Annual results posted at Companies House for the year ending 31 March 2025 reveal that the firm’s annual revenue has plunged by £12.7 million (or 25 per cent) from the 2023 peak, when Thomas Heatherwick’s practice turnover hit a record £49.6 million.
This year’s decrease in fee income follows a contraction in its Middle East work, which has shrunk from £16.5 million in 2024 to £10.3 million in the latest accounts.
The King’s Cross-based company also saw its pre-tax profits drop 30 per cent from £4.7 million to £3.3 million between 2024 and 2025, though its profit margin edged up from 44 per cent to 46 per cent.
Heatherwick’s staff numbers have also slipped back from the all-time high of 234 in 2024 to an average headcount of 221. However, this figure is still almost double the number of employees recorded in 2014, when the company had 116 people on its books. The practice said it was currently looking to hire 30 new designers.
According to a strategic report accompanying the accounts, the company ‘largely’ blamed the decrease in income and profit on the ‘timing of client billing of large projects having been completed in the previous financial year’.
The report added that the practice had ‘won new large projects in the final quarter of the financial year’.
Heatherwick Studio’s Birmingham Powerhouse Stadium – aerial view
Following the end of the accounting period, Heatherwick Studio was revealed as the designer – along with US outfit Manica Architecture – of Birmingham City FC’s new Powerhouse Stadium, with its 12 chimney-like roof supports.
The proposed 62,000-capacity ground will be more than double the size of the Championship club’s current home and visible from 40 miles away.
It will sit within the proposed £4 billion Birmingham Sports Quarter in Bordesley Green, east Birmingham, an area once known for its brickworks.
In July, Heatherwick Studio unveiled the design for Hatai, its first ever project in Thailand – a new public space and two hotels in the heart of the Silom area of Bangkok.
Meanwhile the 2025 accounts show that workloads in the USA bounced back from £1.8 million in 2024 to £4.6 million.
Fees from jobs in the UK also crept up from £2.1 million to £2.6 million.
Mat Cash, a design partner at Heatherwick Studio, told the AJ: ‘Last year’s accounts reflect a period of transition. Our work in the United States and Asia continued to increase, balanced by a slowdown in the Middle East.
‘Since then, our position has strengthened significantly. The studio is busier than ever, with a strong pipeline of exciting projects across East Asia and the UK, and continued growth in the US. We are recruiting more than 30 new designers and thrilled to be opening Olympia and Google King’s Cross in London.’
Heatherwick Studio’s design for Hatai, its first project in Thailand