The IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024: Register now!
Available early November
Our highly anticipated forward-looking MAT Finance Sector Insight Report is coming soon. This report brings to the forefront the direction of travel for the sector and offers invaluable perspectives on MAT finance providing insights that support more informed, strategic decision-making.
The IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024
Download now
Our highly anticipated forward-looking MAT Finance Sector Insight Report in association with CST is here! This report brings to the forefront the direction of travel for the sector and offers invaluable perspectives on MAT finance providing insights that support more informed, strategic decision-making.
Webinar: 10am, 13th November
Building Forward-Looking MAT Financial Visibility and Understanding:
IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024
Hosted by
Will Jordan
Co-founder IMP Software
Warren Porter
Head of Education Strategy IMP Software
Want a personalised report tailored to your MAT?
In addition to our sector insight report, we’re offering personalised benchmarking reports, tailored to your MAT. These reports provide a deep understanding of how your MAT compares to others with similar characteristics, offering valuable insights to drive better financial decision-making.
By analysing your trust’s key financial metrics, these personalised reports will help you:
- Highlight your trust’s strengths
- Identify areas for improvement
- Support your strategic planning
Join our webinar, where we dive into the IMP MAT Finance Sector Insights Report and these exclusive Personalised Benchmarking reports. Learn how these reports can support your trust’s financial health and strategic growth.
Get your personalised report
This year, IMP customers received their personalised benchmarking reports—offering valuable insights tailored to their MAT, which compares their trajectory to those of other similar MATs in their peer group. If you’re not an IMP customer yet, it’s not too late to secure your personalised report for next year. Speak to our MAT finance experts to learn how you can receive your own report by implementing IMP Planner at your trust.
Want a personalised report tailored to your MAT?
In addition to our sector insight report, we’re offering personalised benchmarking reports, tailored to your MAT. These reports provide a deep understanding of how your MAT compares to others with similar characteristics, offering valuable insights to drive better financial decision-making.
Get your personalised report
This year, IMP customers received their personalised benchmarking reports—offering valuable insights tailored to their MAT, which compares their trajectory to those of other similar MATs in their peer group. If you’re not an IMP customer yet, it’s not too late to secure your personalised report for next year. Speak to our MAT finance experts to learn how you can receive your own report by implementing IMP Planner at your trust.
By analysing your trust’s key financial metrics, these personalised reports will help you:
- Highlight your trust’s strengths
- Identify areas for improvement
- Support your strategic planning
Watch our webinar, where we dive into the IMP MAT Finance Sector Insights Report and these exclusive Personalised Benchmarking reports. Learn how these reports can support your trust’s financial health and strategic growth.
Webinar:
10am, 14th November
Building Forward-Looking MAT Financial Visibility and Understanding:
IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024
About the MAT Finance Sector Insight Report
The IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024 offers a powerful, forward-looking lens to view the sector’s financial trajectory, using data from 267 MATs to highlight where trusts in certain peer groups may be taking noticeably different paths.
It provides a unique, forward-looking analysis, offering an unprecedented opportunity for strategic planning and comparative insights—something that hasn’t existed until now.
Why this report matters
Through key financial metrics, we deliver insights that:
📈 Understand the sector’s financial trajectory and reserve levels
👩🏫 Show the impact of the teacher pay award and related grants
🏫 Highlight how primary and secondary trusts in surplus manage their resources
🪙 Explore the effect of deprivation on financial sustainability
IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024
Your forward-looking lens to view the trajectory of MAT finance.
IMP MAT Finance Sector Insights Report 2024
Your forward-looking lens to view the trajectory of MAT finance.
Released October 2025
The IMP MAT Finance Insight Report 2025
Produced in association with the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), the IMP MAT Finance Insight Report 2025 is the only forward-looking analysis of its kind in the multi-academy trust finance sector.
Drawing on forecasts from 274 trusts and more than 3,300 schools, it reveals how trusts are planning for 2025/26 to 2027/28 amid rising costs, tightening budgets and increasing accountability.
2025 edition
About the Report
At IMP, our role goes beyond providing software. Each year, we bring together the UK’s largest set of forward-looking MAT finance forecasts to help leaders sense-check their position and see how their trust compares with the wider sector.
The 2025 Insight Report explores the key issues shaping multi-academy trust finance:
- Financial outlook: Surplus and deficit forecasts across the sector
- People pressures: Staffing costs and shifting pupil numbers
- Funding realities: GAG and reserves pooling
- Inclusion impact: SEN pressures and benchmarking
- Trust evolution: Centralisation across operations
It is a practical resource for CFOs, COOs, Trustees and policymakers, helping leaders move beyond instinct and make confident, evidence-based decisions.
Insights that matter for every MAT
The 2025 MAT Finance Insight Report does not just capture where MATs stand today. It shows where they are heading next and offers a clear view of MAT finance trends across the sector.
Highlights include:
Sector trajectory More than half of trusts forecast in-year deficits by 2025/26
Sector trajectory
More than half of trusts forecast in-year deficits by 2025/26
👩🏫 Staffing & pupils Diverging pressures for primary and secondary trusts
👩🏫
Staffing & pupils
Diverging pressures for primary and secondary trusts
Reserves under strain Many trusts consolidating around the 5% ‘vulnerable’ mark
💷
Reserves under strain
Many trusts consolidating around the 5% ‘vulnerable’ mark
🏫 SEN impact Funding disparities shaping resource allocation.
🏫
SEN impact
Funding disparities shaping resource allocation.
🏢 Centralisation & pooling Evolving operating models across the sector.
🏢
Centralisation & pooling Evolving operating models across the sector.
These insights help MAT finance leaders see what is coming, plan with precision and make decisions grounded in evidence, not instinct.
Key sector findings
55%
of trusts forecast an in-year deficit for 2025/26, up from 34% in 2024.
1 in 3
trusts expect reserves below 5% of income, the DfE’s ‘financially vulnerable’ threshold.
By 2028
half of all trusts predict reserves will fall beneath that threshold.
2%
of trusts hold reserves above 20% of income.
22%
of trusts now centralise all core functions, including IT, Payroll, Finance, HR, Procurement and Facilities.
Reports tailored to your Trust
Personalised Benchmarking Reports and the School Benchmarking Toolkit
Alongside the national MAT Finance Insight Report, IMP customers receive a Personalised Benchmarking Report and access to the new School Benchmarking Toolkit, built uniquely for their trust.
Using your own financial data, these tools show how your trust compares with similar peers and how your schools perform within their own peer groups. They highlight strengths, risks and opportunities with forward-looking projections that support long-term planning.
Each report helps you:
- Benchmark at both trust and school level
- Forecast sustainability
- Support discussions with Trustees and stakeholders
- Move from numbers to strategy
Go beyond the report
The School Benchmarking Toolkit
This year, we have gone further. The new School Benchmarking Toolkit offers a hands-on, interactive way to explore your data in more depth.
The toolkit lets CFOs and finance teams:
- Go beyond the PDF and analyse your data interactively
- Drill down by school to uncover patterns and outliers
- Compare fairly by matching schools by size, phase, region and context
- Personalise your view for meaningful, like-for-like comparisons
It is a first-of-its-kind resource in MAT benchmarking, helping you move seamlessly from trust-wide insight to school-level action. Together, the personalised report and toolkit turn reliable data into confident, evidence-based decisions.
Why do we offer these reports?
Turning data into trusted evidence
We turn data into trusted evidence.
Each year, IMP compiles one of the UK’s largest multi-academy trust finance datasets, applying rigorous checks to ensure accuracy. The Insight Report reveals national trends and projections, while the Personalised Benchmarking Report and School Benchmarking Toolkit bring that same level of confidence to your trust’s own data.
Together, they turn information into clarity and help leaders move from instinct to evidence and from data to confident decisions.
Content & resources
Dive deep into our reports with us
Webinars
6th November at 11am
MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2025: A Deep Dive
Join Will Jordan and Warren Porter as they unpack the key findings from the 2025 MAT Finance Insight Report.
Hear first-hand what the data reveals and what it means for your trust in the years ahead.
PR coverage
The Insight Report in the news
The MAT Finance Insight Report 2025 is already making waves across the sector. See how education leaders and finance experts are responding to the findings and what they mean for the future of multi-academy trust finance.
Check out the coverage
- IMP Software – “Mounting financial pressures” across multi-academy trusts revealed in MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2025
- tes – Most MATs expect an in-year deficit this year
- Education Business UK – Over half MATs forecasting deficits for 2025/26
- FE News – “Mounting financial pressures” across multi-academy trusts revealed in MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2025
- Education News – ‘Mounting financial pressures’ across multi-academy trusts revealed in MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2025
- SENDsational Futures – SEND costs one of the main contributors to financial pressures in schools
Blogs
Deep dives into the data
Alongside our reports, we publish regular blogs to help MAT leaders unpack the findings and apply them in context. Explore the first articles below and look out for more coming soon.
Every report in one place
Explore all our MAT Finance Insight Reports
See how the picture has evolved. The 2024 MAT Finance Insight Report set the benchmark for forward-looking multi-academy trust finance analysis and is still available to download below, alongside this year’s report.