RELX PLC (RELX): PESTLE Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

You need a clear view of RELX PLC's forward strategy, and the 2025 PESTLE analysis shows a business defined by two critical tensions: the massive Technological opportunity in generative AI versus the rising Political and Legal risk of data scrutiny. While the transition to digital formats now accounts for near 90% of total revenue, bolstering margins, the company is locked in a high-stakes talent war and complex IP disputes over its proprietary data. This analysis shows you why the high-growth Risk division is projected to deliver an organic revenue increase near 8.5% this fiscal year, and what regulatory challenges could slow that momentum.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Political factors

Increased global scrutiny on data monopolies and market dominance in the legal and scientific publishing sectors.

The political environment for RELX is increasingly defined by antitrust concerns, particularly surrounding its Elsevier (Scientific, Technical & Medical) and LexisNexis Legal segments. Governments and academic institutions are pushing back against high subscription costs and the market power of a few key players. This isn't just academic; it's a political hot potato that forces regulators to act.

For example, in 2025, the pressure on open access mandates continues to build, threatening the traditional subscription model which still accounts for a significant portion of the Scientific, Technical & Medical revenue. The political will behind initiatives like Plan S in Europe and similar governmental pushes in the US could force a structural shift. The political risk here is material: a forced change in pricing or distribution could impact the segment's operating profit margin, which stood at approximately 38.6% in the most recently reported full year, a figure that attracts regulatory attention.

Geopolitical tensions impacting the global flow of academic research and cross-border data transfers.

Geopolitical friction, especially between the US, EU, and China, directly affects RELX's global operations. The Scientific, Technical & Medical segment relies on the free flow of research and collaboration across borders. When political relations sour, governments can impose restrictions on research sharing, author affiliations, or access to specific databases.

This risk is two-fold. First, it can restrict the market size; second, it forces costly compliance. For instance, if a major market like China restricts access to certain Western academic platforms, the impact on the Scientific, Technical & Medical segment, which contributed approximately £3.15 billion in revenue in the most recently reported full year, could be substantial. The political climate mandates a constant review of which content can be shared with which jurisdictions.

Government contract risk, especially in the Risk and Legal segments, tied to shifts in public sector spending.

RELX's LexisNexis Risk Solutions and LexisNexis Legal segments have significant exposure to government contracts, particularly in the US for providing data analytics, public records, and legal research tools. Shifts in political priorities-like a change in administration or a focus on deficit reduction-can lead to immediate cuts in public sector IT and data spending.

The Risk Solutions segment, which is highly exposed to government and law enforcement contracts, saw its revenue grow by a strong double-digit percentage in the most recently reported period. This growth is defintely tied to government budgets. A 10% cut in US federal spending on data services, for example, could immediately translate into tens of millions in lost revenue opportunity for the Risk Solutions segment, forcing a rapid pivot to private sector contracts to maintain its trajectory.

Here's the quick math on the exposure:

Heightened US and EU regulatory focus on data privacy (e.g., CCPA, GDPR) affecting data aggregation practices.

The political drive toward stricter data privacy laws is a permanent and escalating risk for the LexisNexis Risk Solutions segment, whose core business is data aggregation and analytics. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the various US state laws, like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and its amendments, create a complex and costly compliance maze.

The political environment dictates that data aggregation practices must be constantly reviewed. Failure to comply can result in massive fines, which under GDPR can reach up to 4% of annual global turnover. For a company with a total revenue of approximately £9.22 billion in the most recently reported full year, that fine exposure is significant. The political trend is clear:

• Increase compliance spending to meet evolving CCPA/GDPR standards.
• Face potential class-action lawsuits driven by political advocacy groups.
• Limit data sourcing options as governments restrict public data access.

The political risk here is less about revenue loss and more about operational cost and reputational damage. It's a cost of doing business now, but still a drag on the bottom line.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Economic factors

The core economic reality for RELX is a strong, defensive business model that is successfully navigating global cost inflation and currency headwinds, but you still need to watch the pressure points. The shift to analytics and decision tools is what's making the difference, allowing the company to maintain a high-quality growth profile even when macroeconomics are choppy. Simply put, the business mix is now the best hedge against a difficult global economy.

Inflationary pressures driving up costs for specialized technical talent and content creation

Inflation is hitting the cost base, especially for the high-value talent RELX needs to power its shift to analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). To keep its competitive edge, the company is managing its cost growth, but the price of top-tier software engineers and data scientists remains high. Here's the quick math: RELX's technology spend is substantial, averaging around 5% of revenue, which translates to approximately $1.9 billion annually.

The company's strategy for 2025 is to manage underlying cost growth below underlying revenue growth, a process innovation that is working. This allowed the Group's adjusted operating margin to improve by 0.7 percentage points to 34.8% in the first half of 2025. Still, the competition for the over 12,000 technologists employed across RELX remains fierce, defintely pushing up salary costs in key US and European hubs.

Budgetary constraints in university and corporate R&D departments affecting subscription renewal rates

The Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) division, which relies heavily on academic and corporate R&D budgets, faces a near-term risk from institutional belt-tightening. This division generates about 80% of its revenue from subscriptions, so renewal rates are critical.

To be fair, the impact of these constraints is currently being mitigated by the value proposition of RELX's electronic products. The STM division reported underlying revenue growth of +5% year-to-date in 2025, with renewals and new sales actually running ahead of the prior year. The key is the shift toward higher-value analytics and tools, which are viewed as essential infrastructure rather than discretionary spending by research institutions and funders.

Strong US dollar against the British Pound and Euro impacting reported group revenue and translation effects

Since RELX reports its results in British Pounds (GBP) but earns a significant portion of its revenue in US Dollars (USD), a strong US dollar creates a favorable translation effect on the revenue line but can be complicated for reported profit. However, in the first half of 2025, the currency effects actually decreased the reported adjusted operating profit in GBP by 3%. This highlights the volatility and the constant need to look at underlying (constant currency) growth figures to get a true picture of performance.

For investors, this currency dynamic means the reported numbers can look softer than the operational performance. The company's focus remains on delivering strong growth in adjusted earnings per share on a constant currency basis, which is the clearest measure of operational success.

Solid growth in the Risk division, projected to deliver an organic revenue increase near 8.5% for the 2025 fiscal year

The Risk division is the engine of the Group's growth and its highest-quality segment, representing about 34% of 2024 revenue. This is where the investment in AI-enabled analytics is paying off most clearly, particularly in Financial Crime Compliance and digital Fraud & Identity solutions.

The division's underlying revenue growth for the first nine months of 2025 was a robust +8%, which is right near the full-year organic revenue increase target of 8.5%. This performance is driven by deeply embedded decision tools that are now essential to customers in the Insurance and Business Services segments. It is a very sticky business.

• Monitor US dollar strength: It directly impacts reported GBP profit by an estimated 3% (H1 2025).
• Capitalize on Risk growth: The +8% underlying growth in Risk is the highest-quality revenue stream.
• Sustain cost control: Keep managing cost growth below the +7% revenue growth to protect the 34.8% margin.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Social factors

Growing demand for open-access publishing models challenging the traditional subscription-based Scientific division.

You're seeing a significant social shift in academia, where researchers and institutions are demanding immediate, free access to publicly funded research. This 'open-access' (OA) movement directly challenges the traditional subscription model of the Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) division, which includes Elsevier.

To be fair, RELX isn't ignoring this; they've adapted by embracing the 'pay-to-publish' OA model, where authors or their institutions cover an Article Processing Charge (APC). This fee can run as high as $10,000 per article, which is a substantial revenue stream, but the core subscription business is still facing pressure, with some universities opting out of the large 'big deal' subscription packages. Still, the STM division's underlying revenue grew by a solid 5% in the first nine months of 2025, showing their shift to a hybrid model is working for now.

Here's the quick math on how critical this segment remains:

Talent wars for AI and data science expertise needed to power LexisNexis and Risk solutions.

The company's pivot to being an information-based analytics and decision tools provider means its success hinges entirely on its AI capabilities, and that means a fierce talent war. RELX is a technology company now, not just a publisher, and they are spending big to prove it. The company allocates approximately $1.9 billion annually to technology, dedicating around 70% of its R&D budget to AI and data integration.

This massive investment requires top-tier talent, and that talent is expensive. The average data scientist salary in the US is projected to be around $166,000 in 2025, with specialized AI roles commanding between $110,000 and $220,000 annually. Plus, mid-level data scientist salaries saw a 2.3% year-over-year increase, which is above the overall tech industry average. RELX employs approximately 12,000 technologists, so keeping them happy and competitive is a constant, high-stakes battle for the balance sheet.

Increased public and academic pressure for corporate social responsibility and ethical data use.

When you're dealing with massive, sensitive datasets in the LexisNexis and Risk Solutions divisions, public trust and ethical data use (data ethics) are not just a PR issue; they are a fundamental license to operate. The social pressure here is intense, especially around potential bias in AI models. You defintely need a clear, public framework to manage this risk.

RELX has responded by establishing the RELX Responsible AI Principles to guide the ethical application of AI, specifically aiming to prevent the creation or reinforcement of unfair bias. This proactive stance is reflected in their strong external ratings: the company holds a AAA MSCI ESG rating, which they have maintained for ten consecutive years, and is ranked first in its sector by Sustainalytics. This is a clear signal to institutional investors and customers that they are taking their social responsibilities seriously.

Remote work trends accelerating the need for digital, cloud-based legal and risk management tools.

The lasting impact of remote and hybrid work models has accelerated the need for digital, cloud-based tools that can be accessed anywhere. This trend is a huge tailwind for RELX's core business segments. Think about a lawyer needing to access the LexisNexis database from a home office or a financial crime analyst using Risk Solutions' digital fraud tools remotely.

This social shift is a key reason why fully digital products now account for approximately 83% of the group's total revenue. The Legal segment's underlying revenue grew by 9% and the Risk segment by 8% in the first nine months of 2025, largely driven by the success of digital, cloud-native products like the generative AI platform Lexis+ AI and digital Fraud & Identity solutions. It's a simple equation: remote work means more reliance on the cloud, and RELX is positioned perfectly to capture that demand.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Technological factors

Massive investment in generative AI to enhance search, summarization, and predictive analytics across all divisions.

You're seeing a massive, accelerating shift at RELX, moving from being a content provider to a pure-play, AI-driven analytics company. This isn't just a buzzword for them; it's the core of their strategy and a key driver of their 7% underlying revenue growth in the first nine months of 2025.

The company is applying Generative AI (GenAI) capabilities across the majority of its revenue base, especially in the Legal and Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) segments. For example, the Lexis+ AI platform in the Legal division is a next-generation generative assistant that allows lawyers to draft and summarize complex documents in minutes, which is a tangible productivity boost for customers.

Here's the quick math: RELX employs around 12,000 technologists-more than half of whom are software engineers-and spends approximately $1.9 billion annually on technology to power this innovation. That's a serious commitment to staying ahead of the curve. The Risk segment, which is already deeply embedded with AI-enabled analytics, saw an 8% underlying revenue growth in H1 2025, with over 90% of its divisional revenues coming from machine-to-machine interactions.

Rapid obsolescence risk for legacy IT systems as competitors adopt cloud-native, scalable data platforms.

While the industry at large faces a significant risk of legacy IT obsolescence-with some estimates suggesting up to 40% of IT budgets will go toward managing technical debt by 2025-RELX is actively mitigating this through its strategic pivot. Their focus on developing proprietary, high-value decision tools means they are continually replacing older, less scalable systems with cloud-native solutions that can handle massive, complex data sets.

The risk isn't about if the technology will become obsolete, but about the speed of replacement. Their high capital expenditure, which was 5.4% of revenue in H1 2025, reflects this ongoing need to invest in modern, scalable data platforms. This constant, high-level investment is their firewall against the rapid decay of technical relevance. They are using a flexible, multi-model approach, partnering with companies like AWS, Anthropic, and Microsoft to select the best AI model for each use case, which avoids being locked into a single, potentially obsolete, architecture.

Cybersecurity threats escalating, requiring significant capital expenditure to protect proprietary data assets.

The shift to AI-driven analytics, which relies on proprietary and highly curated data sets, makes cybersecurity a mission-critical factor. The data they hold-legal, medical, and financial risk information-is extremely high-value for bad actors. Customers defintely won't adopt GenAI tools if they don't trust the security.

RELX addresses this by embedding security and privacy as a core feature. For instance, their Lexis+ AI product offers industry-leading data security to overcome customer concerns, which analysts have noted as one of the highest barriers to GenAI adoption. Their capital expenditure for the first half of 2025 was approximately £256 million (5.4% of H1 revenue of £4,741 million), a portion of which is dedicated to fortifying their digital infrastructure and proprietary data assets. They also specifically invested around $5 million in 2024 to enhance their technical resilience posture, with more efforts planned for 2025, focusing on robust recovery testing and application dependency analysis.

Transition from print to digital formats now near 90% of total revenue, boosting operating margins.

The transition from print to digital is essentially complete, giving RELX a structural advantage over less-digitized competitors. The proportion of group revenue from products in print format has reduced to just 4%, meaning electronic and digital revenue now accounts for approximately 96% of the total. This is a huge shift that has fundamentally changed the company's cost structure.

The decline in low-margin print revenue, which fell by 21% year-over-year in H1 2025, directly contributed to margin expansion. This strategic exit from a legacy format helped the adjusted operating margin improve to 34.8% in H1 2025, up from 34.1% in H1 2024, flowing straight to the bottom line. This margin improvement is a clear, quantifiable benefit of their long-term technological strategy.

• Digital revenue is now approximately 96% of total.
• Adjusted operating margin improved to 34.8% in H1 2025.
• Print-related revenue is now largely complete as a transition.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Legal factors

Complex intellectual property (IP) disputes, particularly concerning the use of copyrighted content for training large language models (LLMs).

The core of RELX PLC's business-especially its Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) and Legal divisions-is built on proprietary, copyrighted content, so the rise of Generative AI creates a significant legal risk and a major business opportunity. The company is investing $1.4 billion annually into technology, with a focus on AI-enabled products like Lexis+ AI and Protégé in the Legal segment, which saw underlying revenue growth of +9% year-to-date (YTD) in 2025. This growth is directly tied to leveraging large language models (LLMs).

The legal challenge is that training these LLMs often requires ingesting massive datasets that include copyrighted works. While some US courts, like the Northern District of California in mid-2025 rulings, have indicated that LLM training on legally-acquired content may constitute fair use, the legal framework is defintely still evolving. This ambiguity exposes RELX PLC to complex, multi-jurisdictional copyright infringement lawsuits, which could result in substantial damages or force costly licensing agreements. The company's stance, as articulated to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is that the overarching principle of AI development must be the continued respect for intellectual property rights.

Here is a quick breakdown of the dual nature of the AI/IP legal environment:

• Risk: Litigation over copyrighted content used in LLM training datasets.
• Opportunity: High-value legal analytics tools like Lexis+ AI driving double-digit growth in the Law Firms & Corporate Legal segment.
• Action: Continue to use proprietary, licensed, and authoritative data to minimize infringement risk.

Stricter enforcement of anti-trust laws in the EU and US regarding mergers and acquisitions in the data space.

Global anti-trust enforcement has intensified in 2025, particularly in the data and analytics sector, which is central to RELX PLC's strategy. Regulators in the EU and US are scrutinizing acquisitions more closely, often demanding significant divestitures or leading to abandoned deals, especially in highly concentrated markets. This trend impacts RELX PLC's ability to execute its bolt-on acquisition strategy, which is critical for maintaining market share and expanding its product portfolio.

In the first half of 2025 alone, RELX PLC completed three acquisitions for a total consideration of £262 million, demonstrating an active M&A pipeline that is directly exposed to this regulatory environment. The company's significant market position in areas like legal analytics and risk data means any substantial acquisition will likely face a rigorous Phase I or Phase II review from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) / Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Commission (EC).

New sector-specific regulations, like those for financial crime compliance, driving demand for the Risk division's products.

New and expanding sector-specific regulations are a powerful legal tailwind for the Risk division (LexisNexis Risk Solutions). The tightening regulatory environment, particularly around sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML), and fraud prevention, is forcing financial institutions and large corporations to invest heavily in compliance solutions. This is a clear, near-term opportunity.

The Risk division's underlying revenue growth was +8% YTD in 2025, with growth explicitly driven by demand for Financial Crime Compliance and digital Fraud & Identity solutions. A concrete example is the UK's new corporate offense of 'failure to prevent fraud,' effective September 1, 2025, which exposes large organizations to unlimited fines unless they can demonstrate reasonable fraud-prevention procedures. This single legal change creates a massive, immediate demand for RELX PLC's integrated risk management and analytics tools.

Ongoing litigation risk related to data accuracy and the use of personal identifying information (PII).

Processing vast amounts of data, including personal identifying information (PII) and public records, is fundamental to RELX PLC's Risk and Legal segments, but it also creates continuous litigation and regulatory risk. Changes in data privacy legislation, such as the ongoing evolution of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), mean the compliance goalposts are constantly moving.

The risk extends beyond fines-it includes civil litigation over data accuracy, which could damage the reputation of the LexisNexis brand, a key asset. The company is actively managing this, having implemented an updated version of the RELX Privacy and Data Protection Requirements for Suppliers effective January 1, 2025. Any significant breach or systemic data inaccuracy could result in multi-million dollar penalties, impacting the company's adjusted effective tax rate, which was 22.5% in the first half of 2025.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Environmental factors

You're watching institutional investors like BlackRock push hard on climate disclosure, so understanding RELX PLC's environmental position is defintely critical for your valuation. The direct takeaway is that RELX's largely digital model gives it a low operational footprint, but the pressure is still intense on its supply chain and, specifically, the Exhibitions division.

Here's the quick math: RELX's strength is its proprietary data moat, but that moat is now the target of regulatory and open-source challenges. Finance: track the capital expenditure allocated to AI development and IP defense by the end of the quarter.

Pressure from institutional investors to meet ambitious carbon reduction targets and achieve net-zero commitments.

Major investors are demanding a clear path to net-zero, and RELX has responded by committing to achieve net-zero emissions across all three carbon scopes by 2040 at the latest, aligning with The Climate Pledge. This is a significant long-term commitment. In the near-term, the company's new carbon reduction targets were validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2024 as consistent with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. This validation signals a serious intent, not just greenwashing.

The company has a clear, measurable target for the current fiscal period: a 46% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 (location-based) carbon emissions by the end of 2025, benchmarked against a 2015 baseline. To drive internal accountability, RELX uses an internal carbon price, which was set at $40/tCO2e in 2024 for its Scope 1, 2, and select Scope 3 emissions. This price is designed to increase over time, providing a financial incentive to decarbonize across all business units.

Increased focus on supply chain sustainability, particularly for the Exhibitions division's physical events.

While the majority of RELX's emissions are low-intensity, the Exhibitions (RX) division presents a unique, high-profile challenge due to the physical nature of large-scale events. RX has a direct problem with event logistics, travel, and material waste. The company is actively addressing this by partnering with peers on the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative, which aims to develop methodologies to quantify and reduce the events industry's emissions.

The broader supply chain, which includes suppliers in over 150 countries, is also under scrutiny. The company's new target is to engage these suppliers in setting their own science-based targets to help reduce Scope 3 emissions. For the physical events, concrete actions were taken in 2024, such as RX's ISC West and ISC East events partnering with MeetGreen to stream and sort waste, which helps increase recycling and composting. They also released a Sustainability Guide for exhibitors to push the responsibility down the value chain.

Disclosure requirements for climate-related financial risks (e.g., TCFD, ISSB) adding complexity to reporting.

The regulatory landscape for climate disclosure is shifting rapidly, adding complexity to financial reporting. RELX has been a long-time supporter of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and has expanded its TCFD disclosure in the 2024 Annual Report. More importantly, the 2024 Sustainability Statement marks the first year of reporting under new requirements, likely referencing the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) which are key to global alignment with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) framework.

This means you are seeing a more granular, forward-looking view of risk. The company defines its time horizons for risk assessment in line with ESRS stipulations:

• Short-term: one year or less
• Medium-term: one to five years
• Long-term: over five years

The CFO is the senior environmental advocate and leads the Environmental Checkpoint Committee, which ensures climate risk is integrated into the core financial strategy and tracked against targets.

The company's low operational environmental footprint is a relative strength, given its primarily digital business model.

The nature of RELX's business-providing information-based analytics and decision tools-is a structural advantage in the environmental context. The operational footprint is inherently low compared to manufacturing or heavy industry. In fact, energy costs represented less than 1% of the total cost base back in 2021, a figure that remains low and is a strong indicator of low operational intensity.

The company's focus on energy efficiency and renewable sources has yielded impressive results. They continue to purchase renewable electricity equivalent to 100% of their global electricity consumption. This low-impact profile is a key strength that reduces exposure to carbon taxes and rising energy prices.