More than 100 staff to leave Taylor Wimpey in restructuring

Taylor Wimpey is expected to make more than 100 redundancies as part of a restructuring programme designed to strip out £15m in costs from the business.

The £4.3bn-turnover listed housebuilder is understood to be taking out an entire layer of senior management and merging its major developments team into its strategic land business.

The news emerged as privately-held housebuilder Keepmoat confirmed that it had laid off 27 staff in a restructure which saw the merging of its three northern businesses.

Taylor Wimpey, which employees nearly 6,000 people in the UK and Spain, said in a November trading update that it was “in consultation on a series of proposed changes that would generate annualised savings in the region of £15 million from 2021”.

Chief executive Pete Redfern (pictured, left) said at the time that the changes would see the firm’s central and east London businesses merged and the removal of an operational tier of management, but the firm did not spell out the full detail of the proposed changes.

Housing Today understands that it is likely that more than 100 staff will ultimately leave the business under the changes, which are not being made in response to the covid-19 pandemic. The changes will see the removal of the seven-strong layer of divisional managing directors, who currently sit below the firm’s regional chairs, directing the regional MDs.

As well as the restructuring of the London business, Taylor Wimpey will  merge its major developments team into its strategic land business. The restructure is set to cost the firm £10m.

Taylor Wimpey is understood to have not made the changes in response to reduced expectations of growth following the pandemic, but instead to ensure it keeps as lean a structure as possible to encourage future growth.

Last month’s trading statement said: “These proposed changes would not affect the ability of the business to generate future growth or to deliver a high-quality product and service to our customers.”

The news comes as Housing Today published a sentiment survey of the residential development industry – undertaken exclusively for it and sister publication Building by recruitment firm PSD – which found that more than a third of businesses have cut staff since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

Tim Beale, chief executive of Keepmoat, said the £650m-turnover housebuilder had decided to restructure the business in light of the covid crisis, with the firm cutting management in its south-west office and merging three north-west offices into two.

Beale said: “Due to the impact of covid-19 delaying our ambitious growth plans the Keepmoat Homes board took the decision to undertake a reorganisation of its operations in the North-west, the South-west and West Midlands areas to ensure that it is appropriately structured for the future. The reorganisation did unfortunately result in 27 redundancies.

“Keepmoat Homes remains fully committed to the continued delivery of all its present and future developments in the geographical areas where it currently operates.”

Beale said the new structure had positioned the firm to take full advantage of the  buoyant housing market.

Other firms to have cut jobs since the start of the pandemic include Bellway, Crest Nicholson, Wates and Ilke.

For more on the main findings from Housing Today’s housebuilder sentiment survey, see here, or for the full analysis see here.