our work in the community

We are committed to enabling more sustainable communities by raising educational aspirations, improving skills and creating employment.

In addition to recruiting more than 60% of unskilled labour locally, Wates and its delivery partners will create more than 100 apprenticeships, provide 750 work placements each year, deliver two Prince’s Trust ‘Get into Construction’ schemes and support the new National Skills Academy for Construction. These activities will help make a lasting difference to the skills and employment prospects of local people.

Social enterprises are an excellent vehicle for delivering lasting economic and social benefits to communities. In 2010, we partnered with 36 social enterprise organisations over 56 of our projects with a contract value of more than £600,000.

Our employees constantly contribute to communities and in 2010 more than 12,000 man-hours were donated across 94 projects on Wates annual Community Day. In addition we have raised more than £150,000 over the last two years with our charity partner for the term, Shelter. In recognition of our community work and charitable giving, Wates received a special ‘Giving Something Back Award’ as part of the 2010 Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For index.