideas back into business as usual in partnership with stakeholders. To date, the digitization work stream has been rolled out across two business lines. Using agent-based delivery, we stood up a fully operational AI-native workflow in roughly three weeks and built a backlog of more than 50 improvement hypotheses.

Though still early, the results underline how rapidly AI-native capabilities can scale when governance and execution are explicitly tuned for speed. These milestones show that the initiative has moved beyond experimentation and is now entering a more mature, scaled phase of AI implementation across the organization. Let me now turn to Dava Flow. Client interest continues to build. Clients report faster delivery, tighter control, and full traceability versus legacy models. In a recent project, we opened with a signal session, the first step in an engagement, where agents and teams capture, enrich, and interrogate market, clients, and operational signals to test assumptions and define a clear value hypothesis. In just 90 minutes, the session gathered live inputs, ran synthetic workshops, and produced an opportunity assessment, market and strategic insights, product requirement documents, and an agent-ready backlog. Work that would normally take several weeks.

Two live Dava Flow engagements now sit at different delivery stages. Early results show higher productivity, better quality, and strict policy adherence. Autonomous agents manage routine tasks under Policy as Code governance, freeing engineers for orchestration and critical decisions. Over the coming quarter, we expect to broaden the delivery portfolio, convert growing interest into larger outcome-driven programs, and further refine the model using feedback from live engagements. I will now turn to recent developments in our strategic partnerships. January marked the completion of our first year as an official services partner of OpenAI, and we are seeing growth in demand as clients scale proofs of concepts into enterprise-wide deployment of Enterprise ChatGPT. Our partnership with OpenAI’s go-to-market team is resulting in a pipeline of potential opportunities across industries such as insurance, healthcare, and life sciences, and public sector.

In collaboration with OpenAI, we’ve been engaged by Evoke, one of the world’s leading betting and gaming operators, to roll out enterprise-wide ChatGPT enablement and role-specific AI training that supports responsible generative AI adoption and measurable productivity gains. Additionally, last quarter, we broadened our expertise across OpenAI’s product suite, continuing to graduate additional sales and technical specialists from our intensive training programs across APAC and EMEA. Demand for our services across all three of our major hyperscaler partners, AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, is accelerating, primarily fueled by clients’ core modernization initiatives to retire costly legacy systems and by their accelerating adoption of AI solutions. With AWS, in particular, we secured several notable wins and renewals, particularly in the financial services sector in the UK, USA, and Asia Pacific. Clients are asking for repeatable, proven solutions that de-risk technology change.

In response, we released two new AWS Marketplace offerings, Cloud Application Engineering and an AWS Landing Zone Accelerator. Our multi-year strategic partnership with Paysafe, a leading payments platform, aims at enhancing innovation in payments and digital community engagement, notably fan engagement. As part of accelerating Endava Flow, we have forged two complementary partnerships. First, with Miro, by embedding their AI innovation workspace across our global delivery network. Through this process, we increase the speed of decision making, improve team alignment, and enable scalable AI-driven workflows that provide clients with greater speed and confidence in their AI transformation journey. Second, our partnership with Cognition broadens the reach of our agentic coding, giving thousands of AI-native engineers access to Windsurf and Devin, and strengthening our joint go-to-market for enterprise-grade outcomes. Together, these partnerships deepen the capabilities of Endava Flow, from collaborative ideation through automated code delivery, creating an end-to-end AI-powered change delivery engine.

We believe our partner ecosystem, ranging from global hyperscalers and sector leaders to emerging scale-ups, is essential to both client outcomes and our profitable growth. To support this initiative, in November, we launched Endava Rise, a venture acceleration program that converts start-up innovation into solutions deployable at enterprise scale. By connecting high potential ventures within Endava’s AI-native global delivery capabilities and established client relationships, Endava Rise accelerates the path from concept to enterprise-ready solutions. This collaborative model gives clients access to emerging technologies that address specific business challenges and deliver measurable impact across industries. We launched the inaugural Endava Rise cohorts in partnership with Octopus Ventures, selecting ventures in their portfolio whose offerings align with identified client needs. I’d like to highlight several client wins that demonstrate the tangible value we are delivering.

As mentioned earlier, a PayNet NETS joint venture, recently appointed as Nexus Technical Operator by Nexus Global Payments, has selected Endava to design and build its cloud-native cross-border payment switch on AWS. The platform is intended to interconnect national instant payment systems into a single real-time network, advancing global interoperability. The appointment of the PayNet NETS joint venture follows a competitive multi-vendor tender and underscores Endava’s expertise in real-time payments, architecture, and delivery. We extended our strategic delivery commitments with two of our largest payments customers, reinforcing the strength and retained trust and delivery assurance we continue to enjoy with these major industry names. We worked with Accor Plus, a leading lifestyle loyalty subscription program in the hospitality sector, to successfully overhaul their payments infrastructure and loyalty program across Asia Pacific.

In the first phase of the project, we replaced their legacy processor with a scalable plug-and-play solution, simplifying the loyalty architecture to support rapid membership growth and deploying the solution across 10 markets. In the first 30 days following launch, product page conversion increased by 39%, providing Accor Plus with a more reliable, scalable foundation for future expansion. At the end of December, we expanded a strategic partnership with a manufacturer of electric vehicles, replacing a leading global technology services competitor in this arena. The new work stream adds an AI-enabled digital CRM to raise delivery efficiency and elevate customer and digital experience. Endava has entered into a 3-year strategic partnership with Boax, a banking-grade software company that simplifies the B2B trade of goods and enables the secure, compliant digitization of international trade processes.

Our partnership supports the development and expansion of Boax’s product portfolio, giving organizations the confidence to operate at a scale that was previously too complex and costly for most. Additionally, through Endava’s Endava Rise program, Endava is working closely with Boax to accelerate product build-outs and take advantage of mutual partnership opportunities. Endava is partnering with a global life sciences company to turn its Agentic AI prototypes into governed platform-supported products that can be measured and replicated across the business. The program accelerates delivery of safe, repeatable AI at scale, while defining and helping implement the organizational changes needed across talent, operating model, and culture for the company to become an AI-first enterprise. To drive adoption and demonstrable results, Endava has also introduced dynamic solution squads that co-create with domain owners through a structured, outcomes-focused approach.

We ended the quarter with 11,385 Endavans, representing a 2.4% decrease from the same period last year. We continue to streamline roles in areas of softer demand while broadening and upskilling our AI talent base, embedding new capabilities across the business to help clients integrate new technologies into their workflows. Before we close, I want to thank every Endavan. Your dedication and professionalism continue to steer us through a fast-moving technology landscape and convert change into tangible results for our clients. I’ll now hand over to Mark for a closer look at our quarterly financial results and guidance for the upcoming quarter and the remainder of the fiscal year.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Thanks, John. Our revenue exceeded the upper end of the guidance issued for the quarter ended December 31, 2025. Revenue totaled GBP 184.1 million for the quarter, as compared to GBP 195.6 million in the same period in the prior year, representing a 5.9% decrease. In constant currency, our revenue decreased 5.1% from the same period in the prior year. On a sequential basis, revenue increased by 3.3% compared to Q1. Loss before tax for the three months ended December 31, 2025, was GBP 7.2 million, compared to a profit of GBP 2.5 million in the same period in the prior year.

Our adjusted PBT for the three months ended December 31, 2025, was GBP 10.7 million, compared to GBP 21.8 million for the same period in the prior year. Our adjusted PBT margin was 5.8% for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to 11.2% for the same period in the prior year. Our investment in our AI-native delivery model and in next-gen talent has impacted our adjusted PBT margin and will continue to do so as we continue our shift towards becoming AI-native. We estimate it has reduced the adjusted PBT margin by approximately 3% through Q2 FY 2026.

Our adjusted diluted earnings per share, which fell within our guided range, was 16 pence for the three months ended December 31, 2025, calculated on 52.9 million diluted shares, as compared to 30 pence for the same period in the prior year, calculated on 59.6 million diluted shares. Revenue from our 10 largest clients accounted for 35% of revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to 36% in the same period last fiscal year. The average spend per client from our 10 largest clients decreased from GBP 7.1 million to GBP 6.5 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, representing a 7.9% year-over-year decrease. Of this, FX movements contributed to a 2% year-over-year decrease.

In the three months ended December 31, 2025, North America accounted for 40% of revenue, Europe for 23%, the UK for 31%, while the rest of the world accounted for 6%. Revenue from North America decreased by 5.1% for the three months ended December 31, 2025, over the same period last fiscal year. The decrease was driven mainly by an FX headwind of 3.3% and a lack of contribution in the current quarter from the significant media client whose loss we reported last fiscal year. Comparing the same periods, revenue from Europe declined 8.5%, due mainly to weakness in payments and mobility.

The UK decreased 9.1%, due mainly to the reclassification of a large payments client from the UK to North America, as the relationship with that client is now based there, which was mentioned last quarter. We also experienced weakness in TNT in the UK this quarter. The rest of the world increased 21.8%, driven mainly by the payments and TNT verticals. Our adjusted free cash flow was GBP 20.1 million for the three months ended December 31st, 2025, down from GBP 31.6 million during the same period last fiscal year. Our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period totaled GBP 68.5 million for December 31st, 2025, compared to GBP 59.3 million at June 30th, 2025, and GBP 60.1 million at December 31st, 2024.

Our borrowings increased to GBP 202.7 million at December 31st, 2025, from GBP 180.9 million at June 30th, 2025, and a hundred and twenty-three point seven million pounds as at December 31st, 2024, in support of the funding requirements of our share repurchase program. Capital expenditure for the three months ended December 31st, 2025, as a percentage of revenue, were at 4.4% compared to 0.2% in the same period last fiscal year. The increase is mainly related to a one-time spend on payments accelerator, our internally developed payments gateway accelerator, which broadens our ability to secure a wider range of commercial engagements with payments operators. The development of this solution leverages our Dava Flow ways of working.

As of January 31st, 2026, we purchased approximately 8 million ADSs for $121.9 million under the share repurchase program, and we had $28.1 million remaining for the repurchase under our board’s share repurchase authorization. Before moving on to the guide, I’d like to provide some context. The US dollar’s ongoing weakening against our reporting currency, GBP, continues to create revenue headwinds. The revenue guide is being largely maintained in absolute terms, but the growth is stronger in constant currency terms by 1% for the full year. In addition, as I mentioned previously, we continue our investment in AI-native delivery and next gen talent, which also continues to impact the adjusted PBT margin in the guide. Now, moving on to the guide.

Our guidance for Q3 fiscal year 2026 is as follows: We expect revenue to be in the range of GBP 182 million-GBP 185 million, representing constant currency revenue decrease of between 4% and 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. We expect Adjusted Diluted EPS to be in the range of 18-21 pence per share. Our guidance for full year fiscal 2026 is as follows: We expect revenue to be in the range of GBP 736 million-GBP 750 million, representing constant currency revenue decrease of between 3.5% and 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. We expect Adjusted Diluted EPS to be in the range of 80-86 pence per share.

The above guidance for Q3 fiscal year 2026 and the full fiscal year 2026 assumes the exchange rates on January 31, 2025, when the exchange rate was 1 British pound to 1.37 US dollars and 1.15 euro. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, we are now ready to open line for Q&A.

Conference Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Our first question comes from Puneet Jain with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Puneet Jain, Analyst, JP Morgan: Hey, thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to ask about, like, the fiscal year guidance, like, which implies like nice, nice sequential growth in Q4 after flattish third quarter on FX-neutral basis. So can you talk about like, what drives that growth in fourth quarter? Is it like the last deal ramps, billing days? If you can, double-click on drivers for growth in fourth quarters.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Thanks for the question, Puneet. I think stepping back to Q3, it looks flattish when you look at it, but as I sort of said in the opening comments on the guide, due to the weakness of the US dollar, there is FX headwind quarter-on-quarter about, you know, 1.5%. I think the other thing that needs recognition in our Q3, which is a quarter to March, is we have lower working days than we had in the previous quarter, which is a further headwind of, you know, -3%. So the underlying growth in Q3, quarter-on-quarter, is about 4%, at the midpoint of the guide.

Now, going to Q4, we actually have an increase in working days when compared to the quarter to March, which had about sort of 2% growth. So at the midpoint, it looks like a sequential growth of about 8%. It’s actually about 6%, and that compares against an underlying growth that we saw in Q3 of about 4%. Now, in terms of what underpins that Q4 pickup, it is basically some of the deals that we’ve highlighted that we have won, that have been secured, that provide the underpinning for, for growth.

Puneet Jain, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it. Got it. And then, I think, you also mentioned, extending commitments with two largest payment clients. Can you share more details?

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Yeah.

Puneet Jain, Analyst, JP Morgan: - like around the scope type of work? And if we should expect continued sequential growth, beyond this year, given, like, the pipeline and, overall opportunities you see.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Yeah. So, that was extensions of work with a couple of our larger, payments clients, in fact, the two largest. There’s been quite a stream of that coming through as we went through, the new calendar year coming into play. And, most of it is extensions. There is a little bit of incremental in it, but most of it is extensions on, the run rate level that we had in Q1 and Q2. The relationships remain, good. The sort of work is in, the switch/gateway, type space, and, you know, continuing to help our clients to, rationalize the costs of those estates, but then also, enhance the value propositions for customers coming out of their, capabilities in that space.

Puneet Jain, Analyst, JP Morgan: Okay. Thank you.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Thanks-

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Bryan Bergin, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hey, thank you for taking my questions. Wanted to follow up on some of the guidance assumptions here. Wanted to ask, particularly on the margin front. You guys talked a little bit about, like, the increased investments here that are gonna drive, you know, some of that adjusted PBT to be a little bit lower. Is that-- are those investments coming in higher than expected now in the second half? Because the, the EPS guide is a little bit lower. Just trying to sync the better revenue view with the lighter EPS view. Is that largely, you know, investments coming in higher than expected, or is there any sort of FX impact there? And if possible, can you break out the FX impact on the margin front in terms of the guidance?

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Thanks for the question. I’d say that it is slightly heavier, the investment in the second half. I mean, John referenced partnerships with Miro and Cognition, which are sort of key components for Dava Flow. So we’ve, we’ve entered into licensing the software with those providers. And it, and it is a wider sort of partnership than just a supplier-vendor relationship, so they weigh a little bit more on, on margins. So that sort of 3%, let’s call it continuing investment, I see being about that level as we go forward into, you know, the second half. In terms of FX, I think it does weigh on us in terms of the gross margins sort of certainly.

You know, the weakness of the dollar, you know, selling at 1.37 and, you know, even a quarter ago when we were, you know, guiding for this quarter, it was 1.32, impacts gross margin. It’s a little bit at the edges. It, you know, something like about 0.5% or so, as we have a sort of balanced global sort of workforce. But it is, it is a headwind, and it does mainly impact the sort of revenue growth rather than margin for us.

Bryan Bergin, Analyst, TD Cowen: Gotcha. And, I know that you guys have been a strategic partner for OpenAI, one of the early, actual, you know, deployment partners there. So curious if you could touch up a little bit on the OpenAI, like the OpenAI GPT enterprise adoption trends that you guys are seeing in the market. And then additionally, we’ve heard some comments in the past few weeks. There’s been a little bit of a narrative around services and software displacement as a result from some of the offerings coming from these foundational model providers. Do you guys have a view there? Just curious if there’s any sort of way to dispel some of those fears.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Yeah, sure. I mean, the OpenAI, our relationship with them is very strong. We’ve adopted Enterprise ChatGPT across the business. And so it underpins a lot of our AI approaches. We’re also, you know, in the market jointly selling with them. And, you know, that is leading to some success. I covered one or two of those in my opening remarks. I mean, with OpenAI, the opportunity is opening up the enterprise market for them. You know, they’ve had a lot of success from a consumer market point of view. And, you know, we’re one of the people who are going down the learning curve with them on how to really make their platforms work in an enterprise context. And, you know, that...

Those approaches and what we’re doing with them there is what’s leading to success in the market and some of the opportunities that are coming through. So we remain very excited about that relationship with them. You all have picked up, we also have relationships with the other hyperscalers and large language model providers in the market, and we’re seeing equally exciting opportunities with those guys. On the services and software displacement question, I think, you know, a lot of the reaction is looking at some of these things at a very simplistic level, i.e., almost a consumer market level, or you can, you know, create code much more quickly using agentic AI solutions and so on. But actually, when you project that into the enterprise market, the adoption challenge is different, it’s much higher.

It requires a different delivery model that’s gonna handle the governance, the regulatory framework, and the value realization, the access to data, the modernization of legacy systems all come into play. You know, the sort of out-of-the-box, consumer-level, small project-level solutions don’t address all of those things. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve created Dava Flow as a replacement to, you know, Agile as a delivery method, because Dava Flow addresses the governance and the regulatory, the consistency, the enterprise environments that you’re plugging into, in a way that Agile doesn’t. You know, Agile was a methodology that was set up to enable interactions between people in the creation of software.

When you start moving into an agentic type situation, the people interactions, person to person, are less important than the interactions people to machine. And that requires a different development methodology, which is what we’ve built, to work in these complex enterprise environments. So we actually see a lot of opportunity, as enterprises start to address all of these complex issues around the implementation of AI. And, you know, a growth in demand, because there are many things that enterprises have not been able to do in the last 20 or 30 years, like address their legacy system…. The AI actually enables a cost-effective route, to addressing, as well as then delivering, business benefits that weren’t possible without AI.

Actually, we see the uplift in market opportunity, certainly for the next 5-10 years, outweighing, as enterprise started to adopt at scale, outweighing the productivity headwind that people are concerned about.

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Again, if you have a question, please-

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: Thanks, guys.

Conference Operator: Again, if you have a question, please press Star and then one. Our next question comes from Antonio Jaramillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hey, guys. Thank you for the question. I wanted to go back to your guys’ top line guidance here and, kind of go back to the assumptions baked in there. Could you walk through how your spend around your top customers are baked into that? And then also, could you remind us what your pipeline and your booking assumptions are as well? That’d be helpful.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: I’m not quite sure what you mean by the top spend clients. Do you mean the sort of profile of our top 10 clients and the-

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Exactly, yeah.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Profile order on quarter?

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yep.

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: Okay, so I think broadly we see a lot of stability in that top 10. It is dominated by the our payments clients. We expect a little bit of a slowdown in our large healthcare client in Q3, but then for that to resume as we go into Q4. But that is the only sort of change in the sort of profile. So we do expect sequential, you know, growth quarter on quarter. In terms of sort of pipeline assumptions, we usually quote this split of contracted and committed to pipeline. So certainly for Q3, which we’re guiding at, it’s around a 95 you know percent, and slightly lower at the top of the guide.

And then as we look into Q4, you know, we’re at a 70-75% contracted and committed, which is typically, you know, what we have seen in, in recent sort of history. I think where there’s a, you know, a high degree of confidence around pipeline conversion, so... And that is based on, you know, deals that we have secured throughout the course of the year and also the strength of the order book, including the ones secured in January. So we, it may look as though there, as I said to, you know, to the first caller, that we have this step up, from Q3 to Q4, but actually, it may look like that, but it’s actually an underlying 6% compared to, a 4% sequential growth in Q3.

So it is a relatively modest underlying Q-on-Q growth expectation from Q3 to Q4.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: I think the only thing that I would add to that is, you know, the market continues to have a level of uncertainty to it, that we didn’t see three or four years ago. And that’s reflected in the breadth of the guide that we’ve put forward. The top to bottom is, is very wide, given with, for Q4, given, it’s only six weeks away. And, and you know, I think that’s how we’ve tried to capture the market dynamics in the way in which we’ve guided.

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Mm-hmm.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Mark’s covered all the details that have gone into it.

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great. That’s helpful. And then just on the broader pricing environment, could you maybe walk through how Gen AI engagement pricing is and, you know, like, versus core work? And, are you seeing transitions from proof of concept into production for those Gen AI projects? And, does that vary by industry segment, by customer? Any trends there would be helpful to call out.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: So I think, you know, and this will take a while to get through into the overall stats, but if you look at the new business that is coming through, it is shifting quite strongly to outcome-based solutions with our AI approach supporting how we’re gonna drive the outcomes. And the Dava Flow model that we have really helps to early on get a grip on what the benefits are that are gonna be delivered, the appropriate levels of functionality and so on. So the new business stream that is coming in is much more outcome based.

That does offer, you know, a wider range of margin outcomes, depending on how we perform and the benefits that we deliver to the clients, which at the top end are strong. And you know, at the bottom end, are reasonably well protected, I think would be a good way of describing it.

Antonio Jaramillo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great. Thank you both for the time.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Jonathan Lee with Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: Great, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to dig into Dava Flow a little bit more. It’s good to hear about traction with clients there, but can you provide more detail on adoption? You know, approximate number of clients or percentage of revenue touched by Dava Flow today, and whether there’s any impact on pricing or margin versus your traditional engagements because of that shift to-

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Yeah

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: ... more outcomes-based pricing or fixed pricing?

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: ... So the focus that we’ve got for Dava Flow is not to roll it right across our estate, but to focus it on the outcome-based deals that we’re signing. Because our expectation is that with Dava Flow, and actually we’re seeing this in the places where we’re using it, that we can get a much, much higher level of velocity. And, you know, so applying it in the space where we’re writing outcome-based deals with clients gives us a lot more opportunity to participate in the upside, as we deliver using the Dava Flow method. And so that is, that is where we’re applying it. So it is in larger outcome-based projects.

We’re seeing a good pickup, and you know, enough to actually see the metrics across a number of clients as to how it performs. But we’re not gonna start giving actual numbers of clients, because I think that would be misleading, as in the numbers will be low, but the scale of the projects that it’s applied to would be higher.

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: Appreciate that, that color there. And just as a follow-up, can you help us understand trends in signings, including trends across large and small deals, and whether there have been any surprises, such as delays or cancellations, that you’ve seen across the quarter or into, into this quarter?

Mark Thurston, Chief Financial Officer, Endava: No, I think the velocity has been the normal level for what is now this environment that we’re in. So we’ve had no surprises from that sort of score. Obviously, we’d like things to progress more quickly than they do, but increasingly the larger deals, one of the differences is there’s a lot more due diligence that goes into it because of the scale of the engagement, which is multi-year on both sides, you know, the client and us. But I think the velocity of opportunities has sort of stabilized, albeit at this sort of lower level. Are we seeing any uptick in it? I wouldn’t say so.

I think we’re seeing particular sort of strength maybe in the payments and banking capital market space, so financial services more broadly.

Jonathan Lee, Analyst, Guggenheim Securities: Got it. Helpful color. Thank you.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Thanks, Jonathan.

Conference Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Cotterell, CEO, for any closing remarks.

John Cotterell, Chief Executive Officer, Endava: Thank you, and thank you all for joining us today. To close, we continue with our sustained investment in AI, spanning talent development, the rollout of Dava Flow, deeper partner alliances, and an involved engagement model. This quarter’s momentum underscores that clients view Endava as a trusted partner for AI-enabled change. I look forward to seeing you in our next quarterly earnings in May.

Conference Operator: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.