Case study Record student satisfaction Throughout 2024, we invested into our buildings and our people to deliver a Home for Success for our residents. We were delighted to record our highest-ever customer satisfaction (NPS) score of +50 in our autumn check-in survey, marking a 9-point increase from 2023. 96% of our residents said they felt welcome, while 91% agreed that our buildings met their expectations. Our teams’ hard work meant that 85% of our city clusters improved their score year-on-year, with London Central recording the highest satisfaction score of +79. University partners were also satisfied. Our 2024 Higher Education satisfaction score was the highest on record (+37, a 5-point increase from 2023), while we also improved our trust score, based on five trust metrics such as providing an excellent service to students and providing a high standard of accommodation. STRATEGIC REPORT CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REVIEW continued Great Place to Live We delivered significant enhancements to our buildings and service offering in 2024, delivering value-for-money for our customers. During the year we refurbished 11 buildings, upgrading the living experience for 5,200 students, driving significant improvements in Net Promoter Scores. Our accommodation is comparable in cost to HMOs once bills are included. This is before allowing for the price certainty we provide on utilities and the additional product and service features we offer, such as on-hand maintenance teams and 24/7 security, high-speed Wi-Fi and contents insurance. We have a best-in-class 24/7/365 operating platform in the student accommodation sector, underpinned by our PRISM technology platform, passionate customer-facing teams and sector-leading student support in partnership with universities. We are in the process of upgrading our PRISM platform to enhance customer experience and deliver operational efficiencies and during 2024 we delivered new payment options, as well as a new customer website and app. We continue to support student welfare through our Support to Stay programme and are also building on the research of the Living Black Commission in partnership with the HE sector to improve the university accommodation experience for black students. The impact of our customer initiatives is reflected in a further increase in our Net Promoter Scores to +50 for students at check- in and +37 with university partners (2023: +42 and +32). We have also seen an increase in the proportion of beds under nomination agreements to 57% (2023/24: 53%), reflecting our status as the partner of choice for universities as they increasingly look to trusted partners to meet their accommodation needs. Great Place to Work Delivering for our customers and investors requires us to attract and retain the best people and enable them to deliver their best work. We have maintained our commitment to the Real Living Wage for 2025, with 5% pay awards for our city teams. During the year we introduced a new performance management framework to support our people in having more meaningful performance conversations, helping to align individual goals with the Company’s objectives. We also maintained our focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, by introducing guidance on neurodiversity and the menopause. Our teams delivered a record number of Positive Impact projects in their local communities in 2024, delivering lasting benefits in many of our cities. Our employee engagement score rose to 74, the highest in two years, and we achieved the Investors in People Gold Award, reflecting the ponique sitive impact of these initiatives. Great Place to Invest We delivered 5% growth in adjusted EPS and dividends in the year as strong rental growth offset cost increases in our operations. Rental growth also supported increases in our property valuations, which resulted in a total accounting returns of 9.6%. The quality and scale of our portfolio is key to delivering attractive, sustainable returns for our shareholders. We secured planning on three projects in our development pipeline and successfully delivered £48 million of building upgrade projects in the year at a blended yield on cost of THE UNITE GROUP PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2024 22