STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE Great Place to Live Board’s governance role Link to principal risk What the Board did in 2025 and its decision-making Safety, health and wellbeing. Governance to ensure the health, safety, wellbeing and security of our customers is paramount. Fire safety and security remained priorities during 2025. Operational risk Major health and safety incident in a property or a development site. Read more p57 The Board reviews the safety of our students, visitors and employees, as well as contractors at our development sites, at each Board meeting. Fire safety: the Board and the Health & Safety Committee review and challenge our fire safety programme, a critical part of our health & safety strategy. The Board is committed to the business being a leader in fire safety standards through a proactive, risk- based approach embedded across the business and ensuring that students and our employees are kept safe. The Board also oversees our cladding remediation programme and related spending. The Board and Health & Safety Committee maintain oversight of the Building Safety Act 2022, which has been fully embedded into day-to-day workings of the business. Security: the safety of our students and employees is paramount and through oversight of the Board and the Health & Safety Committee, we continued to progress with the full review of security across the entire estate and implement additional security measures where needed. Planned improvements to security will continue into 2026. Read more in the Health & Safety Committee Report p110 Ensuring our product is affordable and provides good value-for- money for our customers. Market risks Demand reduction: driven by value-for-money/affordability. Read more p57 During 2025, Board analysis of the Higher Education accommodation sector to ensure we continue to offer an affordable and value-for-money product in a more challenging market. Board analysis of our customer offer and how we service undergraduate first-year students through lettings to universities under nomination agreements. The Board also considered the opportunities to tailor our customer proposition to better meet the needs of returning students seeking greater independence and postgraduate and international students who may be willing to pay a premium for a higher level of service. Read more about Operations review p23 Governance to ensure our operating platform delivers for our customers and university partners. Market risks Supply and demand. Read more p57 Through our direct engagement with Vice Chancellors and other levels of management within universities, the Board is able to take into account the views of these stakeholders, as well as monitoring and measuring our performance. During 2025, the Board had oversight of the performance of our operating platform and continued improvements, including our investment in digital upgrades leading to increasing customer satisfaction. Read more about Operations review p23 Read more about Stakeholder engagement p90 Conducting our activities in a safe and secure manner extends to keeping our customers’ and employees’ personal data safe and secure. Technology risk Information security and cyber threat. Read more p60 Board review of our technology and information security and its governance. IT security, in particular cyber risks, were considered during 2025 in both Board and Audit & Risk Committee reviews. Read more about Audit & Risk Committee review p103 BOARD ACTIVITIES continued THE UNITE GROUP PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2025 96 GOVERNANCE