Kainos shares (LON: KNOS) were up over 4% after the group released a trading statement for the six months ended 30 September.

The IT provider reported a 23% growth in revenue from £86.9m to £107.2m. Pre-tax profit surged 100% from £12m to £24m.

The group said it had a “very strong performance” during the pandemic and the contracted backlog grew 38% to £180.9m.

Kainos is building up a presence in North America and in the UK, the group had significant ongoing engagements in UK government’s digital transformation programme, including the support of the NHS as it responded to Covid-19.

Brendan Mooney, the group’s chief executive, commented:

“Against the backdrop of Covid-19, we recognise that our strong business performance during this period has been a result of the hard work and flexibility of our people, and the support and trust of our customers. We remain immensely grateful for their ongoing engagement.

“We operate in digital transformation markets that have delivered strong growth over many years, which has added to the resilience our business has demonstrated through the pandemic. We anticipate that Covid-19 will continue to accelerate the already strong demand from customers for digital transformation and Workday services as organisations adapt to the changes that the pandemic has brought.

“We have maintained good progress on our early-stage investments, including our Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Practice, our Adaptive Planning acquisitions, with the Workday Extend platform (formerly Workday Cloud Platform) and the launch of our Intelligent Automation Practice. While these initiatives are at the beginning of their development journey, we believe that they have the potential to add significant growth opportunities in the future.”

Looking forward, Kainos remains confident for the second half of the year thanks to the contracted backlog.

Kainos shares (LON: KNOS) are trading +4.04% at 1.236,00 (1600GMT).