Partial least squares (PLS) regression has been proposed as an alternative regression technique to more traditional approaches such as principal components regression and ridge regression. A number of algorithms have appeared in the literature which have been shown to be equivalent. Someone wishing to implement PLS regression in a programming language or within a statistical package must choose which algorithm to use. We investigate the implementation of univariate PLS algorithms within FORTRAN and the Matlab (1993) and Splus (1992) environments, comparing theoretical measures of execution speed based on flop counts with their observed execution times. We also comment on the ease with which the algorithms may be implemented in the different environments. Finally, we investigate the merits of using the orthogonal invariance of PLS regression to ‘improve’ the algorithms.