FY24 Full-Year Results

6 November 2024

YouGov plc

("YouGov" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Full Year Results for the year ended 31 July 2024

• Revenue and operating profit slightly ahead of revised guidance
• • • Execution of cost optimisation plan is on track
  • Maintaining FY25 guidance and mid-term ambitions

YouGov, the international research and data analytics group, is today publishing its audited results for the year ended 31 July 2024.

Summary of Audited Results

1. Defined in the explanation of non-IFRS measures below.
2. Figures have been restated to remove customer list amortisation which is now classified as a Separately Reported Item.

Financial highlights

• Revenue growth of 30% (FY23: 17%) to £335.3, with underlying¹ growth of 3% (FY23: 9%) with varied performance across the regions.
• • Revenue slightly ahead of FY24 guidance provided in August 2024 due to higher contribution from Consumer Panel Services of GfK GmbH ("CPS"), owing to greater level of research delivery completed in July.
• Adjusted operating profit2 up by 1% to £49.6m, largely due to higher CPS contribution.
• Adjusted operating profit margin2 down 400 basis points (bps) to 15%, due to weak sales momentum during the year and higher levels of staff and technology costs in H1 FY24.
• Statutory operating profit down to £10.9m (FY23: 44.4m), largely due to exceptional costs of £38.7m in relation to the acquisition of CPS, the change in accounting treatment of amortisation costs of acquired customer relationship intangible assets and restructuring charges.
• Adjusted earnings per share1 down by 29% to 29.4p (FY23: 41.1p). Statutory earnings per share decreased from 31.5p to (2.0p).
• Robust balance sheet position maintained with cash at period end of £73.6m (31 July 2023: £107.2m) and leverage ratio1 of 1.7x net debt to EBITDA.

Operational highlights

• Completed the transformational acquisition of CPS, the European leader in household purchase data across 18 countries, for a headline purchase price of €315m, in January 2024.
• • The CPS business is continuing to perform well, in line with expectations and the integration is progressing well.
• Top-lineperformance was impacted by slower than anticipated sales momentum, heightened competitive activity and challenging macro conditions.
• Good progress in our areas of priority for FY24, to position the Company for medium-term growth, including the reorganisation of our commercial teams and the expansion of our senior leadership team to drive innovation and efficiency.
• The Americas saw strong underlying1 growth of 8%, driven by an increase in spend from the technology sector and multi-year tracking studies. The region remains our key strategic focus area as we continue to see significant market opportunities over the near and medium term.
• Completed the acquisition of Yabble, post period end, which will transform our Data Products segment, maximising the capabilities of Yabble's industry leading AI platform with YouGov's superior quality data.

Cost optimisation plan

• As announced on 6 August 2024, the Group accelerated a strategic review of the stand-alone YouGov business (excluding CPS) and subsequently commenced a cost optimisation plan:
• • Initiatives include a reduction in support functions, discontinuing under-performing products, scaling back in certain non-core regions and curtailing third-party supplier costs.
  • Streamlining measures expected to lead to annualised cost savings of £20 million, of which the Company has taken initial action on approximately £17 million.
  • 70% of the annualised cost savings expected to be realised in FY25, weighted towards the second half of the year.
• The Board is confident these measures will best position the Group to focus on its long-term strategic plan, while continuing to invest in key growth areas.

Product innovation and investment focus

• Alongside the cost optimisation plan, we will focus investments on areas with greatest potential for growth and return:
• • Enhancing our Data Products to make our rich, high-quality data more discoverable.
  • Further building out our AI-enabled capabilities to enhance product offer and operational efficiency.
  • Strengthening of our sales organisation through the appointment of new regional leaders for UK and EMEA to drive improved performance and increase our commercial rigour.
  • Expanding CPS' panel capabilities and data collection methods to accelerate their growth potential.

Current trading and outlook

• Trading for the current financial year is broadly in line with the prior year as expected, reflecting the slower sales bookings in H2 FY24.
• Continue to see demand for our high-quality Custom Research data, while seeing longer sales cycles for Data Products subscription sales.
• Sales bookings momentum is expected to pick up in Q2 and Q3 FY25 as we head into renewal season for our Data Products, supported by the launch of new products and features as well as an improvement in market conditions.
• We expect the Group to meet current market expectations for FY25, which will be second half weighted due to the ongoing restructuring process.
• We maintain a disciplined approach to cash management, and as of 31 July 2024, the Group has a robust balance sheet, with approximately £74 million in cash and cash equivalents and €16 million of the revolving credit facility remains undrawn.
• Moving into FY25, enhancing our core Data Products, further development of AI capabilities and building up our team of expert researchers and data scientists will be our key investment areas.

Steve Hatch, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"FY24 has been a year of transition, challenge and change. We have made significant strategic progress in the financial year. We completed the acquisitions of CPS and KnowledgeHound which strengthen our product offer and technology as well as increasing our addressable market. Consistent with this, post-period end we acquired Yabble, which will transform our Data Products segment using generative AI.

The macroeconomic environment remained challenging across the wider market research industry and for YouGov, while internal execution also contributed to the challenges we faced. We acted quickly over the summer and I am confident that we have put the right initiatives in place as we focus on the execution of our long-term strategic plan.

Our clients continue to value the quality of our products and services, this is reflected by our high renewal rates and strong customer relationships. As we enter FY25, we anticipate that momentum will build throughout the year, weighted towards the second half, as the benefits of our cost optimisation plan and new commercial leadership are realised. We consequently expect YouGov to achieve growth for FY25 in line with current market expectations, and remain confident in the Group's ability to deliver on its long-term ambitions."

Analyst presentation

A copy of the presentation and the recording is available online at: https://corporate.yougov.com/investors/presentations/.

Forward looking statements

Certain statements in this full year report are forward looking. Although the Group believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. As these statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward- looking statements.

We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About YouGov

YouGov is an international online research data and analytics technology group.

Our mission is to offer unparalleled insight into what the world thinks.

Our innovative solutions help the world's most recognised brands, media owners and agencies to plan, activate and track their marketing activities better.

With operations in the UK, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific, we have one of the world's largest research networks.

At the core of our platform is an ever-growing source of consumer data that has been amassed over our twenty years of operation. We call it Living Data. All of our products and services draw upon this detailed understanding of our 29 million registered panel members to deliver accurate, actionable consumer insights.

As innovators and pioneers of online market research, we have a strong reputation as a trusted source of accurate data and insights. Testament to this, YouGov data is regularly referenced by the global press, and we are the most quoted market research source in the world.

YouGov. Living Consumer Intelligence.

For further information, visit business.yougov.com

Chair's Statement

My first full year as Chair of the YouGov plc Board of Directors has been one of change for YouGov, as we moved into our third long-term strategic growth plan (SP3), led by our new CEO, Steve Hatch.

During the year, we completed our transformative acquisition of GfK's Consumer Panel Services business ("CPS"), an established leader in household purchase data in Europe serving FMCG clients, welcoming 1,000+ new employees to the YouGov Group and increasing our workforce size by 50%. We also acquired KnowledgeHound, a US based survey data management solution, to aid the extension of our YouGov Crunch survey analytics platform to handle the needs of large brands. More recently, following the end of the reporting year, we acquired Yabble, the New Zealand based company that has pioneered the use of generative AI to deliver audience insights.

Last year, I noted the ongoing challenges and macro uncertainty in our industry, which have persisted into FY24. Client budgets have increasingly come under pressure and the prevalence of fraudulent data has led to greater scrutiny on panel quality across the industry. YouGov invested in further improvements to our systems and we continue to be seen throughout the industry as the gold standard for high-quality data. However, in the period of uncertainty, clients appear to have eased off from new commitments. We believe that in the new world of AI-powered research, high quality connected and structured data will become increasingly important and we are again seeing increased demand from our most data-savvy clients.

Financial results and dividend

In FY24, while we grew revenue compared to the prior year, growth in the US and UK region was in part offset by slight contractions in the EMEA and APAC markets. Against this slowdown, the Board acted quickly to support management to take significant cost action towards the end of the financial year, which is expected to generate annualised cost savings of £20 million. The guiding principle was to right-size our organisation and ensure we are resourced in more strategically focussed areas to maximise our capacity and efficiency. While these decisions are never easy, the cost optimisation initiatives were determined with a view to sustaining profitability levels and ensuring delivery of our long- term strategic growth plan, SP3, which is set out in further detail in the CEO's Report.

YouGov continues to maintain a progressive dividend policy and, in line with this, the Board is pleased to recommend a dividend of 9.0p per share payable on 9 December 2024 to shareholders on the register as at 29 November 2024. This will be tabled for shareholder approval at our Annual General Meeting ("AGM") on 5 December 2024.

SP3 - Commencing the third strategic growth plan (SP3)

Our vision is for YouGov to be the world's leading provider of marketing and opinion data. To support our realisation of this vision, we choose to operate using the tool of medium-to-long term strategic growth plans to enable us to allocate resources, make investment decisions and to create a close link between corporate performance and executive remuneration. In FY23, the Board approved the strategic direction for our third long-term strategic plan, SP3, to commence from FY24. In this first year of the plan, the Board was delighted to welcome new members of senior management, product owners, and clients, to join our annual strategic offsite in May 2024 where we considered "SP3 in the age of AI". It is clear to us that there is huge potential in AI technology not only to create more efficiencies within our workflows but also to access new layers of value from our unique connected dataset.

Governance and Board composition

During FY24, the YouGov plc Board also saw some changes. In February 2024, Sundip Chahal stepped down as an Executive Director and Chief Business Officer (CBO). Sundip contributed significantly to the Company's first two long-term financial plans during his tenure as CBO and formerly as Chief Operating Officer. In April 2024, in line with our previously disclosed succession plan, Rosemary Leith stepped down from the Board of Directors after nine years. We are grateful to have had Rosemary's outstanding contribution to our Board as Chair of the Remuneration Committee and formerly Senior Independent Director during her tenure. In June 2024, we welcomed Deborah Davis to the Board and as Chair of the Remuneration Committee. Deborah has extensive global experience in platform

business models, software, fintech, telecoms and e-commerce businesses, and her appointment further strengthens our governance capabilities. I am confident that we have a strong and balanced Board of Directors to support our growth and strategic ambitions.

In addition, Steve has strengthened the senior management team through the year, in both functional and regional leadership, as detailed in his CEO's Report, putting the Company in an advantaged position to realise our ambitions.

Environmental, social and governance ('ESG')

Building on a foundation of ethical, sustainable, and responsible business practices, our commitment to ESG is a natural continuation of who we are as a company, and I am pleased to report on a number of ESG highlights in the year.

Our CEO delivered on his ESG objective to formalise and champion YouGov's policy on neutrality. The principle of neutrality is essential to YouGov's mission to give a voice to what the world thinks. While it has always been a core principle within the market research industry, the introduction of this formal policy ensures that we share a clear understanding of what neutrality means to YouGov and how we apply it to our research and editorial output. Additionally, our new Employee Value Proposition ("EVP") was launched, laying the foundations for a combined, enriching culture as our teams at YouGov and CPS come together to form one, unified business.

In May 2024, we published our inaugural stand-alone ESG Report (available on our corporate website at: corporate.yougov.com/esg). Introducing our net zero targets and our social mission framework, this report reflects our continued commitment to transparency and accountability in our ESG approach. YouGov's social mission framework incorporates our commitments to support and engage our panel members, clients, employees, and the wider community. From providing unparalleled access to free public data, to maintaining a representative and accessible panel, we are driven by a desire to make a positive social impact. We are also in a unique position to support our clients with their own ESG agendas, and the case studies in our ESG Report illustrate how our trusted insights inform a range of ESG approaches.

Looking ahead and conclusion

On behalf of the Board, I want to reiterate our appreciation of the resilience of all our employees and their dedication to the YouGov values - be fast, be fearless, get it right, trust and respect each other. I wish to commend Steve on his ability to adapt swiftly to the difficult changing conditions we have seen this year and his commitment to a positive, inclusive culture. As we welcome our new colleagues from Knowledgehound, CPS and Yabble and work through the integration plan for our enlarged business, we are committed to maintaining the strongest aspects of culture and learning from our new colleagues to make YouGov a place people can continue to thrive. While the next year will not be without its challenges as we implement our cost actions, I believe our chosen business model and strategy, including our unique and valuable panel asset, is what enables us to continue to deliver long-term value to our stakeholders, and will make YouGov the world's number one market research company.

Stephan Shakespeare

Chair

5 November 2024

Chief Executive Officer's Statement

FY 2024 was a year of transition for the industry and at YouGov. Having concluded my first year at the company, I am fully convinced that the strength of our data, brand and people remains unrivalled.

Over the past year the business has seen a number of successes and challenges, from the completion of the transformational CPS acquisition and a successful UK General Election cycle to our disappointing trading update in June 2024 and the subsequent announcement of our cost optimisation and restructuring plan. While several factors, both internal and external, have contributed to the challenges we have faced, I am confident the actions we have taken will set the business up for sustained success in the future. I would like to thank all the employees at YouGov and our new colleagues at CPS for their hard work and commitment.

The market research industry has had to adapt to several market forces over the year from the rise of AI-based insights to addressing panel quality issues and the continued high interest rate environment leading to a cautious spending profile from clients. Consequently, the global Market Research sector recorded growth of 5% in 20231, in line with inflation and growth rates seen in the prior year, with some of the largest players in our industry recording year-on-year declines. Against this backdrop, YouGov reported 3% underlying2 growth in FY24 and 30% reported growth reflecting the CPS acquisition.

FY24 Priorities

We have made considerable progress over the past year in our areas of priority for FY24 and this will set us up for growth in the medium term. These priority areas are:

• CPS
• • Completed the transformational acquisition of CPS, the European leader in household purchase data with panels across 18 countries, for a headline purchase price of €315m, in January 2024.
  • The division has continued to perform well post-completion with clients continuing to receive the high level of service they had prior to the deal. Additionally, the CPS and YouGov teams are beginning to collaborate on research opportunities, particularly in Germany and Italy.
  • With the integration process well underway, we will be investing in strategic growth initiatives for the CPS business to accelerate future growth, including:
  • • Development of a new platform, SimIT Web, in conjunction with Circana™, which is expected to launch in FY25. The platform will represent a significant step forward in the shopper analytics industry owing to its efficient data accessibility and visualisation, export capabilities, AI chatbot, collaboration features, automatic report updates and user- friendliness.
    • Build out of passive consumer panels in the Nordics through automated receipt data collection, thereby increasing the potential commercial opportunities with brands and retailers in the region.
• Panel Quality
• • Following the publication of ourindustry leading white paper in November 2023on how we maintain superior data quality in YouGov BrandIndex, we have been able to catch fraudulent and inattentive respondents in real-time,eliminating slow, manual processing. This has resulted in measurably better response quality in our surveys. For example, the percentage of US respondents in YouGov BrandIndex that failed attention checks has dropped from 5% in early 2023 to about 1% in August 2024.
  • The quality of our panel was put to the test at the 2024 UK General Election and we were extremely pleased that YouGov's predictions called 92% of seats1 accurately, surpassing the accuracy of all major pollsters including the exit poll.
• Product Innovation
• • Based on feedback from clients and our assessment of our Data Products proposition, we identified the need to improve the user interface and user experience of our syndicated subscription products to increase their ease of use and discoverability of the data. Following the acquisitions of KnowledgeHound and Yabble, we have developed a product roadmap that includes a series of enhancements and new AI-enabled features to be introduced in FY25.
  • Additionally, we further identified the need for us to have more category-specific products that serve a wider base of clients and address their most immediate needs in a cost-efficient way,

allowing us to tap into the upside potential with brand clients. We were able to rapidly develop and test these products using our existing YouGov BrandIndex dataset while expanding into category-specific data to track industry behaviours, attributes and products. Subsequently, we have launched YouGov CategoryView in the US covering seven different categories across the FMCG, Automotive and Financial Services sectors, with several more planned for launch during FY25.

• Commercial Rigour
• • One of the areas that has undergone a notable transition and change over the past year has been the structure of our commercial teams. Beginning with the appointment of a new Chief Commercial Officer, Tom Fisher, in January 2024, we changed the reporting structure and accountability to be more regionally aligned.
  • Under Tom's leadership, we have thoroughly evaluated our sales incentive programme and moved our account management teams to quarterly targets and more focussed client accounts in terms of numbers and sectors. Additionally, we have appointed a new leader for our UK business and will imminently be appointing a leader for our DACH business. Overall, we believe we have the right measures and leaders now in place to ensure we continue to expand our share of wallet with existing clients and win new business in the coming years.
• US Expansion
• • The US has seen robust underlying2 growth in FY24, in line with the market, with variability in performance across different sectors. After a short pause in FY23, the technology sector returned to strong growth in the year. However, this was offset in part by a slowdown in the gaming sector which has undergone a period of restructuring and the academic sector which is expected to return to growth in FY25 ahead of the 2024 US Presidential Election.

Cost optimisation plan

Following the lower than expected growth achieved in FY24, we accelerated our internal operational and strategic review of the YouGov business and subsequently commenced a cost optimisation plan. The strategic review included an assessment of our entire product portfolio, reviewing the size and profitability of some of our local operations and evaluating our support function needs for the next 12- 18 months.

The Company identified several areas where we could reduce our cost base and reallocate resources to be a more focussed and efficient business. We expect these streamlining measures to lead to annualised cost savings of £20 million, through a reduction in support functions, discontinuing under- performing products, scaling back in certain non-core regions and curtailing third-party supplier costs. It is anticipated that about 70% of the annualised cost savings will be realised in FY25, weighted towards the second half of the year.

Third strategic growth plan ("SP3")

YouGov's current strategic growth plan aims to deepen YouGov's strategy and complete the final stage of positioning ourselves as a platform business with a dual go-to-market strategy targeting enterprise sales and a digital path to purchase. This strategic growth plan is underpinned by three key growth areas:

• Deepening client relations and increasing market penetration through our syndicated data products and customised research;
• Driving greater usage of our self-serve client platform, through single sign-on and a digital sales and marketing approach; and
• Targeting greenfield opportunities, such as newer products and M&A.

Following the announcement of our cost optimisation plan in August 2024, we will be prioritising our investments in areas where we see the greatest potential for return to ensure we remain on track to delivering on SP3. Some of the identified areas of initial investment include:

• Upgrading our Data Products, as outlined above, to make the interface more intuitive and adding features and pre-built content that increase the speed and ease at which clients can derive the data and insights they need.
• Further building out our AI-enabled capabilities to enhance operational efficiency through workflow automation and develop client-facing product innovations. Beginning with YouGov

Profiles, our flagship audience intelligence tool, we will look to introduce conversational search and analytics to make the data within our vast dataset more discoverable.

• Enhancing our sales organisation through the appointment of new regional leaders for UK and EMEA to drive improved performance.

Following the completion of the CPS transaction, the Group revised its medium-term guidance to include the contribution from CPS, and our ambitions remain unchanged:

• Medium-termrevenue of £650 million; and
• Medium-termadjusted operating profit margin of 25%.

The Board is confident that our identified investment priorities and cost optimisation measures will allow the Group to focus on its long-term strategic plan and deliver on the ambitious financial targets over time.

Current trading and outlook

• Trading for the current financial year is broadly in line with the prior year as expected, reflecting the slower sales bookings in H2 FY24.
• Continue to see demand for our high-quality Custom Research data, while seeing longer sales cycles for Data Products subscription sales.
• Sales bookings momentum is expected to pick up in Q2 and Q3 FY25 as we head into renewal season for our Data Products, supported by the launch of new products and features as well as an improvement in market conditions.
• We expect the Group to meet current market expectations for FY25, which will be second half weighted due to the ongoing restructuring process.
• We maintain a disciplined approach to cash management, and as of 31 July 2024, the Group has a robust balance sheet, with approximately £74 million in cash and cash equivalents and €16 million of the revolving credit facility remains undrawn.
• Moving into FY25, enhancing our core Data Products, further development of AI capabilities and building up our team of expert researchers and data scientists will be our key investment areas.

Leadership team

In my first year at YouGov, I have been thoroughly impressed, not only by the calibre of the staff and their dedication to the company, but also their enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit. As we evolve into a market leader in our field, it is vital that we become a more globally connected organisation with a clearer corporate structure, which in turn will lead to better accountability and performance.

Beginning with the aforementioned appointment of a new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), we have reorganised our sales and regional teams to enable greater collaboration, clear roles and responsibilities and alignment of goals. Under the new structure, regional heads have full responsibility of the commercial and delivery teams and report into the CCO. This will enable us to better serve our large multi-national clients using a more global approach to our key client relationships.

Furthermore, we have strengthened our senior leadership team with the appointment of Marc Ryan as Chief Product Officer (CPO) in September 2024. Marc's initial focus will be on YouGov's Data Products, and he joins YouGov to oversee our product strategy with a focus on customer-centric innovation. As CPO, Marc will set our long-term product vision across the entire product ecosystem, including cross- product convergence. With over 30 years of experience in the market research industry, Marc has an exceptional track record as a transformational leader specialising in data, product, and scaling growth across dynamic B2C and B2B environments. Marc joins us at an exciting time for the industry as advances in zero party data and AI see clients demanding more from their research. Combining Marc's expertise with YouGov's renowned data products and our unrivalled proprietary data set, we will continue to be the innovation leader in our industry.

Over the past year, I have witnessed firsthand how YouGov's talented team have worked tirelessly to deliver on the Company's clear purpose and mission. While the year has been one of the most challenging in YouGov's history, I remain excited about our future knowing that we have the right products, people and strategy in place.

Steve Hatch

Chief Executive Officer

5 November 2024

1 According to the ESOMAR Global Market Research Report published in September 2024. 2 Defined in the explanation of non-IFRS measures below.