In its full year results, the developer said it generated revenue up 40% to £4,811.7m (2020: £3,419.2m; 2019: £4,763m).

Total home completions increased by 36.8% to 17,243 (2020: 12,604), just 3.4% below the 17,856 total completions achieved in 2019.

Barratt said a strong cash generation with net cash at 30 June 2021 of £1,317.4m (30 June 2020: £308.2m; 30 June 2019: £765.7m) will enable its growth plans.

Build cost inflations is running at between 4% and 5% and expect to remain at this level for the year ahead.

The firm is also raising its offsite building targets. Having delivered 25% of its homes (4,393) using offsite component fabrication and other ‘modern’ methods of construction, compared to 21% in the previous year, it now plans to increase this to 30% by 2025.

David Thomas, chief executive of Barratt Developments PLC, said: “We have made excellent progress this year thanks to the resilience, flexibility and hard work of our employees, sub-contractors and suppliers, who have also continued to deliver the highest standards of quality and service. We have begun the new financial year in a strong position and, whilst there are still uncertainties ahead, our strong balance sheet, forward order book visibility and construction activity to date all stand us in good stead.

“There is very strong demand for houses across the country and we play a crucial role in providing the high quality and sustainable homes this country needs. As we work towards our medium term target of growing completions to 20,000 homes a year, we are committed to doing so as the leading national sustainable housebuilder - building homes which have a positive environmental, social and economic impact today and into the future.”

Andy Murphy, director of investment research firm Edison Group, commented: “The company has guided to FY22 volumes of 17,000-17,250 wholly owned completions, a 3% growth in outlets and build cost inflation of 4-5%, which implies modest growth for the year in our opinion. Barratt Developments trades on a price-to-book ratio of 1.45x to June ’21, which compares to Taylor Wimpey on 1.53x to December.”

Joshua Raymond, director at financial brokerage XTB, added: “Barratt Developments share price fell close to 2% on Thursday after the homebuilder reported a 65.1% jump in profit before tax of £812.2m for the year ending 30 June 2021. 

“This is a strong set of results for the period and shows clearly the firm benefited from the rebound in demand for homes from the pandemic. The somewhat muted share price reaction tells more of a story that these results had been priced into its shares already after the firm reported in July that yearly profits would be slightly higher than consensus.

“Shares have rallied more than 9% in the past six weeks. One thing to keep an eye on is net reservation rates, which has dipped 11.7% since the start of July compared to post lockdown at the start of the year, which may indicate a cooling of demand for the broader UK market.”