Events that may trigger the risk • Immigration policy changes affecting international students. • Travel restrictions placed on international students by their own government. • Increasing propensity for students to live at home, particularly for mid- and low-tariff universities. • Challenges to university finances and a reduction in course or in-person learning. • Well funded competitors improving their offer and service. • Unite Students fails to invest in its brand. • Unite Students does not keep pace with customer expectations. Potential impact • Loss of income through lower occupancy and rental growth. • Increased costs in acquiring customers. • Reduction in demand affecting property values. • Reduced viability for new development projects. How we monitor and mitigate • Diversifying into a new market sector with the acquisition of Empiric. • Government dialogue. • Ongoing monitoring of Government HE and immigration policy. • Develop markets for international students. • Disciplined investment approach to markets with supply/demand imbalance. • Increased alignment to the best universities with our new developments secured with nomination agreements. • Geographically diverse portfolio. • Broad range of product and price offerings. • Long-term partnership arrangements with universities. • Actively driving differentiation through our brand investment and promises. • Differing strategies for B2C and B2B to mitigate against the different challenges in each market. • Asset management of our properties, with our Estate team working alongside our Asset Management Initiative to identify and improve the experience for students. • Estates five-year strategy to review our portfolio to ensure we have a quality portfolio, appropriately sized and in the right locations. SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES The tables that follow describe the Group’s principal risks and uncertainties, and explains how these are managed or mitigated. PRINCIPAL RISK PBSA market and HE sector Events that may trigger the risk • Lack of staff training, leading to poor working standards. • Failure of third parties to deliver contracted services. • Catastrophic fire, flood or other incident at a property. • Incident at construction site involving Unite Students employees or third-party contractors. Potential impact • Fatality or serious injury. • Disruption to occupation of buildings. • Reputational damage and loss of trust in Unite Students as a reliable partner. How we monitor and mitigate • Tailored training packages for roles across the business. • Independent review of training compliance. • Business continuity plans. • Board supervised Health & Safety Committee in place. • Highly skilled and experienced H&S team in place. • Operational Performance team focus on H&S. • Expert external assurance on development safety risk. • Visible leadership for safety and wellbeing driven by our senior leaders. • Use of audits and external consultants. • Cladding programme to replace façades where appropriate. • Asset management of our properties, to identify and improve the student experience. • Monitoring of KPIs in supplier contracts • Performance reviews of key suppliers. OBJECTIVE: Deliver consistent, high standards across our operational and project teams. RISK: The group fails to deliver operational processes, projects or resources to deliver consistent safety levels, service quality and efficiency, potentially impacting costs, quality of service and reputation. PRINCIPAL RISK Operational delivery 2 1 OBJECTIVE: Build and maintain a sector-leading offer for our customers, maintaining a diverse customer base to reduce our exposure in key demographic sectors. RISK: The attractiveness and stability of the HE sector directly affects student demand for accommodation, creating both opportunity and risk for occupancy and rental growth. 1 See page 53 for information on risk appetite. THE UNITE GROUP PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2025 57