Firm delivering Wellington Place in Leeds and British Library redevelopment at Boston Spa delivers strong results

The Wates Group, one of the UK’s largest family-owned construction, residential development, and property services companies, has reported its highest ever operating profit of £40m

The business secured £2.3bn of new work during 2021 and ended the year with a record forward order book of £7.1bn, up 7% from its previous record in 2020.

As the group entered its 125th anniversary year, it reported a leap in pre-tax profits to £37.4m up £35.7m from 2020, and £1.2m higher than 2019.

Wates FM has been providing building maintenance services for the University of Leeds since 2011 and in 2021 was appointed to maintain its Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) farm and the National Pig Centre near Tadcaster.

Wates Construction is working on two buildings at Wellington Place in Leeds hailed as ‘the most sustainable buildings in Yorkshire’.

Wellington Place is a multipurpose commercial, retail and residential space in the heart of Leeds, which is focused around the listed railway lifting tower dating from the 1850s.

Wates is the pre-construction stage partner for the British Library redevelopment at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. A fully automated net zero carbon archive building will be completed by 2024, featuring a public viewing gallery and 220km of extra shelf space.

In a statement, the group said: "Throughout the year, Wates strengthened its commitment to environmental sustainability, cutting carbon emissions by 53% since 2019. It also continued to give back to the communities where it operates, generating £116m in social value over the course of the year. The group will shortly be announcing details of a significant new sustainability-linked loan facility.

"All the group’s divisions performed strongly. Wates Construction generated pre-tax profits of £18.7m from a turnover of £772m, cementing its position as a leader in the provision of new schools, offices, leisure facilities and homes while expanding its offer in new sectors including healthcare."

Wates Residential increased its turnover by 75% to £268m, as well as boosting its headcount by nearly 100 employees. Wates Developments saw its turnover jump 65% to £107m, generating £5.6m in pre-tax profits. This performance reflected the Group’s increasing investment in development activities.

David Allen, Chief Executive, the Wates Group, said: “I feel enormous gratitude for and pride in what the team here at Wates achieved in 2021. It is incredible that in a year that was frequently - and for extended periods - very challenging, we continued to work safely and produced the highest operating profit in Wates’ 125-year history.

“What we’ve accomplished shows that our strategy – of focusing on the performance priorities that will help us achieve our goals of being more trusted, sustainable and progressive - is working. This strategy is supported by significant new investments in our residential and developments businesses, and by the investments we’re making in data and modern methods of construction to enable us to offer market-leading services to all our customers and partners.

“Despite the economic and political pressures that are affecting everyone right now, the strength of our performance in 2021; the size of our order book; our proven ability to help customers and partners meet their sustainability goals; the clarity of our strategy; and the quality of our amazing team mean we’re looking forward to the future with confidence and excitement.”

Key contract wins over the year included the design of Envision AESC’s £450m advanced car battery gigafactory in South Tyneside and Sunderland.

Wates Construction was appointed to the Ministry of Justice’s £1bn New Prisons Programme, supporting its drive to create 20,000 new prison places by the mid-2020s.

Wates FM won new work with the Wellcome Trust to provide engineering operations and maintenance services at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge.