Wickes Group says “challenging market conditions” resulted in a considerable hit to its 2024 profits, driven by a double-digit decline in its design & installation business.
In Wickes’ annual report for 2024, which was released this morning, the retailer says it closed last year with design & install turnover of £326.5m. This represents a significant decline over turnover from its 2023 annual report, which was listed as totalling £364.7m.
To put this into context, between its 2022 and 2023 results, Wickes still saw a decline in its design & install revenue, although this was limited to just a 1.7% drop.
Taking both retail and design & install business into account, Wickes ended 2024 with statutory revenue of £1.538bn – a flat 1% decline over 2023’s closing revenue of £1.553bn. Wickes’ statutory gross profit for last year was £566m, which is a slight dip of 0.3%.
Adjusted gross profits were down by 0.5%, for a total of £565.1m last year. Unfortunately, the drop in adjusted operating profits last year was much more steep, with Wickes closing 2024 having made £67.4m. This is a year-on-year decline of around 9% from 2023’s profits of £73.8m.
Even more concerningly, adjusted pre-tax profits fell by just over 16%, down to £43.6m in 2024 from a much higher £52m in 2023.
Elsewhere, the company saw positive growth in its retail department, recording £1.212bn in revenue for 2024. This is represents an almost 2% increase over the previous year’s revenue of £1.189bn.
Reflecting on the past year, Wickes says that despite the 10% drop in its design & installation business, this sector did experience a slight recovery in Q4 2024.
Wickes also said that trading in the first 11 weeks of 2025 has been “in line with our expectations”, admitting that while design & installation revenue growth still remains negative, ordered sales are in positive growth for the second consecutive quarter.
Across the country Wickes confirmed it had refitted a total of seven stores in 2024, and opened four new ones, which it says created 120 new jobs. Looking to the rest of 2025, the national retailer’s store opening programme also includes the four former Homebase stores it recently rescued.
David Wood, chief executive of Wickes, described 2024 as “a year of strong progress for Wickes” and said the company’s “balanced business model and brand strength saw us continue to deliver for customers and take further market share”.
He continued: “We grew volumes and share throughout the year in Retail as customers bought more of our products for their home improvement projects, however big or small. In Design and Installation, we have been encouraged by a return to growth in ordered sales in Q4 following the actions we took to enhance our customer offer and experience.
“Given the strong progress over the last twelve months and the good start to Q1, we are well on track for the coming year. I would like to thank my colleagues for their continued hard work and support and, together, we remain focused on helping the nation feel house proud”
