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Did you know that 'The Marriage Act', which legalised same-sex marriage in England, Wales, and Scotland, came into effect in 2004? In June, we celebrate 'Pride', but in February, we also mark 'LGBT+ History Month', a significant occasion for learning about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) history. It's a time to reflect on the positive movements that have improved the community's rights and the work still to be done. On Monday, our LGBT+ Employee Network, ‘Open Door’, celebrated the month by hosting an 'LGBTea' webinar, open to members of the community and allies. The informal 'tea and chat session' delved into "claiming our past, celebrating our present and creating a brighter future". We discussed how we can make the business more inclusive for LGBT+ colleagues, sign-posted to the support we offer, and announced Tim Collins, our Group Corporate Affairs Director, as the Executive Sponsor for the network. We interviewed Tim to learn more about why it is important for the business to acknowledge LGBT+ History Month? Tim shared: “Although we now have laws to protect people, it has not been a long time since the opposite was true, and just knowing that will have an understandable impact not only on many of our LGBT+ colleagues, but also on our own family and friends. Having an appreciation of what others have been through can help us understand and empathise, both of which are vital as we create a workplace where everyone feels comfortable being themselves."
With the launch of Biodiversity Net Gain today, the Future Homes Hub spoke to industry leaders about the benefits of making homes for nature, the critical role homebuilders have in creating nature positive places and the need for greater collaboration across the sector. The Biodiversity Net Gain regulations mean that every new development will have to deliver a minimum 10% uplift in biodiversity. As the country’s leading national sustainable housebuilder, all of our new developments have been achieving this since January last year, a year ahead of legislation - creating great places for people to live and leaving our natural environment in a better state than it was before. #BiodiversityNetGain #BuildBackNature #BNG
Apprenticeship announcement 📢 In celebration of National Apprenticeship Week, we are proud to announce the opening of applications for our industry-leading apprenticeship programmes! We offer the unique opportunity to explore a smarter route to higher education and build your career from the ground up with a leading housebuilder by exploring our apprenticeship courses. Why choose a Barratt Developments Apprenticeship? ✅ Earn While You Learn: Gain a competitive salary while learning at college or university to gain a higher qualification. ✅ Real World Experience: Work on real sites or projects alongside industry leading teams. ✅ Faster route to Constructing your Career: Launch your career efficiently with on-the-job training and mentorship, bypassing traditional routes and entering the working-world earlier. Explore your Options: 🛠 Trade Apprenticeship Programme: Master your craft as a Bricklayer or Site Carpenter through a combination of on-site training and college learning. 🎓 Degree Apprenticeship Programme: Choose from Construction, Technical and Commercial programmes that integrate practical 'on the job' experience with a university education. Gaining five-years of work experience, a fully-funded degree and no student debt. Ready to Build your Future? Visit the link below and click ‘Early Careers’ to learn more about our programmes, the eligibility requirements, and application details.
On the 10th January 30 delegates on our Spotlight Programme joined us in London for their ‘Full-Beam' half-year event. The day was insightful and collaborative, as delegates participated in various reflective activities and group discussions on difficult conversations, empowerment, and how to positively influence change. The Spotlight Programme aims to support our colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds in navigating our organisation successfully, as we recognise there can be differing challenges when outside of the majority. It also provides the opportunity to network and provide feedback, as we work towards better reflecting the communities in which we build. Employees self-nominate for the 12-month programme, which is run as both in-person and virtual sessions. These aim to equip the delegates with the opportunity for conversation, shared experiences, mentoring, coaching, and self-development. We continue to invest in our people through our support programmes and employee networks, such as Mosaic, which seeks to celebrate diversity in heritage, culture, race and religion, providing a space for colleagues to connect and share experiences. Like all our employee networks it is open to all and very welcoming of allies, who wish to support, learn and expand their understanding.
This week we joined government, business and finance leaders at the Net Zero Council, bringing a range of industries together to plot a shared pathway to net zero. As well as discussing the critical role for finance and how to decarbonise transport, our Chief Executive David Thomas spoke about the steps the homebuilding industry is taking to build zero carbon homes, as well as the need to tackle emissions from all buildings, from existing homes to non-residential buildings. The Future Homes Hub, of which David is chair, is supporting the Net Zero Council and working to bring government and the homebuilding industry together to develop one plan to build zero carbon homes and nature positive places at scale.
Site manager Sean O’Regan, from our Waldmers Wood development in Bury, has been named runner up in the Large Builder Category at the NHBC Pride in the Job Supreme Awards. The Pride in the Job awards are the ‘Oscars’ of the housebuilding industry, and our record underlines the high standard of work that our site teams deliver every day, building homes and places of the highest quality. Also gaining recognition at the awards was Dane Mumford for our East Midlands division, who was the East Regional Award Winner and also in the running for the Supreme Award. Last year our site managers won 96 individual Pride in the Job Quality Awards, meaning more of our site managers received awards than any other housebuilder for the nineteenth year in a row. Sean O’Regan said: “I’m chuffed to bits. This award isn’t just for me though, it’s for our whole team. They work incredibly hard building the best possible homes for our customers – suppliers, contractors and everyone in our team has played a part. "Whilst this is one of the highlights of my career, I just want to continue doing what I do as I absolutely love it, focusing on every little detail and running the site to the best of my ability.” Rhys Nicholson, MD of Barratt Manchester, said: “This is the ninth year in a row that someone from Barratt has been named either winner or runner-up at the Supreme Awards, underlining our commitment to quality, invest in our people and how much we value these awards.”
In the ever-changing world of housebuilding, we recognise that the role of a manager is both complex and continuously evolving, which is why, at Barratt Developments, we invest in the learning and development of our people. We are pleased to share our new Management Development Offer — a programme designed to equip all of our line managers with the skills and knowledge they need to effectively contribute to the success of our business. At the end of last year we launched the programme, focusing on self-awareness, practical management skills such as effective communication, team motivation, handling important conversations, and nurturing and mentoring a team. We are incredibly proud of this programme and are excited to welcome all our line managers to the Management Development Offer in the coming year. Feedback so far has included: “Absolutely fantastic course which has changed the way I think about certain aspects of management which I hope to now carry forward.” “This course was a great reminder to look inward and refresh your thinking.” “Very beneficial to meet others across the business and develop coaching skills.” If you are interested in working for a business that values about your learning and development click the link below to explore our job openings.
Are you considering your next career step after earning your degree? In your professional career, do you ASPIRE to: - Build communities? - Champion sustainability? - Innovate and drive enterprise? - Leave a lasting legacy? Join a FTSE 100 company that: - Leads the industry - Invests in your learning and development - Values the opinions, well-being and contributions of its people - Offers award-winning financial and non-financial benefits - Fosters an inclusive and diverse culture - Provides a stable career in a growing industry Regardless of your degree background, we invite you to apply to our ASPIRE Graduate Programme. Click the link below to submit your application and take the first step towards a career constructed with opportunities. #ASPIREGraduateProgramme #GraduateProgramme #CareerOpportunity
We continue to be the country’s leading national sustainable housebuilder. This was underlined by the NextGeneration benchmark, where we have again been ranked as the leading national sustainable housebuilder, and second on the list overall, scoring 85% across over 60 criteria covering the full ESG spectrum. NextGeneration is the only sustainable housing benchmark used by the majority of UK housebuilders to assess their sustainability performance. On top of our Gold Award for scoring so highly (for the 8th year in a row) we also won the Crystal Award for transparency (for the 4th time) and the Innovation Award (for the 3rd time) for our Energy House 2.0 project. Whilst we are really proud of these awards we recognise we still have a lot more work to do to achieve our wider sustainability goals – delivering zero carbon homes to all our customers from 2030 and becoming a net zero business by 2040.
It was a pleasure to host Angela Rayner at our Winnycroft development in Gloucester this week. The Labour Deputy Leader and Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities joined Alex McIntyre, the local Labour candidate for the next election, to see the new high quality, sustainable homes being built, meet the team and chat with one of our first time buyers. As well as highly efficient homes, the development will include 400 new trees and 3,100 new hedgerow shrubs, plus hedgehog highways, swift bricks and bat boxes. A new community building, two sports pitches, play areas, allotments and an orchard will all help the new community take shape. Barratt Bristol Managing Director, Robert Hart, said: “It was great for Angela and Alex to meet the team, most of whom live close to the site, and see first-hand our commitment to building high quality new homes. “Most of our sales have been to local NHS workers, using our Key Worker Deposit Contribution Scheme, and we are really looking forward to seeing the new community at Winnycroft grow over the coming years.”
