Good morning, everyone. Shall we, as it's 9:00 A.M., shall we make a start? Thank you for joining Andrew and me today. I've had the positivity of the support from my chairman, which was. It's a good start. Your share price is up 10%. Don't say anything anymore. Thank you, Roger. 2025 delivered double-digit growth across the business, building on and accelerating the recovery that began in 2024. We're building a stronger business for further growth. More customers are choosing our well-built, affordably priced, and attractively located homes. We've again grown completions, ASP, sales rate excluding bulk, returns, and profit. Our forward order book and land bank are both up year-on-year. While our exposure to cladding is reduced.
Our strategy of carefully choosing where to build, what to build, and how to build is being successfully executed across the business. As you can see, is delivering strong results. I want to thank my brilliant colleagues at Persimmon for these results, especially so recognizing that the market remains challenging. When I stood up in front of you last year, the concern was Trump's tariffs. Now it's the uncertainty from the conflict in Iran, and I'll say more on this later, but we are getting used to managing uncertainty. Now let me return to our strategy. Self-help is driving growth, and disciplined investment is reinforcing our growth trajectory. This growth is now translating into tangible returns, and it's giving us confidence in our medium-term targets, which you'll see is a very clear theme of today's results.
I'll now talk some more about our disciplined investment in our clear five-point strategy, which in turn will drive further growth in the future. This is a slide you've seen before. It summarizes where we're allocating our capital across the business while also striving to maintain a robust and well-supported balance sheet. Since I joined Persimmon, we've taken some tough decisions to reposition the business that has allowed us to invest in our land, our brand, our factories, and our quality in order to drive a new phase of growth, and this strategy is delivering. Once again, thanks to disciplined investment, we've grown both our high-quality land bank and our outlet base. We've continued to invest in our brands, sharpening their position in their respective markets, and this is delivering some impressive results. We delivered a step change in completions without compromising on our hard-won quality and service improvements.
We've also delivered a step change in the output from our factories as a result of focused investment in innovation and our production capabilities. Our investment program and shareholder returns are supported by a disciplined capital structure. We remain prudently geared after land creditors with a balance sheet that provides strength and flexibility through the cycle. In the coming years, as the group works through the fire safety remediation program, cash generation will improve, giving us more options in terms of investment and return, returns to shareholders. The combination of a clear strategy and a relentless focus on its delivery and execution by our excellent teams is securing our growth and returns. Let me turn now to the key growth fundamentals in 2025. As you can see, we delivered a strong performance last year.
Our underlying PBT was up 13% to GBP 446 million, and our underlying EPS is up by 9% to 100.7p Outlets at December 31 were 277, up by 3%. Our sales rate was up 0.7, and excluding bulk was 0.59, up 4%. The growth in outlets and our sales rate drove completions up 12% to 11,905. Within that, we delivered 1,758 bulk completions, up 21% year-over-year. I'm delighted we retained our five-star status for the 4th consecutive year. Our owned and controlled land bank grew by 3% to almost 85,000 plots. Our total forward order book is up 6% to GBP 1.8 billion, with our private book up 9%.
Andrew will now take you through the results in more detail.
Okay. Thank you, Dean. Morning, everyone. I'm really pleased to report excellent results for 2025. We've delivered strong growth in both volumes and profits against a challenging market backdrop, and this builds on the growth that we delivered in 2024. New home completions were up 12%. Our blended average selling price increased 4%, and this drove housing revenue up 16% to over GBP 3.3 billion. Gross profit up 13% to GBP 656 million. Gross margin was lower 19.8%. This reflects the mix of products and that included more affordable and Build to Rent, as well as the impacts of historical embedded inflation. Underlying operating profit increased 17% to GBP 472 million. I'm particularly pleased to say that's a 200 basis point increase in margin to 14.3%.
This demonstrates our overhead control and efficiency and why we are so focused on volume growth as one lever to deliver increasing margins. Underlying PBT is up 13%, and that's after an increase in interest costs because of lower cash balances and higher land creditors. Overall, this is strong quality earnings growth driven by our strategy. Remember that 2025 was our second year of growth. Across the last two years, we've added 20% to our volumes and 24% to PBT. I think that is really excellent. Our tax rate of 28% is close to the statutory 29%. 2024 did have a lower tax rate because of some one-off items, and that boosted last year's underlying EPS. Putting all this together, underlying EPS this year increased 9% to 100.7p.
We generated strong cash from operations, and really importantly, our return on capital employed increased 60 basis points to 11.7%. Again, that reflects improved profitability and continued balance sheet discipline. I'll now come to the detail of the sales mix and ASP. Of the total new homes delivered, 9,830 were private. That's 8% higher than last year. This reflects our strong sales rates and increased number of outlets. Our total sales per week, including bulk, increased to 188 units. Private completions included 1,758 bulk sales and that's 21% higher than last year as we continue to engage strategically with this sector. Reservations in the Build to Rent sector did slow in Q4, as you know, and we said this will make further growth in 2026 more difficult.
That is reflected in the current order book. Open market sales grew in both the Persimmon and the Charles Church brands. 32% of private sales were to first-time buyers, an important market for us and particularly important for our core Persimmon brand. As you know, we're very proud of our relaunched Charles Church products. Charles Church increased 16% in 2025, in line with our plans to double it over time. Partnerships output grew very strongly by 31% to over 2,000 units or 17% of total completions. Most of our affordable delivery is already signed up for 2026, and I'd expect a similar volume again this year. Let me reiterate, all elements of the business grew their volume in 2025, helping us to drive asset turn and drive return on equity.
The blended ASP on completions was up 4% with private ASP increased 5%, even allowing for the increase in bulk sales. There's three key factors. First, pricing has been robust, particularly in the North of England and Scotland. Second, we increased the proportion of Charles Church delivery, although the Persimmon ASP also increased even without Charles Church. Third, the pricing on our bulk sales has also been robust, reflecting our more strategic approach to this sector. Our brands are deliberately focused on the value end of their respective markets. With our Persimmon Homes average selling price still well below the new build national average and over half of completions below GBP 300,000. Let me now show you how that volume increase has driven up operating profit. Underlying operating profit is up 17%, which I'm very pleased with.
You can see the positive effect of increased volumes and increased average selling prices. Although, as I mentioned earlier, the increase in affordable and BTR products has lowered gross margin on a like-for-like basis. The movement in the cost line is small, and we're very focused on commercial disciplines and managing our costs closely. Net operating expenses increased by GBP 7 million, and that increased our overhead leverage, even with the ongoing investment into our capabilities for the future. We incurred net exceptional charges of GBP 45 million, and these exceptional charges are all items that you're already aware of. Changes to our building remediation costs, the settlement with the CMA, and the profit on disposal of FibreNest. I talked about FibreNest in detail in August. It was non-core, and its disposal increased choice for our customers and has freed up capital for us to reinvest into the business.
I'll now cover the remediation in more detail. Progress on building remediation work remains important. At the end of last year, we were the first house builder to sign up to the new Scottish remediation contract. At 31st of December, we were on site or completed at 77% of known developments. We've assessed all the known developments and 79% or over 90% of these are fully tendered. We expect to be on site at all the developments by the end of the year, and we continue to track ahead of the overall industry position. We continue to make progress, as you'd expect, and last year we performed about GBP 61 million worth of work, bringing our total work to date to around GBP 180 million. This remains complex work and there remains some cost risk on all these sites until they're completed.
That's why I've always said that the provision might be a bit lumpy as it comes down, and that's what we've seen. There were four new developments added to the total number in the period. The four new ones, each relatively small, and they relate to some reassessment of whether they are in or out of scope. For example, based on the 11 m threshold. Including the new developments, we added GBP 40 million to the provision. The closing provision of GBP 226 million is GBP 9 million lower than this time last year. We'll spend close to GBP 100 million in 2026, and the bulk of the remaining spend will be made over this year and next. Of course, we continue to pursue recoveries from the supply chain, and we had some success on this in 2025.
As we said before, progressing this work over the next two- years will then create capital allocation opportunities for us, especially given our strong balance sheet. Our balance sheet is a platform that allows us to invest in future growth. To add further to our growth opportunity, we've today announced an increase in our banking facilities with a two-years, GBP 250 million term loan and a GBP 50 million increase to our RCF, taking that to GBP 750 million. Thank you to our lending banks for their support. This extra facility will allow us to take full advantage of the land market at what we consider to be the right point in the cycle, and to invest in the work in progress needed to grow our outlet base and to drive more volume.
As a result of choosing to invest at this point in the cycle, we may have some gearing at the end of 2026. Of course, we will continue to manage the balance sheet prudently, keeping ample headroom at all times. In the table, you can see land and WIP has increased GBP 535 million. We've invested in more land than we've utilized, and we've also increased our work in progress to give us a stronger opening position coming into 2026. We held GBP 200 million of PX stock at the end of the year. This is an important sales tool for us and we are really focused on recycling this back into cash quickly. Land creditors are up GBP 200 million, reflecting the increased investment in land and showing that we can agree appropriate payment terms in the market.
Net cash is GBP 117 million, and together with land creditors, our adjusted gearing is about 14%. I would expect this adjusted gearing to be higher next year, up to around 20%. Our building safety provision stands at GBP 226 million, down in the period given the progress that we have made. Net assets are up 3% in the year, with net assets per share 31p higher than this time last year. As I said earlier, I'm pleased that return on average capital employed is 60 basis points higher than this time last year. This brings me on to our cash flow. This is the normal cash bridge, but it demonstrates some really important points about the quality of our business.
You can see our cash flow from operations was GBP 488 million, 16% more than last year. To grow the business and drive quality, we've invested GBP 208 million more in work in progress. That's infrastructure and build on new and existing sites. Other working capital movements of GBP 58 million includes the increase in PX that I referred to earlier. We spent GBP 109 million on interest and tax, GBP 38 million on capital expenditure, including on IT improvements and on our automated Space4 line. We had net inflow of GBP 65 million from acquisitions and disposals. Free cash generation before capital returns, remediation, and net investment into land was GBP 250 million. To the right-hand side of this is our capital allocation choice.
We prioritize our building remediation program, and we're paying a sustainable dividend. As we look to complete the remediation work over the next couple of years, that element of spending comes back into free cash flow. After remediation and dividends, we were pretty well cash neutral, and this shows that we are operating a sustainable business model. If we adopted a replenishment-only strategy on land, we'd have essentially maintained our cash position in the year at GBP 256 million. Given the return on capital we can achieve, we're looking to generate value through investing in more land. Our net investment into land was GBP 139 million, and we ended the year with a positive cash balance of GBP 117 million. I will now spend some time talking about our investment into land.
This chart shows you how our land activity has evolved in the last five years. We were very active in 2021, refilling the hopper after a period of underinvestment. The excess black line over the blue line on the graph shows how our build cost inflation took hold and our land activity reduced from mid-2022 until 2024 as a result. Since inflation has stabilized, we've reentered the land market to drive future growth. It's important, though, to remember that the high net inflation is still embedded in build costs and in margins on sites acquired in 2023 and before. Bear in mind that our average sites last four or five years from acquisition. As we said before, this embedded inflation will slow our margin progression until those sites unwind from the portfolio. I'll come back to that in a moment.
First, though, I'll go through what this investment means for our current land bank. Total plots owned and under control at nearly 85,000 is up nearly 3,000 in the year, and there are more proceeding to contract. The land bank is well spread across the country, and it provides confidence that we will achieve our ambition of growing to at least 300 outlets. The land cost to assumed revenue ratio remains low, but it has ticked up in the year. This is driven by more southern sites, fewer strategic land sites pulled through this year, and the acquisition of more serviced sites, which means we pay for the infrastructure in the land price rather than having to build it ourselves. Of course, that actually gives more certainty over future costs and margin. The most important point is that the land bank is high quality.
Within the land bank, 78% of plots have a site margin in excess of 25%, and the overall embedded site margin is 28%. This is slightly down on last year due to timing and the mix of strategic sites in the book. Importantly, the land bank supports our medium-term operating margin growth objectives, particularly as we start to reduce the effect of embedded inflation and further increase overhead leverage by growing volumes. You can see that about 75% of 2026 delivery is on sites encumbered with the inflation that I spoke about a moment ago, and still over 50% of delivery in 2027. This effect begins to reduce progressively from 2027, as you can see on the graph. That underpins our confidence in our medium-term margin targets. The structure of our capital allocation policy is unchanged, and it's proving successful.
We're maintaining a strong balance sheet while prioritizing dealing with our building safety remediation this year and next. Secondly, we're continuing to invest in the business to drive and deliver our organic growth objectives. There continues to be opportunity to drive shareholder value by investing in future growth, and by doing so in a disciplined way that is allowing us to also increase asset turn and drive return on equity. We are paying a sustainable dividend well covered by profits. Today, we've declared a final dividend at GBP 0.40, in line with last year's, bringing the full year dividend to GBP 0.60. We'll review this policy again, as we've said, as we deliver our growth plans and as we progress our building remediation works. To summarize, we are really proud of our performance in 2025.
Assuming that conditions remain stable, we expect to deliver growth again in 2026 to volumes of 12,000-12,500, ahead of previous guidance and with the H1, H2 split similar to 2025. Remember, 2025's completions included particularly strong growth in affordable and bulk sales. Our 2026 growth will be more dependent on open market sales, and so it does need a stable market environment. We talked about margin progression a lot in the summer, and the position remains the same. We're growing the margin, but the pace of progression will continue to be impacted by embedded inflation, as I've just shown, and potentially by external events, especially if the current conflict is prolonged. Overall, assuming we achieve the increase to volume guidance, I think that operating profit will be towards the upper end of current expectations.
We're also investing in future growth and in our land bank. As a result, we will have higher financing costs in 2026, but for the right reasons. Overall, I'm comfortable with how the range of 2026 PBT sits currently. Our guiding to lower net cash, as covered earlier, which means that adjusted gearing could be up to around 20%. The key message is that we will be delivering further PBT growth in 2026 on top of the 24% growth that we've already delivered in the last two- years. With that, I'll hand back to Dean.
Thanks, Andrew. Over the last three years, we've sought to navigate cyclical downturns and growing regulatory challenges while at the same time positioning Persimmon for growth. I believe we've emerged from this period a stronger, more agile business that's well positioned to seize future opportunities, and I think these results clearly demonstrate that. Let me first take you through how we've invested our capital to create a stronger business. Our disciplined investment in quality land is increasing our short term and strategic land banks with good embedded margins. When combined with our planning success, we're converting our land into more active sites. We're on track for 300 outlets over the course of the next couple of years, and with good visibility on site that are going to drive growth and margin improvement into the medium term. We've enhanced all three of our brands.
Each has a clear market position, a distinct customer proposition, and an efficient model of delivery. All three brands grew in 2025. As diversified and complementary brands, they'll drive further growth, unlocking new markets and serving new customers. I'm really pleased that we've not compromised our quality and service experience while delivering a step change in completions. This represents a real break from the past. The significant investment we've made in our factories is making a real difference to our delivery in terms of the increased output, efficiency, and quality. Our rollout of digital management systems across the group is also enhancing our control of build programs and cost efficiencies. As ever, our carefully managed balance sheet has allowed us to maintain disciplined investment at the right point in the cycle while also supporting returns to shareholders.
As Andrew has said, we've taken steps to ensure our balance sheet will continue to support future growth and shareholder returns. With those opportunities accelerating as we complete our building safety program. In short, our disciplined investment and self-help is building more routes to more markets to build more homes and drive returns. how and why is that going to happen? Firstly, our land bank and outlets are clear examples of how our strategy to combine investment and self-help are delivering results. We added over 16,000 plots to our land bank in 2025, and it now stands at nearly 85,000. We remain disciplined, and I'm pleased with the pricing we achieved as it will drive medium-term margin improvement. There was a noticeable increase in land opportunities in the year, and our improved reputation and balance sheet resilience allowed us to respond to opportunities nimbly.
A great site in Thetford became available because our improved reputation reassured a promoter who'd previously been skeptical about working with us. Tamworth is a large site in a great location that's going to allow multi-branded outlets for years to come. Rugeley is a service site bought from a competitor looking to sell. The opportunities are there, and alongside our focused approach to planning, we're converting land into active sites. We grew outlets against industry decline, and we plan to open more than 100 this year and remain on track to achieve 300 outlets over the course of the next two years. Nearly 13,000 plots received detailed approval, 108% of our completions. I said at the half year that we treat an application like a political campaign. Hull Road, York is a good example of this.
First submitted in 2025 to 2015, excuse me, the scheme stalled for many years. Anticipating the change in administration in York, we built a relationship with the incoming Labour leadership two years ago to understand their priorities. We then navigated the active local plan process with excellent planning and design, achieving detailed consent last year. It's a good site with views of York Minster that we've already started on. We've also nimbly responded to government policy. We've identified 68 potential accelerator sites and prioritized 43 for detailed work. We expect to submit 25 of these by the end of the month. We also submitted two sites to the government's revised New Homes Accelerator to unblock sites that have stalled.
This is a relentless task for us, group and local teams working together to get excellent applications in and then drive them through the system, navigating the politics where necessary to get started on site. It's helping drive growth now and build a stronger business. Our investment in our strategic land bank is an important part of a stronger business and I want to spend a little time on this. Clearly, our strategic land bank remains a key source of strength in terms of value and volume. 47% of last year's completions came from strategic land. With margins typically 300-500 basis points higher than open market land, investing in strategic land is another example of us strengthening our business for future growth. By adding around 10,000 plots across 30 sites during the year, we now have some 77,000 plots.
As the pie chart shows, our strategic land bank is well spread geographically. I'm also pleased with the pricing we secured. It supports our medium-term margin ambitions. We're working on progressing the land bank. We expect to achieve planning on half of it within five years. Because of our improved reputation, the increasing number of landowners and promoters who will work with us is now undoubtedly unlocking some excellent land opportunities. We acquired a Midlands-based land promoter. This has brought further talent and relationships into the business, complementing our growing existing team. It also presented some great new land opportunities that we're actively exploring. This includes large sites which will support our three-brand strategy, allowing multi-outlet developments, delivering more homes in complementary markets and securing returns faster. It's to our three brands I'll now turn. All three grew in 2025 and I'm delighted by that.
I'm also excited by the opportunity for future growth they present. All three brands have clear, compelling and distinctive positions in the market and we've enhanced each brand's customer proposition and the efficiency of their delivery. Persimmon remains our core brand and will always deliver the majority of our homes. It's renowned for its affordability and good value. We've enhanced its customer appeal with improved design, placemaking and marketing. We've enhanced its already strong build efficiency with further standardization, build program improvements and increased use of our own factory-made products. Charles Church has been particularly strong. Our relaunch of this value-oriented premium product has really resonated with customers. Our new house types and bespoke marketing are really appealing to an aspirational market and is broadening our access to new markets, whether customers or land opportunities.
By dual flagging sites, we're seeing improved sales as each brand serves a complementary market. We're also seeing a halo effect in some cases where customers are attracted to us by one brand and end up buying the other, another multi-brand benefit. Westbury also took a giant leap forward last year as the figures show. This is a B2B brand and is an increasingly trusted partner in this growing segment. Our improved reputation and national footprint makes us an increasingly attractive partner and our core Persimmon product is obviously well suited to BTR and RP needs. We've tailored some of our Persimmon house types to enhance the homes we offer these B2B customers further. This improves pricing and returns. Like Charles Church, we're delivering this through existing teams, further enhancing efficiency.
With these three brands complementing each other and opening new opportunities, we're building more routes to more markets to deliver more homes and growing returns. Just to bring this alive, I'd like to use an example next. Towcester near Northampton is a cracking dual flag site. Earlier phases sold really well. The new phases look set to do better with a step change in the new Charles Church offering. The pictures here demonstrate the appeal and quality of both Persimmon and Charles Church homes. The prices also show they're targeting distinct and complementary markets. The combination of the brands on the right side is delivering more customer interest and a halo effect. The recent launch at Towcester was one of the most successful we've had. The Charles Church phase also demonstrates how we're pushing ASP, including through upgraded specification.
What's pleasing is that we're more than seeing the cost of additional spec back in the margin. There are other sites that have been chosen. I visited Carmarthen a few weeks ago where we're seeing the same dynamics. The new Charles Church site launched at the end of January. In the first weekend, we took three early birds and two part exchanges. We also believe it helped sell four Persimmon homes down the hill. I'm really excited by this as Charles Church is clearly being taken to a new level of quality and service. Quality and service is absolutely embedded across the company, so I'll now turn to it in more detail. While delivering a significant increase in volume in 2025, there was no compromise in the highest standards we've secured in recent years.
Our progress on the Construction Quality Review score has been really pleasing and important. We saw a 3.5% improvement last year, and we've improved 31% since 2021. As I said, quality and customer service are now embedded in how we do business. We reset our build programs and that is improving both the quality of build and reducing our cost of reworks. With more regions moving to timber frame, we're building faster. We've expanded our team of independent quality controllers with more posts being added this year. We now use a suite of granular plot and site level data analytical tools to drive these efficiencies and improvements. I'm absolutely delighted we remained a five-star builder and we ended the year on 4.3 under the new methodology.
We continued to achieve our best ever Trustpilot scores for both Persimmon and Charles Church. We recently launched a customer care academy with the Institute of Customer Service to develop our customer service teams further. As I've said before, a reputation for consistent quality and service is crucial to winning more customers, new partners and new land opportunities. It's yet another platform for growth and getting it right first time clearly costs us less. Our factories are a key asset in achieving this, and it's to them and our vertical integration I'll now cover. Our factories and vertical integration are a real strength in ensuring quality and efficiency. Indeed, they're becoming a growing strength and I think essential to our future growth. All three factories significantly increased output last year.
Even with the installation of our state-of-the-art automated line, Space4 still delivered a 36% more output last year. With its new robotic roof truss line now operational, we're further expanding the range of quality products it's producing. Our brickworks line is operating 24/7 and delivered a 23% increase in output last year. To meet the growing demand, we're building a new line at the factory which will be operational from next year. Tile works saw a significant increase of 54% in its output. Again, there's growing demand and a third shift will be added this year. Our quality own made products are now the preferred choice across the group. Just as we're embracing technology in our factories and using granular data analysis across the group, we're actively exploring the role of AI in the priority focused areas.
The faster build times, enhanced site efficiency and fewer reworks could save around GBP 10,000 a plot by the end of the decade. My vision remains that within a few years for a large proportion of our houses, we'll be able to provide all of the main components of the superstructure from our own factories. Timber frame, roof truss, joist, brick or brick facade and tile, all Persimmon manufactured. The output and cost efficiency opportunities could deliver a step change in performance. Before concluding, we'll turn to current trading. As of the first of March, our forward order book is up 6% to GBP 1.8 billion, and our private forward order book is up 9% to GBP 1.25 billion.
In the first nine weeks of the year, we sold an average of 199 houses per week, up 11% on 2025, with a net sales per outlet per week of 0.73, which is 9% up on last year. Excluding bulk, we sold on average 167 houses per week, up 6% on last year with a net sales rate of 0.61. Pricing is robust with ASP up 5% overall and up 6% in the private forward order book. Incentives are running at around 5%. I think this represents a very good start to the year. To finish, I'll now turn to our outlook. We've taken some difficult decisions since I joined Persimmon, but I think the business has been well positioned and is now firing on all cylinders.
As I said at the beginning of my presentation, self-help is driving growth and disciplined investment is reinforcing our growth trajectory. There are, of course, uncertainties. Even before the events in the Middle East, the macro picture was mixed. While planning reform is supportive and should support further out openings, the reform's full impact is still yet to be felt. Mortgage availability has been improving and real wage growth alongside higher LTV lending has been improving affordability. Our mortgage qualification rates have improved despite wider mortgage approvals remaining subdued. Geopolitical uncertainty is clearly adding more risk. In the short term, the most important risk is any change to customer sentiment. But so far this year, sales have been strong. The longer the tension and conflict persists, the greater the risk to increase build cost inflation.
On both sales and build costs, we have helpful mitigations in place for 2026. Our plans for growth in private sales are not dependent on lower mortgage rates or a scheme like a new Help to Buy. Customers still want to get on with their lives and buy houses. We offer a range of very attractive products that are competitively priced, offering excellent value. Sales in the first weeks of the year have been strong, including in the last two weeks. Our HA and BTR partners have largely secured their funding for this year's planned delivery. We entered this year with improved forward build, and a significant proportion of this year's build program is already contracted. Alongside the significant proportion of key products provided by our own factories, this provides some assurance on cost. We've contacted all our main suppliers to understand how they are mitigating risk.
With fuel hedging, alternative shipping routes, and high stock levels already in place, there is short-term resilience. The risk clearly increased the longer the conflict goes on. We'll, of course, continue to closely monitor for any impacts and reduce risks where we can. As of today, current trading remains positive. Our book of private sales is building, and we have good visibility for 2026. Our forward order book is up with a value of private sales up 9% so far this year. Taking this together, if the impact of the conflict with Iran is short, we anticipate further growth this year to between 12 and 12.5 thousand units, and margin progression should be similar to last year's. The growth we're delivering is now translating into tangible returns and is giving us confidence in our medium-term targets. We undoubtedly have more opportunity ahead of us.
We're building more routes to more markets to deliver more homes and growing returns. Those are opportunities I'm excited by. Above all, I think Persimmon is in great shape and is a high-quality business. On that note, I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Start the fun, shall we?
Thanks. William Jones from Rothschild & Co Redburn. three please. The first is around margin guidance for 25. I think the gross margin dipped 50 basis points. The other operating income was up 40 basis points year-over-year.
Sorry, I can't hear you.
Just on margin for last year, gross margin dipped. I think the other operating income was up broadly by the same magnitude to offset. Just how you think about those two elements of the P&L this year, within the guidance for margins going up slightly. Second, just around build costs, if you can explore, I think you talked about muted so far this year. A bit more on that and also the cover you do have, particularly on building materials through the year at this stage. The last, just around growth, where clearly you continue to step up. It is the element of the medium-term target that's missing. Perhaps you could just talk about what you think the business is capable of on volume growth over time.
I suppose the extent to which you can kick on from 300 outlets is perhaps key to that. Thanks.
Do you want me to take those?
I'll do the second then.
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Morning, William Yeah, so gross margin it dipped a little bit, and as I said, that was partly we had more BTR, more affordable, and probably between those two, that's probably 20 or 30 basis points of the change. It's just because of you know, just when you play that through directly. You know, it will depend on mix, of course, as we go into 2026, but I'd expect, as I said earlier that more of the growth in 2026 will be on open market sales. Other income, I think last year we had GBP 21 million, the year before it was GBP 9 million. It wobbles around that GBP 10 million-GBP 20 million.
This sort of, you know, that was just, and that's just bits and pieces of, you know, business, small bits of land sales and bits and pieces of other things, but nothing significant. Overall, you know, I guess the key for me, William, is that operating margin grew in 2025, and we're looking to continue to progress operating margin, and we expect that to grow, as we said, at a similar rate in 2026.
Just coming on to what our thoughts are on build costs this year. I think that was your second question, right? If I can just broaden it out slightly, to income as well. This was a point that I was trying to make, just a moment ago. If we just run through the various categories of income first, I think RPs are in a good place.
We've got Ian and Liam with us this morning, so I may bring those in as well. They're certainly around for you to speak to afterwards. You've seen the strong growth we've seen in RPs this year. I certainly think that you know Ian's done tremendous work for us this year in building relationships and improving our reputation as we improve our build quality as well. I certainly think that's helping us in the RP market, and visibility for this year is pretty good. Likewise on investors, we don't have many investors who are PE funded. A lot of them are pension funded and they take a longer-term view.
Again, we think we've got good visibility with four out of our five major customers all having their funds secured for this year. That's also in a good place. Finally on private, clearly sentiment is key. Last week was our strongest week of the year so far. Just an interesting point of note. Clearly, none of us know what's going to happen. In terms of cost, I mean, we did a detailed exercise with all of our suppliers last week, and we found out some, you know, really quite interesting points. Clearly, the market, I think, has learned from its cost shocks and supply shocks in years gone by, and there's much more stockholding than there was maybe two or three years ago. Hedging is in place.
Some of our larger suppliers maybe have 70% of their book already hedged for this year. The other interesting thing for me at least was how many now are already avoiding the Red Sea, and that was driven by Gaza, actually. A lot of them avoid that area anyway. Clearly the situation changes and changes rapidly. This is helped by our build position. As we stand, as of today, we've got near enough 12,000 foundations dug, 9,500 slabs in place, and 5,000-5,500 roofs on. That's an awful lot of fuel and energy cost for this year already spent. Really this is an H2 issue.
We've done an exercise to consider what, how much of the build cost is driven by fuel and energy costs, and we're estimating it's around about 13%. Because of our build position for this year, we're thinking that's maybe around 5,000 EUs in the second half that will be impacted by cost inflation. That's a total cost for the remainder of the year to build of less than GBP 100 million. That's the amount that is exposed to for this year for build cost inflation. You get to the question of, well, how long do you think this is gonna last? If the impact is, say, two or three months, then the cost base that's exposed to it is maybe GBP 20 million-GBP 30 million.
It's the volatility on that that would impact profitability in our view this year. I mean, clearly unhelpful, but it's something we've got our arms around, and that's before we do anything to mitigate cost increases. We came into the year with low build cost inflation of around 2%. It's hard to say where that might grow. Obviously, it will increase during the course of the year. As I said, I think that we're in a really good place, relatively speaking. Now, in terms of growth, I think that there's demand and supply to this. I think our market positioning is good, and I think particularly, there's more opportunity across all of our brands. Our reputation is building, but we're not there yet.
Our delivery of Charles Church, I think did achieve a step change last year, and it's continuing into this year. By no means is all of our business yet realizing the full potential from that market segment. I think there's a real opportunity for there to go along with, along with the Westbury brand. I think there's a really good opportunity to see continuing growth, and we've got ambitions to see continuing growth. That's also why we're investing in the factory because to achieve another step change in growth over future years, we'll have to deliver more off-site manufacturing. We're giving you a cautious outlook for this year, but I think the medium-term opportunity is really good. I think the most.
Probably the most important slide for me is Andrew's bit, where he's shown that bar chart of margin progression effectively as land comes off. I mean, I think that really is a very visible indication of what the future looks like other things being equal. Shall we move to the lady here, please?
Morning. Allison Sun from Bank of America. Two questions from my side. First, can you comment a little bit on the sentiment in January and into February? 'Cause we know some of the peers are saying they have seen a sales improvement in February, and we don't know if you see the same thing as well. And the second is
Sorry, could you just repeat that? It must be age. I can't hear. Sentiment is what?
Sentiment has improved in February according to some of your peers, so I wonder if you see a similar pattern as well. The second is, I don't know if you can disclose what's the average outlet number as of now or in early March. Thank you.
Well, look, as you can see from the numbers, the position in the new year has been good and it's been building. You know, we're really pleased by that. When I looked at it yesterday, our operational outlet number was up year-over-year by about 15 compared to this time last year. That's how I look at it. You know, trust me, that will change when I go back to the office this afternoon because that's just life. We have an awful lot of outlets opening this year. Clearly it's key to get them open by the end of April, otherwise you're gonna miss the build year.
As we said in the deck somewhere, we have plans to continue growing another 100 odd outlets this year, which will drive growth into next. I think we're in a pretty good place in terms of outlets.
Ami Galla from Citi. A few questions from me. The first one was on underlying house prices. Can you comment on what you're seeing in the market today? One of your peers.
Underlying?
Underlying house prices.
House prices.
One of your peers commented on giving out discounts. Is there any impact at a site level that you are seeing from that dynamic? Connected to that, maybe on the mixed side of house prices, your order book private ASP is up significantly. Is that largely a reflection of lesser bulks in the order book, or should we take that as a view of how mix shifts?
Steps up in 2026. The last one is on Charles Church and the investment that you've been doing in the specs there. In 2025, the gross margin was down. Is that largely a good baseline to consider of all the investment that you've done on the Charles Church brand?
Well, we're not finding we've got to discount hard at the moment to get sales away. You know, ASPs are.
ASPs are pretty robust.
Pretty robust. I mean, clearly, we are trading, but we're trading in line with what we saw last year, but we're driving growth. Net-net, we're seeing an upward tick. In terms of book, well, I think we're also seeing a narrowing in.
Yes.
In discounts there as well at the moment.
The bulk ASP is actually up. I think it's about early engagement is driving, you know, better value because we're driving the right price by the right products in the right places drives the value.
I think, margins on Charles Church is just mix, isn't it?
Yeah, it's mix. I mean, you have to remember it's a relatively small population, 1,100 houses. There's mix, the geography mix, and just working through. So that because it's a relatively small pool, that by definition will be a little bit more lumpy just because, you know, individual sites will, you know, will have an individual impact, you know, make more of an impact to the overall margin. Chris.
Thank you. Chris Millington at Deutsche Bank. The first one is about your medium-term plans and the 20% ROCE. You know, good target relative to where you are today. If I break down the components of that and look at 20% margin, it implies no improvement really within your capital turnover from here, which does look somewhat cautious. I just wonder if you can comment on whether that is prudence or the level of investment. Do you want me to go one at a time, given that was quite a wordy one?
You want me to take that, Dean? Yeah. Look, the margin improvement target is key. You know, we've talked about the components in there before, whether it's mix with Charles Church, diversity integration coming through. Importantly, as we set out in the slide deck, volume growth and leverage and the embedded inflation starting to come through and, you know, if you like, the build cost normalizing in the book. That's gonna drive that margin progression. That's also, of course, with the inflation point, that's why we've always said if the margin growth is more back-end loaded because that has to unwind its way through the book. Then you're right, effectively, to get to 20% return on capital is a 1x asset turn. You know, is that cautious?
Well, you know, my view, you know, and you probably know me long enough, we'll get to 20%, and then we'll see where we go. Let's, you know, get to 20% first.
Next one's just bridging between the site margin and the gross margin. Can you just remind us how we get there? I'll do my third while I'm here. That's about where you are on capacity utilization within the manufacturing operations. Perhaps you can comment about that after you've made these investments, which are planned for 2026.
Yeah. The site's gross margin. The key thing is that is consistent, you know, the site margin is consistent year-over-year the way we talk about it. Below there's various things, whether that be sort of the central sales and marketing, some of the central commercial functions, of course, things like some of the maintenance and customer care and warranty costs and so on. There's a whole series of costs which sit below that site margin, but that is consistent year-over-year, which is the key thing.
Could you remind me of the quantum of the differential usually, Andrew?
Well, I mean, it varies, but typically you're probably looking at something, I mean about the sort of 5 percentage points is kind of where we're at. Yeah.
Just in terms of capacity, well, I mean, the investment we've already made in the timber frame factories will see a considerable step up in that. We imagine in the long term, we'll probably get to about 10,000 of frame delivery. That's a ways to go yet. The new line in the brick factory will again deliver a very considerable step change in performance. That will see us through, we think, in terms of demand this decade. It's quite low cost. You know, it's GBP 10 million-GBP 15 million worth of costs, and it's using, you know, the existing manufacturer that we have installed in there already.
It shouldn't interrupt deliveries this year, so we'll be with that next year.
Very helpful. Thanks.
Zaim Beekawa, J.P. Morgan. Thanks for taking my questions. The first is just on completions growth for this year. I think you said driven by the open market. Do we still expect Charles Church to maintain that impressive growth? Secondly, Dean, I think you touched upon it a bit in terms of the Lone Star land acquisition. A bit more flavor in terms of what that adds for you guys.
Sorry, what was that?
The Lone Star land acquisition.
Oh, Lone Star. Yeah.
Finally on the operating expense, I think that nudge down as a percentage of sales, kind of an area where you think that gets to in the coming years. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, there's a number of Charles Church outlets opening up again this year. Liam, is it your baby? Does somebody wanna give Liam a mic and he can talk lyrically about Charles Church?
There you go, sir.
Can you hear me?
Okay. Yes. In terms of this year, yes. We're really pleased actually. We've started the year really strongly with additional outlets already opening. Some of the ones that Dean referenced earlier, actually, it's great to get sort of three or four sites away in January.
Yeah, we do expect another year of solid growth actually. Too early to call some sort of exact numbers on that, but really pleased that we're sort of very well on track for our medium-term prospect, which Andrew outlined was to double the brand over the medium-term target. Yeah, really pleased.
I think it is also, you know, it's interesting connected to your question about Lone Star as well, because actually there are some sites that without an upgraded Charles Church, we would not be able to really be in and shout with. Lone Star's got a couple of those, particularly for instance, in the Cotswolds, where we're developing a new heritage range. You know, old Persimmon would not have made the planning bar for that. Yeah, it is reinforcing that. Lone Star, really pleased with the business. I mean, Ian's got the mic. Liam, you give Ian the mic, and he can talk about Lone Star if he likes.
Thanks, Dean. Yeah. You know, I think kind of Dean hit the nail on the head there. You know, we are looking at maximizing the addressable markets that we're in. You know, Lone Star gives us the ability to do that, to operate in areas where we don't currently operate. You know, areas of the Home Counties, you know, through the Cotswolds and into higher value areas that otherwise the existing business model as we operated previously wouldn't have been as successful. Introducing Charles Church there enables us not only to grow, but to deliver, you know, higher value and higher ASPs and just increase our addressable market. I think that's the benefit that Lone Star land has.
It also enables us to think about how we can bring new high quality land into the order book.
Okay, thanks, Ian. Just on the margin.
Yes, on the margin point. Yeah, so operating overheads reduced to 6.2% last year. I'd expect that to start to track down, and we'll get that below 6%. Then, you know, you've got to think there's opportunity for that to continue to fall from there because we're still delivering fewer houses than we did in 2022, albeit our cost base because to deliver the quality and the customer service and so on is clearly higher than it was previously. But I'd expect that to continue to fall this year and next year as well.
I think there's a question at the back which there's probably gonna be growing frustration if we don't go and answer.
Lovely. Thank you. Harry Goad, Berenberg. Can you talk a little bit about the land market, what you're seeing in terms of supply, demand dynamics? Are you seeing more land come available basically as a result of planning changes? What the implications for that are in terms of pricing? I appreciate you're gonna say you're hitting your hurdle rates, but are there opportunities out there where you're acquiring land now in excess of your hurdle rates as well? Thank you.
Yes, we are continuing to buy land, and it's thus achieving a return is better than our hurdle rate. Is more land coming to market? I don't know whether more land is coming to market because of planning reforms. There's more land available to us because of, I think, inactivity in with other developers. So it's very hard, I would say, for us to see through whether that is there more land coming to market. As we tried to be at pains to point out in the presentation, another factor that's going on is that we've just got more access to more partners than we previously would have done, because our placemaking framework has improved.
I can think of two or three land promoters that we dealt with last year that we would have never dealt with in the past or we have not dealt with for many, many, many years because they didn't like what we built. You know, it is an interesting feature, particularly among private landowners. Of course, the money they make from a sale is really, really important to them, but so is the legacy. Landowners will be really careful about that legacy 'cause they very often are continuing to live in the community where they owned and sold the land. I think that is helping us as well. I'm afraid I can't give you a clear answer. Direct line between is planning reform increasing the supply of available land.
I mean, I think we've yet to see that really come through. It will be interesting to see. We mentioned in the presentation that we're submitting. You know, we're working on 68 potential sites. 25 are going in this month. It'll be really interesting to see if that's pulling opportunity through. I would say we haven't, despite there being a lot of talk, we haven't really seen the benefit of that come through yet. But that is clearly an opportunity in the future. I think there's a whole host of reasons as to why, you know, we have stepped up land activity, and we're achieving the right returns and sometimes even in excess of what we need. And that is also helping us drive growth. Shall we come more forward?
There's a gentleman here and the lady there.
Thank you. Charlie Campbell f rom Stifel. Just two questions. I'll stick to planning. Last week, one of your peers said that they've seen a meaningful improvement in planning with,
Berenberg?
A meaningful improvement in planning. One of your peers last week, yeah, said that around 50% of applications were now positive, and I wonder if you're seeing the same trend. Second question, around 32% of private completions, I've seen that they were sold to first-time buyers. I wonder if affordability improves if you're expecting that percentage to change meaningfully. Thank you.
Just on the last one, I don't think that. Look, we've certainly seen over the course of a year, qualification rates go up. That has been very helpful for first-time buyers. If we go back two or three years, you know, I could go into one of the outside Southeast business and, you know, maybe less than one in four of the customers coming through the door would qualify for a mortgage. I would say that sort of really doubled, if not more, over the course of last year. Qualification's improved, and that is clearly helping first-time buyers. Clearly it depends on rates. I think it what we're seeing is a gradual improvement for first-time buyers, not a step change absent a stimulus of a Help to Buy or something like that.
I'm seeing a gradual change rather than a step change. Clearly more lending is helping, lending at higher LTVs. Up until very recently, we've seen a substantial increase in mortgage availability and at higher LTVs. That's all helping first-time buyers. Again, a whole host of things is going on. On planning, I mean, you know, we achieve detailed consent on more units than we completed on last year, so we've seen it improved. The planning and infrastructure bill is clearly going to be helpful. It's more developer friendly. It's more rules based, so that can only help the future. Has the system materially improved in our view over the last year? No. I don't think we have necessarily seen a material improvement in cut-through on the ground.
Our approach to it is cladding through and is getting results. You know, I think over the last 12 months, it's self-help that's driving planning success. There's still, I think, a bit of a disconnect between what central government wants to achieve and the myriad of councils that you're dealing with on the ground. If you get your relationships right and you get your placemaking right, then you will cut through and you will eventually get the ticket. I think as the planning bill becomes an act, that will also help us. The future is looking positive too. Shall we go to the lady here?
Hi, I'm Rebecca Parker from Goldman Sachs. Just given your comments on land and the opportunities that you're seeing there, how can we be thinking about, I guess, the right level of land to support growth? Are you expecting to again replace that over the replacement rate going into 2026? And then secondly, I guess further to first home buyers, there have been press reports of potentially a new Help to Buy scheme coming into place. Just wondered your thoughts on that and any discussions you're having with government.
Do you wanna do land and I'll do Help to Buy?
Yeah. You can see that we've grown the land bank. I think this is, you know, this part of the cycle that's important. It's giving us the opportunity to grow our outlets and to grow our volumes. You know, you've seen, you can see on the, on the slide there more routes to more markets for more homes. Actually, I think in the, in the market, which is improving, I think as Dean has said, but having those outlets, it's really helping to drive volume. That's why we think investing in land is the right thing to do. You know, clearly, if the Planning and Infrastructure Act has the desired effect, then in due course, then that will make things come through the planning system quicker.
I think as Dean has just outlined, we're not seeing that on the ground yet, and so we're still making sure that we've got enough in the hopper to drive that growth ourselves. That's clearly something that we look at all the time in terms of making sure we've got the right land in the right places, getting it in at the right hurdle rates, and so on and so on.
Just on Help to Buy, I mean, there has been a considerable step up in engagement on the subject of Help to Buy, particularly from Number 10 this year so far. Whether that translates into a scheme, I don't think any of us can say at the moment. As we've said, though, it's not our base case, we're not dependent on it, and you know, we're growing nicely without it. If it comes, we'll be in a good place to take full advantage of it.
Yes.
Lewis.
Clyde Lewis from Jefferies. Three, if I may. Firstly, in operational leverage, you very kindly break out how you get to your margin. The volume contribution is actually more substantial than I necessarily was expecting. We tended to be given a rule of thumb, every 100 units is about 10 basis points of margin. Maybe you can give us your view on how we should be thinking about your operational leverage. The second question is on your build work in progress. Again, how should we think about where that can go? Should we be thinking about it as work in progress to sales, work in progress per site? How much of that work in progress is on sites that aren't yet open for sale at this point? Lastly, another good chart.
Gonna talk about one that you didn't necessarily reference, but page 13, the land plots by site gross margin. If I look at it, the number of plots making over 30% in your land bank has come down quite markedly. The number of plots making less than 20% hasn't changed. In fact, actually looks like it's gone up slightly. It either means you were delivering from that 30% plus through the second half of the year, or it means there's cost inflation, or maybe it's about bulk sales. Can you just talk us through why those different columns have moved at different rates?
You wanna take that?
Okay. I think the rule of thumb that on the volume growth, Clyde, is probably. I think it's difficult to apply that base rule of thumb at the moment because of the embedded inflation, and therefore, the margin that we're still taking through on some of the sites is that's still impacting that. If you like, I think that rule of thumb is probably a more, you know, if you like, a more normalized scenario. Whereas as you can see, I mean, this year we're doing 75% of our delivery is on sites with high inflation. I don't think that read-through is quite there yet because of the inflation piece. Notwithstanding that volume and driving volume and then driving overhead leverage is clearly a key part of driving our operating margin through again.
You can see that on the overhead leverage that we talked about. The build WIP is interesting. Sorry, go on.
In mix. I'm assuming mix comes into site mix as well. It's really just the volume that I'm interested in.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm saying is, I think so the volume comes through from, you know, we've grown 12% on volume, and that's driving. Like for like, so the same mix, same ASP, that would drive that through. Within the ASP and mix, that includes then the movement into more Build to Rent and more HA. Don't forget within that, within the overall volume, you have 31% increase in affordable product, 21% increase in Build to Rent. So that's all mopped up within the mix and the ASP bar. In terms of build WIP, we came into the year with more EUs built than we did come into 2025. In other words, we were building more in 2025 ready for 2026's delivery. That puts us in a better place.
Dean's outlined that, you know, we've got virtually all the foundations dug. You know, we've got, you know, half of our roofs already on. So that is ahead of where we would normally have been. It's important, you know. You know, yes, it means I've got more WIP on the balance sheet, but it's important from a quality perspective. It's important for driving sales. I think particularly in Charles Church, actually customers having product to see helps us drive sales and get value through sales. I think when you look at our WIP term, it's still pretty good in terms of, you know, I think we're still probably turning it twice, you know, through. So I think, yeah, I'm comfortable that we're building and we're investing WIP to drive growth, and that's the right thing to do.
Some of that is on new sites. Of course it is. I don't have that number to hand, guys. But I think typically what we're finding is probably within, you know, some of the sites we've got with whether it be infrastructure spend or whether it be, you know, Section 106 contributions. You know, the cost to open new outlets is cash consumptive. That is part of that. You know, growing outlets is utilizing working capital is part of the reason that we've increased our facilities to give us that extra firepower to make sure that we can continue to grow the business. The graph on slide 13.
That clearly is a, you know, it's looking prospectively, and it's looking based on anticipated revenues and anticipated cost base. The revenues then include, as you say, mix as to whether there's different, you know, Build to Rent mix and so on in there. That is a bottom-up analysis done based on the assumption site by site is the way that we pull that analysis together. I think the key thing for me is, you know, that the number on the left-hand side there that, you know, nearly 80% of that is above 25%. If I was to split that third bar from the left, so the tallest bar, that is more biased to over 25% than it is to under 25%.
Thanks. Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. I've got two also. The first one's back on that chart, unfortunately, on slide 13. Just, there's a note in there that says it's based on normalized output levels. Can you remind us what you mean by that? Is that an outlet number for the group? Is that a sales rate assumption for those sites and therefore for the group? And when you're buying new land, are you buying the hurdle rates based on those normalized levels or on the sales rate that you're currently seeing?
Yeah. That you can see in the note, it talks about the assumed revenues, which clearly is part of that, and that, and the mix comes in. Mix comes into that as well. That's the assumed and the normalized output on those sites. What we'd expect to be driving through. That's not, you know, it's not doing some heavy discount to try to drive, you know, reducing revenues to try to drive additional margin. It's just based on our normal sales run rates. That's all.
When we look to buy sites, when we look at our financial metrics, you know, we're looking at hurdle rates, we're looking at return on capital, and we're looking at sales rates as part of that, and we would test those sales rates based on what we're achieving in the locality. You know, we look at those compared to what we see in the local market. It's all done on a kind of local site-by-site basis. Clearly, those sales rates are based on what we expect that we can achieve.
Thank you. The second one is on, I think, Dean, in your bit, you mentioned a couple of times routes to market and-
Sorry, just routes.
You've mentioned routes to market and how you've expanded those over the last couple of years. Do you have ambitions to go further on that, either above or below where your current routes to markets sit?
I think that these three segments that we've got, and the four types of customer we've got within those segments give us plenty of scope. I think the brands are right. I think for now, certainly the job we have to do is fully exploit each niche, 'cause I don't think we fully exploited that yet. I'm, you know, I think we're in a good place to further expand in each of those market segments as we build more relationships within the existing group and as the group's skill, the collective skill across the group, steps up because as I hinted at earlier, not all companies in the group yet are building like a Towcester or a Carmarthen. In fact, the majority aren't.
I think that's an exciting opportunity. Clearly you've got to get the market right. There's no point building a Towcester in, you know, Leominster. But there's still plenty of opportunity to get it right, and that gives us opportunity.
Peter Ajose-Adeogun from Morgan Stanley. Just two questions. The first was just around build cost inflation. You talked about the material side and what you're doing with suppliers to keep that down. Maybe if you could just give a bit more color on the labor side, what the trades look like. I know the average age for a bricklayer is still over 55, so just kind of long-term, just in terms of how that looks today and then going forward. The second question was just around you talked about the profile of how land was acquired and what that means for build cost inflation.
Maybe just on the other side, I don't know if this is a benefit if you could clarify, but around delays to certain regulations like Future Homes Standard, where the land was acquired with those standards in mind, is there any sort of benefit to that? If not, why doesn't that benefit flow through in the same way?
Do you wanna answer?
Yeah. Should I take those? Well, let me take the second one first, Peter. You're right. On sites where we have assumed a building regulation which is delayed, then there may be some benefit. You've got to also remember, there are lots of sites where, we have seen regulations early adopted. I mean, we've got a site where the local authority, and I'm going back now probably a couple of years. In fact, it's the first site I went to on my first day with Persimmon. The local authority declared a climate crisis and early adopted Future Homes Standard in a way which was not anticipated when that site was acquired. You kind of got to take the rough with the smooth.
There are examples of councils, you know, early adopting, as well as there are examples where some regulations have moved backwards. You know, and then there is other, you know, regulatory costs. I mean, just in November, your Landfill Tax doubled. You know, as you know, that's gonna increase significantly year on year going forward. I think, you know, I would just be careful to hang too much on regulatory costs going down because I think probably across the piece in the sector, that's probably not what we have seen. But of course, there's a whole myriad of moving parts.
In terms of build cost inflation, so what we've seen, I mean, if you kind of go back 10 days, you know, pre the Middle East change, you know, I think what we were saying and what we've seen is stable inflation. That's, you know, the low single digit that we saw last year, and that was really across materials and the supply chain, subcontractors as well. You know, at the moment, we've not seen any impact as Dean has talked to in some detail from the Middle East conflict, but of course, we monitor that very carefully. I think you raise a good point around aging workforce. I mean, it's not a 2026 issue.
Into the longer term, it's an important point. I suppose a couple of things that come to mind from a Persimmon perspective. First, we are investing more into apprenticeships ourselves and into training and development. Clearly, that takes some time to come through, but that's one important aspect. I also think that the vertical integration and looking at modern methods of construction, more timber frame, panelized systems, in due course doing facade products, all of these are options to reduce the amount of skilled labor on site because you're taking some of that manufacturing back into a factory environment and then doing the on-site assembly. It means that you can, all things being equal, deliver more houses with the same number of people on site or the same number of houses with fewer people.
Into the medium term, I think these investments in modern methods of construction are an important part of the solution, as is investing in, you know, early careers and bringing people through at the apprenticeship level. I don't know. Dean, is there anything else or?
No, I think that was good.
Thank you.
Well, I think if that's all our questions, thank you for listening to us today. If I can leave you with a final thought, I think Persimmon's in a really good shape. I think the brands have really come on, and I think they've got great potential. I think their positioning is in each of their markets really good. I think with the improvement in placemaking and the appearance and the quality that we're delivering, then that helps us grow. Our land banks are strong, our strategic land is growing. You've seen that when you buy land at the right price, then that will drive margin improvement.
Of course, with cladding, you know, 90% secure in terms of what we know today, that does and will give us capital allocation opportunities going forward. I think we're in a really good place, and we look forward to telling you more about it in the future. Thank you.