M&S or John Lewis: which one takes home the retail crown?

Marks and Spencer p.l.c. is bigger on turnover, at £13,696m against £11,723m for John Lewis Partnership plc. That is a gap of £1,973m and a ratio of about 1.2 to 1, which is a good deal tighter than the two companies' public profiles would imply. John Lewis takes 86p for every pound M&S takes.

Both are growing at a similar clip. M&S recorded a turnover movement of 6.2 per cent and John Lewis 5.5 per cent, so neither is pulling away from the other on the top line. The two filings are not aligned in time, though. M&S filed to a March 2025 year end and John Lewis to January 2026, 10 months apart, with only about two months of overlap between the periods. The M&S numbers are the older set.

Change the measure and the ranking changes with it. John Lewis is the larger employer by 20,054 people, 65,700 against 45,646, and it is the older company only by three years, incorporated in 1929 against 1926. On net assets the order reverses hard: £5,190m at M&S against £1,847m, a ratio of 2.8 to 1.

Because the two carry very different amounts of cost for a similar amount of trade, and payroll is the clearest part of it. Staff costs of £1,892m at M&S absorb 13.8 per cent of turnover. At John Lewis, staff costs of £2,017m absorb 17.2 per cent. That 3.4 point difference is worth roughly £400m a year on a turnover of John Lewis's size, which is the same order of magnitude as the whole profit gap.

The difference is headcount rather than pay. The average cost per head runs at about £41,000 at M&S and £31,000 at John Lewis, so M&S is the more expensive employer per person. It simply has fewer people carrying more trade: about £300,000 of turnover per employee against £178,000, a ratio of 1.7 to 1. A department store and grocery model built on shop floor service reads differently in the accounts from one built on clothing, home and food ranges.

Direction of travel splits the two as well. M&S moved from an actual £687m pre-tax profit the year before to an estimated £797m, an improvement of about £110m or 16 per cent. John Lewis moved from an actual £97m profit to an estimated (£21m), a swing of about £118m. Both figures for the current year are estimates drawn from the filings, and both companies reduced headcount over the period.

Almost all of it goes straight back out as the cost of running a retailer, and the last few pounds are where the two part company. Of every £100 M&S turns over, £79.67 leaves as buying and running costs, £13.81 as payroll and £0.70 as net financing cost, leaving £5.82 of pre-tax profit. At John Lewis the same £100 meets £82.07 of running costs, £17.21 of payroll and £0.90 of net financing, which totals £100.18 and leaves nothing behind.

The financing slice is small in both cases, which is worth saying plainly given how much retail debt gets discussed. Net interest costs 70p per £100 of turnover at M&S and 90p at John Lewis. Neither company is being sunk by its borrowing at these levels of trade.

The tail matters too. M&S paid £66m of dividends, which is £0.48 of every £100 turned over, going up to its listed parent and from there towards shareholders. John Lewis paid none, which follows from the shares sitting with a partnership trust rather than with outside investors.

One sits under a stock market listing and the other under a trust, and Companies House records both in the same way, as a corporate person with significant control holding 75 to 100 per cent of the shares. Both notifications date from April 2016, when the register began.

Two points of care on the register. The 75 to 100 per cent figure is a control band, not a precise stake, and it says who controls a company rather than how the accounts are drawn up. Both entities here file consolidated accounts, so each turnover figure already contains its own subsidiaries and nothing beneath either company is added on top.

M&S p.l.c. carries more, with estimated borrowings of £2,923m against £2,207m at John Lewis Partnership plc, a difference of £716m. The cost of servicing it runs the other way, though: M&S shows interest payable of £173m against interest received of £77m, so £96m net, while John Lewis shows £146m against £40m, so £106m net. More debt, less net cost to carry it.

Cash is close, and reverses the order again. John Lewis holds £940m in bank and cash against £864m at M&S. On current assets the two are within touching distance, £2,381m against £2,147m, though the composition differs: trade debtors of £123m at M&S against £66m, both small next to turnover, as you would expect from businesses that are paid at the till.

The registers diverge sharply on secured lending and property. Four charges appear against M&S p.l.c., two granted to Law Debenture Trustees Limited in December 2001 and discharged in June 2007, one granted to Prudential Assurance Company Limited in March 2021 and discharged in July of that year, and one granted to OakNorth Bank plc in August 2020 that is not shown as discharged. No charges are recorded against John Lewis Partnership plc.

Property title tells the same structural story. M&S p.l.c. holds a long freehold estate in its own name, much of it acquired decades ago with no price disclosed, including titles dated 1928, 1955, 1966, 1971 and 1997. Where prices are disclosed they are recent and modest by comparison: £7.5m for George Street and Red Lion Street in May 2025 and £0.4m for French Gate in Doncaster in November 2019. John Lewis Partnership plc holds a single registered title in its own name, a leasehold at 1 Drummond Gate in London taken in October 2023 with no price disclosed. That is a difference in where each group holds its bricks, not a measure of how much property each one occupies.