Shares of Manchester-based cyber security company NCC Group rose 9% on Tuesday after it issued a trading update saying it is “successfully weathering” the Covid-19 storm.

“The board expects revenue and adjusted EBIT (subject to audit) to be comfortably ahead of latest FY20 analysts’ consensus expectations of £243m and £22.3m respectively,” said NCC in its update.

“Revenue will be higher than in FY19 and Adjusted EBIT will be lower, owing to our decision to preserve the capability and capacity of our business in readiness for the economic recovery. 

“We believe that Covid-19 will continue to have an uncertain impact on demand through FY21 and for this reason we are not yet in a position to reintroduce guidance to the market on our future financial performance.

“However, our recurring and long-term revenues, particularly in our Software Resilience (Escrow) and Managed Services businesses, provide us with some protection.  

“We remain confident in the long-term growth potential of the cyber market. 

“Therefore, consistent with our March trading update, our two key priorities are to maintain a strong balance sheet and to preserve our specialist capability and capacity in order to meet the strong demand we expect in future years …

“In keeping with our objective to preserve our capability and capacity, we have not made any Covid-19 related redundancies or furloughed any colleagues.

“Our long-term objective is to be the global hub for cyber talent and we are pleased that technical staff attrition improved year-on-year.”