Next plc, the UK’s most consistently profitable clothing and homeware retailer, will publish its half-year results on Thursday 17 September 2026, according to the financial calendar on its investor site. The announcement covers the six months to late July and arrives six weeks after a second-quarter trading statement that beat the company’s own forecast by £70 million and lifted full-year profit guidance to £1,243 million. For UK shoppers, high-street landlords and the independent retailers who trade alongside its 400-plus stores, the question is not whether Next made money. It is what the group says about the autumn, about its UK shops, and about the Christmas trading period that decides the year for almost everyone on the high street.
The results land in a week when the rest of the sector has offered a mixed picture. The John Lewis Partnership reported on 10 September that its first-half loss before exceptional items had more than doubled to £89 million, while Currys said like-for-like sales rose 7% in the first 17 weeks of its year. Next’s numbers will be read against both, and against a Budget on 28 October that the British Retail Consortium (BRC) is already lobbying hard over.
In short
- Date confirmed: Next’s half-year results are scheduled for 17 September 2026 per the company’s published financial calendar, with a Q3 trading statement provisionally set for 5 November.
- The bar is high: second-quarter full-price sales rose 9.2% against guidance of 4%, a beat of £70 million, of which £51 million came from overseas and £19 million from the UK, according to the 5 August trading statement.
- Profit guidance is £1,243 million: up 7.3% on last year and raised by £25 million in August, with post-tax earnings per share guided at 812.9p, up 9.2%.
- UK stores are the soft spot: full-price sales in Next’s physical shops fell 0.3% in the second quarter and roughly 1.7% across the first half, while international online grew 36.9% in the quarter.
- Second half is guided lower: Next assumes full-price sales growth of about 5% for the second half (UK 2.8%, international 14%), well below the second-quarter pace, so the market will be listening for whether that caution holds.
When does Next report and what period do the results cover?
Next’s financial calendar lists the half-year results for 17 September 2026. The company’s first half runs to the end of July, so the statement will cover trading from February through July, a stretch that included an unusually warm British summer. The calendar also shows a third-quarter trading statement provisionally on 5 November 2026, a fourth-quarter update on 6 January 2027 and preliminary full-year results on 24 March 2027. Next marks the later dates as provisional and subject to change.
The half-year report is the first of only two occasions each year when Next publishes full profit and loss figures rather than a sales-only trading statement. That makes it the moment when investors see gross margin, operating costs, the performance of the LABEL third-party brands business and the finance income from the group’s customer credit book. It is also when the board typically restates or refines its full-year guidance in detail.
Why the timing matters for the wider high street. Next reports before most of its UK peers give their autumn updates. Its commentary on consumer demand, weather and cost inflation is therefore treated as a bellwether for the run-up to Christmas. When Next raised guidance in August, the shares rose 7.1% on the day, according to Hargreaves Lansdown, and the read-across lifted sentiment towards other clothing retailers. A cautious tone on 17 September would do the reverse.
What did the August trading statement actually say?
On 5 August 2026 Next reported second-quarter full-price sales up 9.2%, against its own guidance of 4%. The company said the beat was worth £70 million of sales, split £19 million in the UK and £51 million overseas. It gave three reasons: UK weather that was “as warm as last year’s exceptional summer”, the release of pent-up demand in the Middle East and Northern Europe, and an ability to spend “much more on profitable marketing than anticipated”, per the statement.
The channel split tells a more nuanced story than the headline. UK online sales of the Next brand itself fell 1.2% in the quarter, while UK online sales of LABEL, the third-party brands Next sells through its platform, rose 13.2%. Total UK online growth was 5%.
Physical stores slipped 0.3%. Total UK full-price sales rose 2.8%, and international sales rose 36.9%.
| Channel (Q2 2026/27, full-price sales) | Growth vs Q2 2025/26 |
|---|---|
| UK online, Next brand | -1.2% |
| UK online, LABEL (third-party brands) | +13.2% |
| UK online total | +5.0% |
| UK retail stores | -0.3% |
| Total UK | +2.8% |
| International | +36.9% |
| Total full-price sales | +9.2% |
Source: Next plc trading statement, 5 August 2026, as published via the Regulatory News Service.
Over the first half as a whole, total full-price sales rose about 7.7%, per Yahoo Finance’s report of the statement. IG’s results preview, published on 11 September, puts first-half UK growth at 3.6% and international growth at 23.9%, with UK online up 7.4% and UK retail stores down 1.7%. Those half-year figures are what the 17 September statement will formalise.
What the beat was not. Next did not attribute the outperformance to price cuts or promotions. Full-price sales exclude markdown and clearance, which is precisely why the metric is watched. Nor did the company claim a structural change in UK demand: warm weather and marketing spend are both explicitly temporary drivers. That framing explains why guidance for the second half was left far below the second-quarter run rate.
What is Next’s full-year guidance going into the results?
The August statement raised full-year pre-tax profit guidance by £25 million to £1,243 million, a 7.3% increase on the prior year. Next said the upgrade reflected both the higher sales and a better-than-expected contribution from its equity investments in other retail brands. Full-year full-price sales are now guided to grow 6.3% to £6.0 billion, with total group sales of £7.5 billion, up 6.6%. Post-tax earnings per share are guided at 812.9p, up 9.2%, helped by the share count shrinking through buybacks.
| Full-year 2026/27 guidance (as of 5 August 2026) | Value | Change vs 2025/26 |
|---|---|---|
| Full-price sales | £6.0bn | +6.3% |
| Total group sales | £7.5bn | +6.6% |
| Profit before tax | £1,243m | +7.3% |
| Post-tax earnings per share | 812.9p | +9.2% |
| Share buybacks planned for the year | £524m | +£14m vs prior plan |
| H2 full-price sales growth assumption | ~5% | UK +2.8%, international +14% |
Source: Next plc trading statement, 5 August 2026; IG preview, 11 September 2026. In US dollar terms, £1,243 million is roughly USD 1.68 billion at around 1.35 dollars to the pound, the rate prevailing on 10 September.
The buyback figure matters for the earnings-per-share line. Next said it would raise planned buybacks by £14 million to £524 million for the year, with £169 million of surplus cash still available at the time of the statement. IG estimates that roughly £355 million had been deployed by early September and that the share count has been reduced by about 2.3%. Whether the board switches part of the remaining surplus to a special dividend is a recurring question at results time.
How many times has guidance moved this year? Next entered the year with a more modest plan and has raised its profit forecast once, in August, according to IG. Investors have grown used to a pattern in which Next guides conservatively in January and March, then nudges the number up through the year. The half-year results are the natural point for a second upgrade if first-half profit came in ahead of the sales beat, or for the board to hold the line and point to the weaker second-half assumption.
Why are UK stores lagging while international booms?
The starkest number in the August statement was the gap between international online sales, up 36.9%, and UK retail stores, down 0.3%. Next has spent a decade turning itself from a British catalogue-and-shops business into an online platform that sells its own brand and hundreds of third-party labels across dozens of countries. The second quarter showed that platform working: LABEL grew 13.2% in the UK and overseas markets contributed £51 million of the £70 million beat.
Next has also been explicit for several years that it expects UK store sales to decline gradually and plans its cost base accordingly, negotiating shorter leases and lower rents at renewal. The company has said in past results that it only keeps a shop open where it makes a positive cash contribution after rent, rates and staff costs. That discipline is why a small decline in store sales does not translate into a profit warning.
The UK store estate, by contrast, is being managed for cash rather than growth. Next closes or resizes shops as leases expire and rarely opens new ones. A 0.3% decline in a quarter of warm weather, when clothing demand should have been strongest, suggests that footfall into physical shops continues to drift lower even for a well-run chain. That reading is consistent with BRC-Sensormatic data showing UK high-street footfall down 3.1% year on year in August, with retail parks the only destination type to record growth.
The picture at rivals is similar. Primark, which built its entire model on stores, confirmed on 10 September that it will offer home delivery in Great Britain for the first time, having bought a £90 million fulfilment centre in Sheffield. When the most store-committed fashion retailer in the country adds a delivery channel, it signals where UK apparel demand is moving.
What this means for an independent clothing shop
For an independent boutique on a market-town high street, Next’s numbers carry a practical lesson. The chain’s own-brand online sales in the UK fell in the quarter even as its total UK online sales rose, because third-party brands did the growing. Shoppers are using Next as a marketplace for other labels rather than only for Next products.
An independent stocking niche or premium brands competes with that platform on range and convenience, not with the Next brand itself. Local retailers who have looked at local delivery options are, in effect, responding to the same shift Next and Primark have identified.
What role does the LABEL marketplace play?
LABEL is the part of Next that sells third-party brands through its website and app. Its 13.2% UK growth in the second quarter, set against a 1.2% decline for the Next brand online, shows the group’s UK online growth is now coming from being a marketplace rather than a brand. This is the same pivot other UK retailers have attempted with less success. Debenhams Group, the former Boohoo, has been turning Debenhams into a marketplace and narrowed its annual loss to £108 million as that model gained traction; our earlier report on how Debenhams Group narrowed its loss covers the comparison.
For Next the marketplace model has two attractions. It generates commission-style revenue with limited inventory risk, and it keeps customers on the platform even when they do not want Next’s own product. The half-year results usually break out LABEL sales and margin, and the direction of those figures will indicate whether the group can keep growing in the UK without depending on its own brand.
Total Platform and the equity stakes. Next also runs Total Platform, a service that provides e-commerce, warehousing and customer-service infrastructure to other brands, some of which Next has taken equity stakes in. The August statement cited a better-than-expected contribution from those equity investments as one reason for the profit upgrade. Investors will look for detail on which investments contributed and whether the gain is recurring.
How does Next compare with its UK peers this month?
September has produced an unusually dense cluster of UK retail updates, which makes the peer comparison sharper than usual. The John Lewis Partnership reported a first-half loss before tax and exceptional items of £89 million for the six months to 1 August, up from £34 million a year earlier, on sales of £6.3 billion, up 2%. Within that, John Lewis department store sales fell 2% to £2 billion while Waitrose rose 4% to £4.3 billion. On a statutory basis the Partnership’s pre-tax loss widened to £124 million from £88 million, per its results and reporting by Reuters, with head-office restructuring costs among the charges.
Currys, the electricals retailer, said on 10 September that group like-for-like sales rose 7% in the 17 weeks to 29 August, with the UK and Ireland up 6% and the Nordics up 9%, and that it remained comfortable with consensus for adjusted pre-tax profit of £199 million. Associated British Foods, Primark’s owner, used its own trading update the same day to confirm the home-delivery decision.
| Retailer | Latest update | Period | Sales trend | Profit signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Next | Q2 trading statement, 5 Aug; H1 results due 17 Sep | Q2 to end July | Full-price sales +9.2%; UK +2.8%; international +36.9% | FY pre-tax profit guided £1,243m, +7.3% |
| John Lewis Partnership | H1 results, 10 Sep | 26 weeks to 1 Aug | Sales £6.3bn, +2%; John Lewis -2%; Waitrose +4% | Loss before exceptionals £89m vs £34m |
| Currys | Trading update, 10 Sep | 17 weeks to 29 Aug | Group LFL +7%; UK & Ireland +6% | Comfortable with £199m consensus |
| Primark (ABF) | Q4 trading update, 10 Sep | To mid-September | Store-led; home delivery confirmed for GB | £90m Sheffield fulfilment site purchased |
Sources: company statements via RNS; Reuters, Retail Gazette and Grocery Gazette reporting, 5 August to 11 September 2026.
The contrast with John Lewis is the one analysts will draw first. Both are large, mid-market, multi-category retailers with big UK store estates. One is guiding to a £1.24 billion profit and the other has just reported a widening loss.
The difference lies in Next’s online mix, its lower-cost store portfolio and the finance income from its credit customers, none of which the Partnership can replicate quickly. Readers who want the detail of the Partnership’s first half can find it in our report on how the John Lewis Partnership loss doubled to £89 million.
What cost pressures will Next talk about?
UK retailers have spent 2026 absorbing three overlapping cost increases: the rise in employer National Insurance contributions that took effect in April 2025, successive increases in the National Living Wage, and the April 2026 business-rates revaluation. Bloomberg analysis earlier this year found that Britain’s largest retailers had cut close to 18,000 jobs over a year as those costs bit, with Tesco, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis and Kingfisher among the largest reductions. Our coverage of how UK retailers cut 18,000 jobs set out the mechanics.
Next has historically quantified these headwinds precisely in its results statements and explained how it plans to offset them through price increases, efficiency and store closures. The half-year report is likely to update those figures. The August trading statement, being sales-focused, said nothing about wage costs, National Insurance or price inflation, so 17 September is the first opportunity since March for the company to say how much of the cost increase it has passed on to shoppers.
Business rates after the 2026 revaluation
From 1 April 2026 the business-rates system in England has used five multipliers. Retail, hospitality and leisure properties with a rateable value below £51,000 pay 38.2p in the pound, those between £51,000 and £499,999 pay 43p, and any property with a rateable value of £500,000 or more pays a high-value multiplier of 50.8p. The old 40% retail relief, capped at £110,000 per business, ended on 31 March 2026.
For a chain like Next the effect depends on how many of its larger stores and its warehouse estate fall into the top band. The BRC has asked the Chancellor to remove shops from the high-value multiplier and to end annual inflation-linked increases ahead of the 28 October Budget.
Fuel, inflation and the interest-rate outlook
The macro backdrop has shifted since Next last reported profit figures in March. Reuters has reported that fuel prices rose after the start of the conflict involving Iran in February, denting UK consumer confidence, and that inflation worries have reduced expectations of interest-rate cuts. BRC shop-price inflation rose to 1.5% in August from 0.9% in July, with food at 2.8% and non-food at 0.9%.
The BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor showed August sales growth slowing to 0.5% year on year from 1.0% in July. None of these are catastrophic for a retailer with Next’s margins, but they frame the second-half caution.
What does the second-half guidance imply for Christmas?
Next’s central assumption is that full-price sales grow about 5% in the second half, with the UK contributing 2.8% and international 14%. That is a sharp deceleration from a second quarter that grew 9.2%. Part of the slowdown is mechanical: the second half of 2025/26 was itself strong, so comparatives get tougher. Part is deliberate caution about weather (a warm autumn hurts coat and knitwear sales) and about the UK consumer.
Christmas is disproportionately important. Next’s fourth quarter, covering November to January, carries the peak of full-price sales before the post-Christmas sale. The company’s Q3 statement on 5 November will give the first read of autumn trading, and the 6 January update will cover Christmas itself. Anything Next says on 17 September about early autumn ordering, stock levels or marketing plans will be parsed for hints about how confident the board is about the peak.
The read-across for high-street landlords and neighbours. Next is an anchor tenant on hundreds of UK retail parks and high streets. Its decisions about store renewals influence the footfall that neighbouring independents rely on. If the half-year statement repeats the pattern of net store closures, the towns losing a Next will feel it. The BRC-Sensormatic data showing retail parks up 1.0% in August while high streets fell 3.1% suggests Next’s own estate strategy, which has tilted towards retail parks for years, is aligned with where shoppers are going.
How is the market positioned ahead of the results?
IG’s preview puts Next shares around 15,068p on 11 September, below a 52-week high of 16,175p set in July, with a consensus “Buy” rating and a mean analyst target of 16,291p, about 8% above the current price. Hargreaves Lansdown’s head of equity research, Derren Nathan, said after the August statement that “at these levels, we think that the shares look fairly valued” and that “further upside will likely need faster earnings growth”. Hargreaves Lansdown put the forward price-to-earnings ratio at 17.9 against a ten-year average of 13.7, with a prospective dividend yield of 3.1%.
That valuation gap between today’s multiple and the long-run average is the crux. Next is priced as a growth platform, not as a British clothing chain. To justify the multiple, the international and LABEL businesses have to keep compounding while the UK core holds steady.
A half-year statement that shows first-half profit running ahead of plan, with gross margin intact despite higher marketing spend, would support that case. One that reveals margin dilution from the extra marketing, or a sharper UK slowdown into August, would not.
Three numbers to check on the day
- First-half pre-tax profit versus the implied run rate. Full-year guidance of £1,243 million and a strong first half imply a first-half figure comfortably ahead of last year’s. Any shortfall against the sales beat would point to margin pressure.
- The updated full-year guidance. A second upgrade would confirm the pattern; a hold would signal that the board sees the second-half risks as real.
- UK retail store sales and the store count. The trend from -1.7% in the first half, plus any change to the closure programme, tells high-street observers what to expect from the physical estate.
What should shoppers and small retailers take from this?
For a UK shopper the practical takeaways are simple. Next has not been discounting its way to growth, which means autumn ranges will be sold at full price and the January sale will remain the main clearance event. The company’s caution about the second half does not suggest a wave of pre-Christmas promotions. And the group’s ongoing tilt away from smaller high-street shops towards larger retail-park units and online delivery means the local Next may continue to shrink or relocate.
For an independent retailer the lesson is about positioning. Next’s UK own-brand online sales fell while its third-party marketplace grew, and its stores lagged both. That pattern rewards retailers with distinctive products and strong local service, and punishes undifferentiated mid-market ranges. The BRC’s finding that retail parks are the only destination gaining footfall, together with Currys’s share gains in a flat UK electricals market, points to a market where scale players are taking a bigger slice of a static pie.
Dates for the diary
| Date | Event | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 17 September 2026 | Next half-year results | Confirmed |
| 28 October 2026 | UK Autumn Budget | Confirmed |
| 5 November 2026 | Next Q3 trading statement | Provisional |
| 5 December 2026 | Small Business Saturday UK | Confirmed |
| 6 January 2027 | Next Q4 (Christmas) trading statement | Provisional |
| 24 March 2027 | Next preliminary full-year results | Provisional |
Frequently asked questions
When are Next’s half-year results in 2026?
Next plc will publish its half-year results on Thursday 17 September 2026, according to the financial calendar on the company’s investor website. The results cover the six months to the end of July 2026.
What did Next report in its last trading statement?
On 5 August 2026 Next said second-quarter full-price sales rose 9.2%, against guidance of 4%. The beat was worth £70 million, split £19 million in the UK and £51 million overseas. UK full-price sales rose 2.8% and international sales rose 36.9%.
What is Next’s profit guidance for the year?
Next guides to full-year profit before tax of £1,243 million, up 7.3% on the prior year, after raising the figure by £25 million in August. Post-tax earnings per share are guided at 812.9p, up 9.2%. Full-price sales are expected to reach £6.0 billion, up 6.3%.
Why are Next’s UK store sales falling?
Full-price sales in Next’s UK shops fell 0.3% in the second quarter and about 1.7% across the first half. Next has been closing or resizing stores as leases expire, and BRC-Sensormatic data shows UK high-street footfall down 3.1% year on year in August, so the decline reflects both a smaller estate and weaker shopper traffic.
What is LABEL and why does it matter?
LABEL is Next’s third-party brands business, which sells other companies’ clothing and homeware through the Next website and app. UK online LABEL sales rose 13.2% in the second quarter while Next’s own brand fell 1.2% online, so LABEL is currently driving the group’s UK online growth.
How does Next compare with John Lewis?
The John Lewis Partnership reported a first-half loss before exceptional items of £89 million on 10 September 2026, on sales of £6.3 billion, with John Lewis department stores down 2% and Waitrose up 4%. Next, by contrast, is guiding to a £1,243 million annual pre-tax profit and grew full-price sales 9.2% in its latest quarter.
Will Next raise its guidance again on 17 September?
Nobody outside the company knows. Next has upgraded once this year, in August. Analysts at IG note that a further upgrade would depend on first-half profit running ahead of plan, while Next’s own second-half assumption of about 5% full-price sales growth is deliberately cautious.
What is Next’s share price and valuation ahead of the results?
IG’s preview puts the shares at about 15,068p on 11 September 2026, below a July high of 16,175p, with a consensus Buy rating and a mean target of 16,291p. Hargreaves Lansdown has described the shares as fairly valued, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 17.9 against a ten-year average of 13.7.
What comes after the half-year results?
Next’s calendar lists a third-quarter trading statement provisionally on 5 November 2026, a fourth-quarter update covering Christmas on 6 January 2027 and preliminary full-year results on 24 March 2027. The UK Autumn Budget falls between them on 28 October 2026.