Computacenter’s UK business has followed in Softcat’s footsteps by recording its first £2bn-sales half-year.
The newly minted FTSE 100 giant this morning announced that UK gross invoice income (GII) leapt 76% year on year to £2.29bn in the first six months of 2026 amid buoyant demand for AI infrastructure.
Its overall top line advanced 59% to £8.93bn.
Group adjusted pre-tax profit followed suit, bouncing 87% to £152.4m.
Computacenter singled out its North American business – which it has bolstered this year with two acquisitions in the form of AgreeYa and GAI (see here and here) – as its “standout performer”.
“Accelerating UK momentum”
But CEO Mike Norris also hailed “accelerating momentum” in its UK business.
Technology sourcing GII here boomed 90.8% to £2.05bn thanks partly to a succession of AI infrastructure projects (including several in the Nordics for “leading European AI infrastructure companies”), Norris said.
UK services revenue rose 6.6% to £244.1m, with professional services up 13% to £103.5m and managed services up 2.3% to £140.6m.
“We are seeing the benefits of a more focused approach to our target market of large corporate and public sector organisations,” Norris said of Computacenter’s renewed domestic success.
Computacenter also “remains encouraged by the pipeline of near-term opportunities” in AI projects from its home market, Norris added.
“To support our growth with hyperscale customers, we are investing in high-performance cooling infrastructure at our Hatfield Integration Centre, enabling efficient pre-staging, configuration and testing. The new facilities are expected to be completed in 2026,” Norris stated.
Computacenter increased the number of major UK customers – namely those generating over £1m of gross profit annually – by three year-on-year to 61 (with the group tally rising by 18 to 216).
Computacenter and Softcat get claws out
The latest results reignite Computacenter’s intriguing UK VAR marketshare tussle with Softcat (a contest Softcat CEO Graham Charlton has in the past told us he takes with a pinch of salt).
Although Computacenter’s H1 UK GII figure is around £280m larger than Softcat’s £2.01bn H1 haul, Softcat is more profitable (its underlying operating profit hit £93.8m, compared with Computacenter’s £26.4m UK adjusted operating profit).
In his CEO statement, Norris only referenced the memory crunch once, and even then only in passing.
“Strong demand for AI-related infrastructure has also affected the broader IT sector, contributing to significant component price inflation,” he said.
“As a result, some customers are reprioritising their IT spending, and we have remained agile in helping them navigate a more challenging environment and secure product supply.”
Will Computacenter’s bull run continue?
Computacenter’s product order backlog stood at a record £9.3bn as of 30 June 2026 amid continued strong order intake in North America and the UK, it stressed. That’s a 323% year-on-year rise.
“Following a strong start to the second half and a further increase in our committed product order backlog, we now expect adjusted PBT for full-year 2026 to be significantly ahead of current market expectations and to be no less than £380m,” Norris added.
