Reshaping M&S, 2022 to 2027/28
Our job is to protect the magic of M&S while modernising the rest
In the year to March 2026 a cyber incident stopped M&S’s online trading and cut adjusted profit before tax to £671.4 million, while Food still grew sales 7.0% to £9.7 billion. M&S plans to double Food, reshape Fashion, Home & Beauty around fewer, better stores and a stronger online business, and reinvest in its supply chain, technology, and stores.
M&S aims to double Food sales.
Food sales rose 7.0% to £9.7 billion, and M&S UK volume rose 3.3% in a broadly flat market, with more than 800,000 additional shoppers.
Market share rose 17 basis points to 4.1%. M&S added more than 1,400 new lines and upgraded the quality of more than 1,000 products.
Adjusted operating profit was £444.5 million, a margin of 4.6%, after extra markdown and waste in the first half.
M&S plans 380 Food stores and 200 full-line stores by 2027/28. It expects five Food stores that opened in 2024/25 to pay back in 3.3 years, and its new full-line stores in 2.9.
Anticipated payback: 3.3 years.
Anticipated payback: 2.9 years.
Sales and cash contribution are for the first twelve months of trading, and the cash bar is drawn as a share of the capital spent. The anticipated payback is M&S’s own estimate, and is not the capital spent divided by the first year’s cash.
Food made £9.7 billion of the group’s £17.4 billion of sales in the year of the cyber incident. M&S’s long-term ambition is to double Food.
The ambition has no date. The plan that goes with it is 380 Food stores by 2027/28, and 18 new openings and three extensions in 2026/27.
Group sales include Ocado Retail’s 51 weeks. International is what is left of the £17.4 billion after the other three, so it is worked out and rounded. M&S gives the ambition to double Food but no figure, so the doubled bar is an illustration.
M&S plans capital expenditure of £650 to 750 million in 2026/27, with about £150 million of it to keep the business going and the rest for growth and cost reduction. Each carton is £10 million.
The shelves add to £710 million. M&S’s planned figure, net of £40 million of property disposals and with £70 million for the Lichfield warehouse, is £740 million. Property includes 18 new Food stores, four extensions, and two full-line stores; supply chain includes the Avonmouth regional distribution centre and the Daventry national distribution centre.
M&S’s chief executive says the job is to protect the magic of M&S while modernising the rest, and the results keep to that: Food quality and value, the stores that customers like, and the brand’s trust are kept, and the supply chain, systems, and store estate are rebuilt. We recommend naming what a plan will not change, so that every change can be tested against it.
M&S publishes the sales, cash contribution, capital spend, and expected payback of its new stores: 3.3 years for five Food stores and 2.9 years for its new full-line stores. We recommend giving every investment programme a unit that can be checked, with the inputs beside the result, so that the next round of spending is judged by the last.
M&S reports a year of two halves: the incident and its costs in the first, and a return to profit growth of 4.1% in the second, with £131.3 million of incident costs and £100.0 million of insurance proceeds shown separately. We recommend showing an outside shock as its own lines, so the plan’s progress can be read past it.
Headwater is not connected with Marks and Spencer Group plc. M&S, Marks & Spencer, Sparks, and Remarksable are trade marks of their owners. Updated 28 September 2026.