Pearson is a British multinational education and assessment company headquartered in London. It provides learning materials, assessments, qualifications, virtual learning, English-language learning, higher-education products and enterprise learning and skills services. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, and has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange through American depositary receipts. In 2025, Pearson reported revenue of £3.6 billion and had an average of about 17,000 employees.
The company originated as S. Pearson & Son, a Yorkshire building and civil-engineering contractor founded in the nineteenth century. Under Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, it became one of the world's largest engineering contractors and developed interests in Mexican oil, electricity, finance, coal, aviation and publishing. In the twentieth century Pearson shifted towards publishing and media, acquiring the Financial Times and a stake in The Economist in 1957, Longman in 1968 and Penguin Books in 1970. The company changed its name from S. Pearson & Son plc to Pearson plc in 1984.
Under chief executive Marjorie Scardino, Pearson increasingly focused on education, forming Pearson Education in 1998 after acquiring the education businesses of Simon & Schuster. Between 2015 and 2020 Pearson sold the Financial Times, its stake in The Economist, and its remaining stake in Penguin Random House, leaving education, assessment and learning technology as its core businesses.
Pearson is organised around five business units: Assessment & Qualifications, Virtual Learning, English Language Learning, Higher Education, and Enterprise Learning and Skills. It owns Edexcel, one of the main GCSE and A-level examination boards in England. Omar Abbosh has been chief executive since January 2024. Pearson has faced criticism and regulatory action over its role in education policy, exam security, qualification standards, data-breach disclosure and executive pay.
History
Civil engineering businesses 1844–1925 In 1844 Samuel Pearson became an associate partner in a small brickmaking and contracting civil engineering company in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. In 1856 Pearson's eldest son George entered the business, which became known as S. Pearson & Son, described as "sanitary tube and brickmakers and contractors for local public works in and around Bradford". In 1880 control passed to Samuel's grandson Weetman Dickinson Pearson, who moved the headquarters to London in 1884 and expanded the business into one of the world's largest civil-engineering contractors.
Under Weetman Pearson the firm developed a reputation for difficult infrastructure works, especially tunnels, docks, harbours, drainage schemes and other wet-ground engineering. Its projects included the Blackwall Tunnel in London, the Admiralty Harbour at Dover, the Halifax Dry Dock in Canada, the East River Tunnels in New York City, the Gran Canal del Desagüe in Mexico, the Tehuantepec Railway, and railways and harbours around the world.
Another prominent Pearson engineer was Ernest William Moir, who after working on tunnels in New York City became the contractor's agent for construction of the Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames between 1892 and 1897.
In November 1915, during the First World War, the firm began construction of HM Factory, Gretna, the largest cordite factory in the United Kingdom.J. A. Spender, Weetman Pearson: First Viscount Cowdray (London: Cassell and Company, 1930). The construction business was wound down during the 1920s. Its final major projects included construction of the Silent Valley Reservoir in Northern Ireland, awarded in 1923, and completion of the Sennar Dam in Sudan in 1925."The Sennar Dam and the Gezira Irrigation Scheme", The Engineer
Manufacturing businesses 1856–1993 In 1856, S. Pearson & Son advertised itself as manufacturing sanitary tubes and bricks in Yorkshire. Manufacturing later expanded beyond sanitary tubes and bricks to include nuts and bolts, specialist glass, pottery, porcelain, fine china and related products.
After the Second World War the Pearson group built a substantial ceramics interest. In 1951 Whitehall Securities purchased the Lawley Group, a china and glassware retailer and pottery owner, while the Pearson group already owned Booths and Colcloughs and other ceramic businesses. Pearson acquired Allied English Potteries, including Royal Crown Derby, in 1964, and bought Doulton & Co. in November 1971, merging the ceramics interests.
Pearson purchased the Fairey Group in 1980, and its engineering operations were merged with Doulton's industrial ceramics engineering. Pearson sold Doulton Glass Industries Ltd in 1982. The Fairey Group became independent of Pearson in 1986 through a management buy-out. As Pearson concentrated on publishing and media, it divested Royal Doulton, its remaining fine china division and last major manufacturing asset, in 1993.
Electricity businesses 1900–1960 The conglomerate entered the electrification market in 1900, when Weetman Pearson was asked to electrify Mexico's tramway system and then the general electrical supply in the city of Vera Cruz and elsewhere. The group later repeated this model in Chile. These electrical interests were consolidated into Whitehall Electric Investments Ltd in 1922.
In 1929 the electricity businesses in Mexico and Chile were sold, while similar electricity utilities were developed in south-west England until they were nationalised in 1948. Pearson's remaining overseas electricity utility businesses, which had spread to Greece, were closed by 1960.
Oil businesses 1901–1989 While building the Tehuantepec National Railway in Mexico for President Porfirio Díaz, Weetman Pearson learned of oil deposits in Mexico and south Texas and in 1901 began buying prospective oil lands.Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 230–232. Pearson founded the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company in 1909 to hold the group's Mexican oil interests.
In 1919 the Royal Dutch Shell Group acquired a large share of, and managerial control over, Mexican Eagle. Pearson then formed Whitehall Petroleum Corporation Ltd to take over residual Pearson oil interests and prospect globally for oil. The same year it established the Amerada Corporation in the United States. Amerada was compulsorily acquired by the British government in 1941 during the Second World War; Pearson reacquired a small interest in 1945.
In the 1950s Pearson expanded its North American oil and gas interests, and in the 1970s expanded exploration activities more widely. In 1989, as part of its focus on publishing and media, Pearson divested its oil and gas exploration activities and sold Whitehall Petroleum.
Holding companies, banking and financial services 1907–1999 Whitehall Securities was created in 1907 as a holding company for Pearson's non-contracting industries. The growth of Mexican oil and overseas infrastructure encouraged the Pearson group to separate construction, finance and investment activities within a broader holding-company structure. In 1919 Pearson founded Whitehall Trust Ltd as a finance and issuing house.
After Weetman Pearson's death in 1927, his son Bernard Clive Pearson chaired S. Pearson & Son from 1927 to 1954. When Clive Pearson retired, his nephew Weetman John Churchill Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray became chairman. The Science Museum Group describes the company at that point as still family-owned and in a difficult position after the nationalisation of its main aviation activities, coal mines and electric utilities; it retained a controlling interest in Lazard Brothers, Westminster Press and other financial and industrial investments.
In 1919 Pearson also acquired a 45% stake in the London branch of merchant bankers Lazard Brothers. During the depression years Pearson's holding increased to about 80% after the 1931 rescue of Lazard Brothers, whose London house had been weakened by large concealed foreign-exchange losses at its Brussels office.
In 1976 Pearson acquired a stake in Embankment Trust Ltd. By 1990 Pearson's stake in Lazard Brothers had been reduced to 50% following Lazard's internationalisation to Paris and New York, and Pearson acquired 10% stakes in the two overseas branches. In 1999, as Pearson refocused on education, publishing and media, it sold its Lazard holdings for £410 million.
Coal businesses 1921–1947 Beginning in 1921 Pearson partnered with Dorman Long to form a coal-mining business, incorporated in 1922 as Pearson & Dorman Long Ltd. The company developed and operated collieries, including in the Kent coalfield, and was affected by the post-war nationalisation of the coal industry.
Publishing businesses 1921–1997 In 1921 Pearson purchased a number of local daily and weekly newspapers in the United Kingdom and combined them to form the Westminster Press group.
In the post-war newspaper business, Angela Murray (née Pearson) became a director of the Pearson group and chair of Westminster Press in 1953, whose local newspapers included the Oxford Mail, The Northern Echo and the Brighton Evening News.
Under Weetman John Churchill Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray, who chaired the company from 1954 to 1977, Pearson shifted further towards publishing and media. The group bought the Financial Times and acquired a 50% stake in The Economist in 1957, purchased Longman in 1968, became a public company in 1969, and acquired Penguin Books in 1970 and Ladybird Books in 1972.
Patrick Gibson, Baron Gibson, who married into the Pearson family, joined Westminster Press in 1947 and became a director in 1948. He later chaired Pearson Longman from 1967 to 1979, chaired Financial Times Ltd from 1975 to 1977, and was group chairman of Pearson plc from 1978 to 1983.
Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham, a grandson of Weetman Harold Miller Pearson, 2nd Viscount Cowdray, and a great-grandson of Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, became chairman in 1983. Contemporary reporting described Pearson under Blakenham as narrowing a formerly sprawling conglomerate towards chosen core areas, with disposals including Château Latour, building products, sanitary ware, film production, glass and engineering.
In 1984 the company changed its name from S. Pearson & Son plc to Pearson plc. It bought the educational publisher Pitman Ltd in 1985.
In 1996 Pearson sold Westminster Press to Newsquest, and acquired the education division of HarperCollins from News Corporation.
Aviation businesses 1929–1959 In 1929, Pearson's Whitehall Securities entered aviation by purchasing an interest in Airwork Services.The ATL-98 Carvair: A Comprehensive History of the Aircraft and All 21 Airframes (Part 1: Getting off the ground – Airwork), p. 14. By 1935 Whitehall Securities had major interests in British airlines and aviation companies, including Spartan Air Lines, Saunders-Roe, United Airways Limited and Hillman's Airways.Airways (The Archive: The Legacy of BOAC (Pt. 1)), p. 62.
Under Bernard Clive Pearson, Whitehall Securities helped consolidate Britain's private airline sector. In September 1935, Hillman's Airways, Spartan Air Lines and United Airways merged to form British Airways Ltd. In 1936 British Airways absorbed British Continental Airways and Crilly Airways. British Airways Ltd was merged with Imperial Airways under the British Overseas Airways Corporation Act 1939 to form British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), which began operations in 1940.
In 1937 Pearson acquired Northern & Scottish Airways and Highland Airways, and merged them into Scottish Airways. Scottish Airways was nationalised by the British government in 1947 and merged into British European Airways. Pearson's aircraft-manufacturing interests ended in 1959, when Saunders-Roe was sold to Westland Aircraft.
Entertainment media businesses 1978–2002