Hello, everyone, and welcome to the PageGroup Q3 trading update. My name is Nadia, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Kelvin Stagg, CFO of PageGroup to begin. Kelvin, please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the PageGroup third quarter trading update. I'm Kelvin Stagg, Chief Financial Officer, and on the call with me is Steve Ingham, Chief Executive Officer. Although I will not read it through, I'd just like to make reference to the legal formalities that are covered in the cautionary statement in the appendix of this presentation, and which will also be available on our website following the call. We continue to deliver strong growth in Q3, with gross profit of GBP 270.5 million. We grew 14% in constant currencies against Q3 2021, which adjusted for the tougher comparator, was broadly in line with our Q2 growth rate. The strengthening of the dollar in the quarter had a favorable impact on the growth rate compared to the prior year, increasing the reported gross profit growth rate by 4.6 percentage points, or GBP 10.5 million to 18.6%. In Q3, we increased fee earner headcount by 337. To support this growth, our operational support headcount rose by 106. As such, our ratio of fee earners to non-operational staff remained at 78/22. Overall, the group had 7,071 fee earners and a total headcount of 9,111. We have a strong balance sheet with net cash at the end of September of around GBP 186 million. This compares to GBP 136 million at the end of Q2, but is before the forthcoming special and interim dividend payments on the fourteenth of October, totaling GBP 100.5 million. I will now give a brief financial review. Overall, growth was stronger in temporary recruitment, which is indicative of the current uncertainty in the market as clients seek more flexible options. Overall growth was stronger in temporary recruitment, up 20.9% against Q3 2021, with permanent up 12%. This was the first time since 2019 that growth has been stronger in temporary recruitment. Reflecting this, our ratio of permanent to temporary gross profit was 76/24, compared to 78/22 last quarter. In Michael Page, permanent recruitment represented 83% of gross profit, while in Page Personnel it was less at 57%. Page Personnel was the stronger performing brand, up 17.4% compared to growth of 12.8% in Michael Page. Growth was stronger in temporary recruitment in Michael Page and broadly consistent across permanent and temporary in Page Personnel. We continue to focus on our five large high potential geographic markets of Germany, Greater China, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. Collectively, they represented 41% of the group in Q3, a new record, albeit aided by the weakness of sterling against the dollar. In Q3, our large high potential markets grew 11%, and excluding Greater China, which was impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, growth was 21%. We now have 2,840 fee earners in these five markets, which compares to around 800 in 2010 as we recovered from the global financial crisis. Our high potential disciplines of technology and healthcare and life sciences continued to deliver strong results, and technology remained our second-largest discipline. We are pleased with the performance of our newest brand, Page Outsourcing, which continues to outperform its plan. In Q3, we increased our fee earner headcount by 337. We added fee earners into markets with particularly strong trading conditions such as Germany, as well as those where we saw the highest potential for future growth. The majority of these fee earners were non-experienced, as the availability of experienced fee earners has become limited. Non-experienced hires take longer to reach average productivity. As a result of this investment in fee earner headcount, challenging trading conditions in Greater China, as well as a slight softening in client confidence which resulted in a slowdown in time-to-hire, productivity decreased 8% compared to Q3 2021. To support this growth, our operational support headcount rose by 106, and as such, our ratio of fee earners to non-operational staff remained at 78/22. Our attrition rate currently remains relatively low at around 30%. We remain confident in our ability to adjust down our headcount if needed with our flexible business model and staff attrition. This fee earner headcount and gross profit chart shows the unprecedented scale of the decline in group gross profit in 2020 due to COVID-19 and the comparison to the global financial crisis in 2008. It also shows how we chose strategically to maintain and invest in our platform, which has driven the sharp recovery seen throughout 2021 and 2022. While Q3 was down on Q2 in absolute terms, this was partially due to the usual seasonal impact. I will now hand you over to Steve for a regional review and a summary. Thank you, Kelvin. The strong growth we saw in Q2 2022 continued into Q3. Overall, for the quarter, we grew 14% against 2021. 9 individual countries delivered record quarters despite the typical slower summer months. We exited the quarter strongly, delivering our third month of gross profit in excess of GBP 100 million, albeit aided by the strengthening of the dollar. This had a favorable impact on the quarter's growth rate compared to the prior year, increasing the reported gross profit growth rate by 4.6 percentage points or GBP 10.5 million. In our largest region, Europe, Middle East and Africa, which represented 48% of the group, we grew 22.1% on Q3 2021. Overall, conditions continue to be more favorable in Michael Page, which is focused on higher income permanent recruitment and was up 27% for the quarter. Page Personnel, which is focused on lower-level recruitment, higher proportion of temporary, grew 15%. Germany, which was the group's second-largest market in Q3, representing 12% of the group, delivered another record quarter up 29% with strong growth in all three brands. Our Michael Page interim business, which is primarily focused on technology, was the best performing, up 46%. We now have over 700 fee earners in Germany, having added around 150 in the last 12 months. This positions us well for ongoing growth in this large high potential market. France grew 12% in both Michael Page and Page Personnel, with strong growth in permanent recruitment in both brands. Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all delivered strong growth. The Americas, now the group's second-largest region, representing 19% of the group, delivered growth of 18.3%. North America grew 15%, where in the U.S, the consistently strong trading conditions seen over the past 18 months continued into Q3, and we delivered growth of 14%. Growth was particularly strong in our Boston, Chicago and Houston offices. Property and construction, our largest discipline in the US, continued to deliver standout results. In Latin America, gross profit grew 24%. Mexico, our largest country in the region, was up 18%. However, Brazil was down 1% due to the heightened political uncertainty from the recent elections. The remaining countries in the region were up 50% collectively. In Asia Pacific, representing 19% of the group, Q3 gross profit declined 3.9% on 2021. In Asia, 15% of the group, we declined 6%, driven by the challenging conditions in Greater China. In Greater China, 6% of the group, we declined 26%. Mainland China was down 32%, driven by the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions. Hong Kong was also impacted by these restrictions and declined 20% in the quarter. Southeast Asia, our other large high potential market in the region, delivered growth of 17%, with all markets growing against Q3 2021. India, which represents 14% of Asia, delivered another record quarter, up 35%. We now have around 230 fee earners in this highly profitable market. Elsewhere, Japan declined 4%, whilst Australia grew 7% against Q3 2021. In the U.K, which represented 14% of the group, gross profit grew 9.5%. Page Personnel, which operates at lower salary levels and has been slower to recover from the pandemic, was up 56% in line with Q2. Michael Page declined 4%. We exited the quarter slower in September, impacted by the national period of mourning following the death of Her Majesty the Queen, as well as economic uncertainty following the mini budget. I'll now provide a summary of our results. We continued to see strong growth in Q3 with group gross profit up 14% against Q3 2021, which was a significantly tougher comparison than Q2. We delivered a good broad-based performance across the majority of our geographies, disciplines and brands, with record performances in 9 countries despite the typically slower summer months. We exited the quarter strongly, delivering our third month of gross profit in excess of GBP 100 million, albeit aided by the strengthening of the dollar. However, Greater China, 6% of the group, continued to be impacted by lockdowns and restrictions down 26% for the quarter. We also saw a slight softening in client confidence across the majority of our regions. This led to a small number of jobs being withdrawn and a slowdown in time to hire in a number of our other markets towards the end of the quarter. Temporary recruitment outperformed permanent as clients look for more flexibility in their resourcing and cost base, reflecting the current economic uncertainty. We continue to make targeted investments in headcount in markets where we saw the strongest growth as well as the highest potential for the future. Overall, we added 337 fee earners in Q3, the majority of which were inexperienced hires. Looking forward, there remains a high level of global macroeconomic and political uncertainty, particularly regarding increasing inflation in the majority of our markets. However, given our highly diversified and adaptable business model, with a cost base that can be adjusted rapidly, we believe we're well placed to progress towards our vision for the group to be the leading specialist recruiter in each of the markets in which we operate. We have a strong balance sheet with net cash of GBP 186 million at the end of the quarter. This is before the forthcoming special and interim dividend payments of GBP 100.5 million to be paid this Friday the fourteenth of October. We are pleased with the group's performance in Q3 and currently expect 2022 full year operating profit to be in line with company compiled consensus of GBP 204 million. Kelvin and I will now be happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you choose to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Anvesh Agrawal of Morgan Stanley. Anvesh, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi, good morning. I got three questions. First, focusing just on Asia, could you comment on trends in China through the quarter? Any signs of it getting better? What really drove the negative performance in Japan this quarter? The second question is really around the headcount. I mean, the investment was certainly higher than what we had in our models, so wondering what drove it and what's the latent capacity in the business now and how should we think about the headcount going forward? Finally, not specific to trading, like there was a proposal from the U.S. administration yesterday, I think just targeting the classification of contractors. I think it's mostly towards gig economy. Was wondering any impact that it could have on your business on the temp side. Okay, I'll answer the first two and Kelvin will try to work out your third question. In Asia, China, starting with China. To be honest, no, there hasn't been any real progress or improvement in China, and there really won't be till next week when the National Congress gathers. I mean, there are a lot of, I think businesses, ports, a lot of people holding their breath really and they are hoping big decisions will be made next week, potentially including some relaxation on COVID and lockdowns and so on. It's a hinge moment, or not. You know, that will tell us a bit more about the future. It's been steady throughout the quarter. I would just remind you, and I'm sure you're aware, it was Golden Week last week. We've got Golden Week in October. Clearly, we've got National Congress next week, so, you know, significant disruption from both of those two. Then, you know, it should, the rest of the year should play out depending on any decisions that are made by the Congress. Japan, yeah, I mean, slightly lower I suppose than we'd expect. We did particularly well, if you remember this time last year. Q3 for us in Japan was very, very strong. You know, I'd always prefer to see a larger positive number, but to give you an idea, we grew 36% this time last year against 2019 obviously. Comparing last year to 2020 was a little irrelevant, but you know, we had a very strong performance against what was a good year, 2019 for Japan. They had a very different difficult comp to kind of to compete against. In terms of headcount, yeah, it is slightly we've added slightly more heads than we expected. I mean, what you always have to do in a business like ours is balance attrition with recruitment. You know, clearly, we don't know when someone's gonna resign. You know, we have a staff attrition, roughly speaking of 30% over a year. We try to anticipate that happening every month in a consistent way. Some months are higher and some months are lower, clearly. Clearly over the summer it's not a good time to be actually recruiting people. Also many of the European countries and a few others around the world, we have to make recruitment decisions three months in advance of when somebody will actually accept and join. You know, the people that joined us, for example, in September, which is when quite a lot of that number landed, were offered jobs back in June, on the anticipation of an attrition rate over the quarter, which was slightly lower. In terms of expectations for the rest of the year, look, you know, every time you pick up a paper or read an analyst note, you know, there's caution in there and there's a lot of negative news around at the moment. We're gonna be very cautious about our hiring of new headcount going forward, except in markets where we are growing at 30%. It will be very difficult to maintain 30% growth, and we're not seeing any slowing of that. KPIs are still good, so you know, we've got to make sure as well that we don't suddenly announce that we've slowed as a result of the fact we haven't got the people power to make the revenue. You know, it's that fine balance, but we are gonna be cautious on headcount going into the fourth quarter. I just think that's sensible. We've recruited a lot of people over the last three quarters, and you know, because of the growth we're seeing. We remain confident. If the rest of the year plays out well, then I'm sure at the beginning of next year we will be hiring going into Q one. Yeah. I'll pick up question number three. Thanks, Steve. Yeah. The difficult one. Yeah. Well, it is, 'cause actually I haven't heard anything about changes to temp regulations or legislation or even discussion of it to date. I mean, the only thing I would say in that regard is we don't do much temp in the US. Actually our US business is predominantly a permanent business, and that probably is part of the reason why we haven't been massively aware of it. But if there's anything material coming, I'll find out this afternoon when we open in the US and then let you know. That's very helpful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, and as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. Our next question goes to Paul Kozanowski of Credit Suisse. Paul, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi. Good morning. I just have two, please. In France, there seems a slight slowdown sequentially with perm leading the way. What are the market dynamics there? Also to drill in a bit into U.K. Page Personnel is outperforming versus Michael Page. Is this still effect of catch-up that we've seen in previous quarters, or is this now more driven by macro uncertainty? Yeah. Okay. Again, just looking at France and our performance, we were performing well at the end of last year. We did have a particularly strong third quarter. If you look at Page's results generally, you'll see that last year our comps, our performance improved significantly in the third quarter. I don't think there's anything to read in France. I mean, the balance of temp and perm continued. They're still hiring perm, which, particularly in France, they tend to get very sensitive to reverting to temp very quickly if they're being too cautious. I wouldn't read anything into our numbers sequentially. The comps just get more difficult throughout this year. In the UK, I did actually... I was quite surprised by the difference between Page Personnel and Michael Page and referred to the UK managing directors as to why. I mean, we did in September, which is the biggest month for the quarter, for obvious reasons. We did have a sort of a stop in the business for about 10 days, clearly because of the mourning and the funeral around Her Majesty. That did cause quite a difference. We had an extra bank holiday, which of course means that 3,500 temps didn't work, which made a difference, you know, however many working days there were. I don't know exactly, but let's say they're 23. You lose a day. A lot of people took time off, as a result of that, took extra days off and so on to make sure they could, you know, watch the funeral and, you know, go on holiday or whatever and use that time effectively. Page Personnel are always able, with a couple of weeks to go in September, bounce back quicker because the cycle of recruitment, particularly in temp, but also even in perm, can be a one interview process, is much, much quicker. Whereas Michael Page just takes longer to get back to full speed again. In terms of the KPIs, they're still above last year, both for Michael Page and Page Personnel. That's the job counts, interview counts and so on.vf It bounced back quickly, but it turns into revenue quicker in Page Personnel than it does in Michael Page. Partly because of temp, partly because it's lower perm, lower salary perm. Paul, is that okay? Yep. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you, and as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now. We have a question from Steve Woolf of Numis Securities. Steve, please go ahead. Your line is open. Morning, gents. Just one- Morning. from me. Just in terms of the areas you're calling out a little bit in terms of slowdown, a couple of mandate withdrawals. Are there any sort of particular regions or job specs that you'd like to sort of point to early in this phase? Not really is the answer. Again, I asked. We had a conference last week and I asked, was there a trend with particular companies? No, not really. I mean, you know, typically companies that are struggling worse than others and so a lot of organizations. Like I say, our overall KPIs are holding up well in spite of the backdrop in the news and so on and a lot of uncertainty. But we just for the first time. When we say a few jobs, I mean a few companies, it really has been a few, because you know it can be the first sign, it could be a coincidence. As we all know, when we read the paper in the morning, there's always a few companies that are suddenly restructure or not doing so well or whatever and therefore are probably laying off rather than hiring. Look, we're just being open about it because I'd imagine there's a lot of anxiety out there at the moment and we're just trying to say it how it is. There have been a few in a few places. You can tell the ones that where it hasn't really happened. It's been the ones that have been growing at 30% or even more. Yeah. You know, we're not getting jobs freezing in India or Portugal or, you know, Italy or Germany or Mexico. You know, it's the ones that perhaps have got lower growth at the moment. Okay. That's great. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Thank you. We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand the call back over to Steve for any closing remarks. Great. As there are no further questions, thank you all for joining us this morning. Our next update to the market will be our fourth quarter trading update on the eleventh of January, 2023. Thank you.