1977 – SHL was founded by Professor Peter Saville and Roger Holdsworth.
1978 – SHL published its first ability tests. These tests, constantly updated, are still in use today.
1984 – Following three years of extensive research, the Occupational Personality Questionnaire® (OPQ), SHL’s flagship product, was launched. The modern OPQ, after going through multiple revisions, is one of the world’s most widely used personality questionnaires.
1991 – SHL formally began to establish its international network. Today, SHL has offices in 40 countries, spanning Asia Pacific, the Americas, South Africa and Europe.
1997 – In October, SHL achieved PLC status becoming quoted on the London Stock Exchange.
2003 – Early in the year, SHL celebrated the completion of one million online candidate assessments worldwide since 2001.
2004 – In May, the SHL Universal Competency Framework™ (UCF) was launched, standardising the way to determine key behaviours across every organisation.
2004 – SHL crossed the three million mark for in-depth online assessments. These numbers continue growing and today online assessments actually outnumber the paper-and-pencil ones.
2004 - The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) was established in August 2004 to support SHL's commitment to applied science with the appointment to the SAB of three internationally respected leaders in the fields of measurement, research and psychology applied to work.
2005 - Launch of the SHL Partner Network (SPN), a dedicated service for independent psychologists and HR consultants who wish to build SHL's world-leading objective assessments into their own customer offers.
2006 - SHL de-listed from the Stock Exchange following a successful management buy-out. The company name changed to SHL Group Limited. In order to buy back shares from investors, SHL partnered with independent provider of private equity finance, HgCapital. New Chairman, Chris Sandham joined existing management team members John Bateson, Emma Lancaster and Kevin Kerrigan along with two non-executive directors from HgCapital; Lisa Stone and Robin Lincoln, to form the new SHL Board.