Revenue last year jumped by a fifth to £354m helping the firm deliver a pre-tax profit of £52m, up from adjusted pretax profit of £46m previously.

Previous 2020 pre-tax profit was reported at £25m after an exceptional charge of £6m for Covid and £15m for remedial cladding works.

Richard Simpson, chief executive Officer of Watkin Jones, said the business was making strong headway with its new affordable home business, founded on the group’s capital light investment model of pre-selling all schemes before construction.

Simpson said: “Watkin Jones has once again demonstrated its end-to-end development capability.  

“As well as handing over 12 schemes on time, we leveraged our excellent institutional relationships to drive the forward sale of some 3,800 beds and continued to enhance the depth and quality of our development pipeline, securing good visibility of future earnings.

“Since the year-end, we have continued this excellent momentum across the business with increasingly strong investor appetite for residential for rent homes.”

Watkn Jones’ said the investment market in build to looked increasingly positive helping the firm to assemble a secured pipeline now standing at more than 4,000 apartments (9,100 bedrooms).

The firm said the student market remained resilient with over 7,800 beds in its secured development pipeline.

During the year Watkin Jones forward sold 159 homes on its affordable homes pilot in Crewe, forward sold a 35-flat scheme in Chester but suffered some build completion delays at its scheme in Preston.

Looking forward Simpson said: “We continued to enhance our BTR and PBSA development pipeline, which has an estimated future revenue value of around £1.8 billion, our largest ever.

“This gives us excellent visibility of revenues over the next few years.  

“Together with the ongoing re‑focusing of our residential business into the affordable housing market, we are confident that we have a robust platform for sustained earnings growth and we expect to make further progress in the coming year.”