Findings from Certinia's 2026 Global Service Dynamics UK Supplement, drawn from 300 UK Professional Services and IT/technology leaders in a five-country study, show UK organizations leading on every realized profitability measure the survey tests, and trailing the US on every retention measure. 

UK estimated mean NRR sits at 71.76% against 79.28% in the US, and only 58% of UK executive teams hold defined NRR goals - second lowest of the five countries, behind Singapore. The reasons sit within UK pricing, who holds accountability for growth, and where Certinia's reading of the data stops.

UK estimated mean net revenue retention (NRR) sits at 71.76% against 79.28% in the US - 7.5 points behind. Only 58% of UK executive teams hold defined NRR goals, second lowest of the five countries behind Singapore. The same organizations posting the study's highest margins trail the US on every retention measure the supplement reports.

Increasing profitability is the single most-cited objective among UK respondents for the next 12 months, at 67%, outranking every other option the survey offered - including AI usage, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Alongside the headline margin and target figures, UK organizations report an estimated mean company EBITDA of 22.89%. Of UK respondents, 44% report professional services margin above 20% in the last 12 months, and 29% are targeting above 40% over the next year. Both are the highest shares of the five countries surveyed.

The outcomes UK organizations report from cross-functional working between Sales, Delivery, Customer Success and Finance concentrate on internal metrics. Higher employee productivity is cited by 63% of UK respondents, the highest of any country sample and seven points above the 56% all-market figure. Improved accuracy in forecasting and reduced rework follows at 58% against 54% all-market, and improved profit margins at 56% against 52%.

Additionally, UK respondents are more likely than any other country sample to report reduced cost overruns from AI (31% against 26% all-market, and 22% in the US) and increased win rates (35% against 30% all-market, 29% in the US). They report improved project margins at 42% against 38% all-market.

UK respondents report weaker results across every retention measure the survey tests, consistently across four separate questions.

UK estimated mean NRR sits at 71.76% against 79.28% in the US, 7.5 points lower. Terry Melnik of Certinia, Head of Industry and Executive Advisory, Professional Services, confirms the definition offered to respondents as NRR as 'a measure of a company's ability to retain revenue from existing customers, including expansion revenue from upsells and cross-sells'. This covers both retention and expansion.

Only 14% of UK respondents report NRR above 90%, and 19% report NRR at or below 60%. On cross-functional working, 47% cite improved customer retention, 36% stronger renewal rates, and 34% improved billable utilization - all below the US figures on the same questions.

In the UK, 58% of respondents say executive leadership holds defined NRR goals or KPIs, against 71% in the US. For services and delivery teams the comparison inverts, with 46% in the UK against 42% in the US. Growing business with existing customers is a stated objective for 49% of UK respondents, against 56% in the US.

Among IT and technology respondents specifically, 16% of the UK group describe their Professional Services organization as breaking even (against 8% in the US), and 72% describe it as a profit center (against 78% in the US).

UK organizations have moved further from hourly billing than any other market in the study. Time and materials is in use at 43% of UK organizations, level with Singapore as the lowest of the five countries, and well below the 61% reported in the US and 50% all-market. Fixed-fee and project-based pricing is in use at 57%, and retainer-based pricing at 36%, above the 33% all-market figure.

Of UK respondents, 69% expect fixed-fee use to increase - the highest figure of the five countries surveyed. Appetite for recurring and outcome-linked models runs lower, with 69% expecting subscription use to increase against 84% in the US, and 69% expecting outcome-based use to increase against 83% in the US and 78% across APAC. Melnik reads the pricing data as mechanical:

Fixed-fee and retainer contracts lock in the margin at the point of sale, which may be why UK firms are seeing such strong, consistent profitability results: the commercial model rewards delivery discipline.

Asked where that leaves retention, Melnik continues: 

The retention data suggests that same discipline hasn't yet been pointed at the account relationship after the deal is signed, which is a function of how organizations are managing the back half of the engagement, rather than a flaw in how margin is being captured.

Under fixed-fee and retainer contracts, margin is earned through delivery discipline, and billable hours carry less weight. UK interest in utilization runs correspondingly lower, with increasing the utilization rate of billable staff an objective for 34% of UK respondents against 44% in the US. The commercial incentives on UK services organizations run toward delivery efficiency rather than account expansion.

UK deployment of AI trails the US on all six use cases the survey tested. The widest divergences are on the use cases that touch the customer.

Deployment of AI agents in client-facing delivery sits at 52% in the UK against 68% in the US - 16 points behind on the use case most directly tied to retention and expansion. Predictive AI for customer outcomes sits at 58% in the UK, generative AI used directly in client delivery at 57%, and predictive AI for forecasting, staffing and risk at 56%. The internally-facing use case - generative AI for internal content and knowledge - is the strongest UK deployment at 65%, 13 points above the client-facing agent figure.

UK organizations are more likely than their US counterparts to run AI pilots without deploying them. On AI agents supporting internal operations, 23% of UK respondents report having piloted without deploying, against 11% in the US. The same holds for client-facing agents (22% against 15%) and generative AI for internal content (20% against 14%). On these three use cases, UK organizations are roughly twice as likely as US organizations to have run an AI experiment that has not reached production.

Nearly half (48%) of UK respondents cite AI and automation initiatives as the area where gaps in data, visibility or handoffs hurt operations today, against 45% all-market. Cross-functional workflow orchestration across teams is their top choice for where AI agents would help most over the next 12 months, at 52%. A further 44% plan to automate handoffs between departments - the highest figure of the five countries, against 38% all-market.

The UK sits close to the all-market picture on operational alignment. In the UK, 63% of respondents describe Sales, Delivery, Customer Success and Finance as mostly aligned or fully integrated, against 62% all-market and 66% in the US. UK respondents also name fewer internal challenges and fewer external pressures than their US counterparts across most items in the survey.

The supplement's perspective is that UK organizations 'report fewer problems when they have less visibility into their own delivery, not because there are fewer problems to find'. Melnik gives his view on where the evidence runs out on that reading:

This was a quantitative-only study so there's no qualitative material we can share specific to this survey. The report flags it explicitly as interpretation for exactly that reason - it's one of two plausible readings of why UK respondents report less operational friction than their US counterparts, and the survey design can't adjudicate between them.

Certinia cites that UK respondents report lower confidence in their own forecasting accuracy than US respondents do, despite reporting fewer challenges overall. UK organizations are also roughly twice as likely as US organizations to have piloted an AI agent without ever moving it into production. Melnik notes:

Neither proves reduced visibility on its own, but both are consistent with a market that hasn't yet built out the instrumentation to see its own friction clearly.

The margin and retention findings sit on direct survey numbers. The reading on operational friction is a Certinia interpretation and Certinia is specific about which is which.

UK services firms figured out how to make money. They moved to fixed fees, got good at delivering within scope, and the margins follow. Nothing in that setup rewards anyone for growing the account afterwards. The people responsible for keeping and growing customers in UK organizations are more often the delivery teams than the executives - which is almost the opposite of how US firms line it up. Delivery teams can hit renewal targets. They can't change the pricing model that decides whether there's room to expand in the first place. That call sits with executives, and in the UK it's being made less often than almost anywhere else in the study.

The AI finding reads along similar lines. UK organizations are running the experiments - they're just not getting them into production. When you ask them why, they say it's the hand-offs between departments, not the AI. What stands up independent of the pitch is that the margin and retention numbers, the shift to fixed-fee pricing, the pilots that aren't making it to production. The next round of this research, with qualitative work alongside, would help add clarity, but in the meantime, UK retention is where this story goes next.