Wates Group, which has worked on Wellington Place in Leeds, announces record turnover

Wates is also working with Barnsley Council to deliver repairs and maintenance work to its social housing stock. A spokesman said: “Now into its third year, the project is providing wider benefit to the community through working with local schools and charities, planting 400 trees and donating time to renovate local RSPB bird-spotting areas.”

Eoghan O’Lionaird, the chief executive of Wates Group, said: “These results in our 125th year represent a really strong performance in the context of a challenging economic environment.

"Each of our divisions have contributed strongly to profitability and I am delighted to see such consistency across the group. 2022 saw us continue our upward trajectory on turnover, reaching £1.89bn, the highest in our history.

"This figure reflects the strong and stable family governance, hard work of people across the business, the scale of our ambition, our proven capability to manage large scale projects of strategic national significance, and our customers’ confidence in our ability to deliver for them, particularly in the public sector.

“We are in a strong, resilient position, with profitability across all our divisions, another record forward order book, and a solid cash balance. These results are a testament to the efforts of everyone at Wates, and my particular thanks go to Philip Wainwright for his sterling performance as Interim chief executive. He has left a firm foundation from which I hope to continue growing this remarkable business.”

Other key contract wins in 2022, include signing and beginning work on the £500m contract to design and build Envision AESC’s advanced car battery gigafactory in Sunderland, which will boost growth in electric vehicles in the UK and will help to create around 4,500 jobs in the North East. This is the largest single contract in the group’s history.

Wates Group also secured a place on the Ministry of Justice’s new five-year constructor services framework which will deliver property estate activities including new build, refurbishment, maintenance, and minor works. Work will be on projects worth between £5m and £30m.

The company said that £183m had been generated in social value over the year, through education, employability, and community development projects and in support for social enterprises.

As part of its five-year social value strategy, Wates previously committed to spend £45m with social enterprises by 2025. It has exceeded that target already, with £45.6m spent in total, the company said in a statement to accompany its results.