‘War worries people.’ Wates boss says conflict is damaging confidence and calls on government to kickstart housing sector with Help to Buy-style stimulus

The chief executive of Wates has admitted the ongoing war in the Middle East is undermining confidence in the industry and wider economy and called for the government to intervene and introduce a Help to Buy-stimulus to kickstart the housing sector.

Eoghan O’Lionaird was speaking as the firm posted a record turnover in its latest set of annual results and which saw profit rebound from2024’s figure of just over £2.5m.

He said the firm had enjoyed a good start to the year and was “quite optimistic” about workloads for the remainder of 2026.

But he said: “War worries people. It seems every time things seem to be perking up, something comes along. The sooner this [war] ends, the better.”

He said consumer confidence had taken a knock in the wake of the events in the Middle East. “[The conflict] is bad for the UK economy. People are taking another hit [on costs].”

He called on the government to introduce a Help to Buy-style stimulus for housing soon.

“They cannot ignore this,” he said, adding such a move would “give confidence to buyers, developers and builders. The longer the war persists, the greater the uncertainty and the challenges for the economy persist.”

Over 2,000 homes were under construction during the year, Wates said, with planning consent secured for more than 2,500 homes but O’Lionaird admitted “the market remains challenging”.

He said the firm had not seen any direct impacts with jobs being stalled or cancelled but added: “The storm needs to abate. It’s a question of confidence.”

The firm’s biggest business remains its construction arm which had turnover last year of £1.2bn.

Around £50m of this came from its new fit out business, headed by ISG’s former fit out boss Lee Phillips, and which was launched towards the end of 2024.

O’Lionaird said the division was close to wrapping up its first couple of jobs and added that he expected the business to eventually have a turnover of around £200m. “It has a pipeline of £1bn which is pretty good for a start-up.”

Turnover at Wates was up 7% to £2.6bn with pre-tax profit rebounding from £2.6m to £29m. Its year-end cash was a record £248m. “In this world today, it’s very good to have cash in the bank,” O’Lionaird added.

The firm’s order book stood at a record £10bn which includes several jobs for the Ministry of Justice on its New Prisons Programme.