Builders’ merchant Travis Perkins is to create 4,000 jobs – nearly three jobs a day – and 400 new branches across the country over the next four years.
The majority of the jobs will be outside London and the south-east. There will be a mix of 170 apprenticeships for younger people, and 200 branch managers and assistant managers a year, skilled IT professionals and supply chain specialists. The company has taken on 1,500 people in the past 12 months.
Britain’s largest distributor of building materials to trade and retail customers employs more than 24,000 people in the UK across nearly 2,000 branches. Last year, the company made revenues of £5.6bn. It is investing £150-200m a year in the business.
George Osborne described Travis Perkins’ plans as a “vote of confidence in the UK” and reaffirmed the government’s support to the construction sector.
The chancellor announced a new help-to-buy Isa in Wednesday’s budget to assist first-time buyers to purchase a house. For every £200 saved for a deposit on a home, the government will add a £50 top-up.
Like the housebuilders, Travis Perkins has benefited from the government’s help-to-buy mortgage-guarantee scheme aimed at first-time buyers, which has been running for two years. The firm also cited the recent overhaul of the stamp duty regime and improving housing affordability, in the wake of lower unemployment and rising real wages (adjusted for inflation).
“These measures have provided stimulus to the overall housing market across the country and the ability for people to invest in improving their homes,” the group said.
The new branches will be opened across the company’s Travis Perkins, Wickes, Toolstation and Benchmarx chains. They will be supported by distribution warehouses to be opened or extended in Warrington, Leeds, Northampton, Coventry, Cardiff and Tilbury.
