Taylor Wimpey launched a share buyback programme yesterday worth up to £52.3m, under an agreement with Citigroup Global Markets Limited.

The housebuilder confirmed that the programme will run until 30 June 2026, with purchases of its 1p ordinary shares to be carried out on the London Stock Exchange.

Under the arrangement, Citigroup will act as riskless principal, handling the purchase and on-sale of shares to the company while making trading decisions independently of Taylor Wimpey. The total amount allocated to the programme is £52,330,000, excluding fees, expenses and stamp duty.

The company said the buyback is intended to reduce its share capital. Around 25 million of the shares acquired will be held in treasury, with the remainder cancelled.

The programme is being carried out under the share repurchase authority granted to Taylor Wimpey at its Annual General Meeting on 30 April 2025, which allows the company to buy back up to 354,006,117 shares.

The decision to introduce a share buyback programme follows the release of Taylor Wimpey’s full year results for 2025, which revealed a 54% fall in profits.

Group financial highlights:

Exceptional costs in the year, before tax and interest, totalled £243.8m: net cladding fire safety provision increase in the year (£225.8 million), and costs related to the voluntary agreement with the CMA (£18). 

Operational highlights:

·    Group completions (including JVs) of 11,229 (2024: 10,593)

·    UK home completions excluding joint ventures of 10,614 (2024: 9,972) including 2,220 affordable homes (2024: 2,178)

·    UK net private sales rate of 0.75 homes per outlet per week (2024: 0.75). Excluding bulk deals, the net private sales rate was 0.65 (2024: 0.67)

·    UK average selling price on private completions of £374k (2024: £356k) with overall average selling price of £335k (2024: £319k)

·    71 UK outlets opened in the year (2024: 55), up 29%. Operated from an average of 208 outlets (2024: 216), ending the year with a total of 219 outlets (31 December 2024: 213)

·    Updated Distribution Policy: overall distribution maintained at 7.5% of net assets per annum or at least £250 million, with 5.0% of net assets returned via ordinary dividend and 2.5% of net assets returned either by way of ordinary dividend or a share buyback

·    Taylor Wimpey announced a 2025 final dividend of 2.95 pence per share (totalling c.£105 million) subject to shareholder approval and share buyback of £52 million intended to be completed by the end of June 2026

Responsible and sustainable business:

·    The cladding fire safety provision is broadly unchanged from the half year, with the full year increase of £225.8 million (of which £222.2 million was in the first half) mainly driven by cavity barrier remediation behind brickwork and render

·    Rated five-star for customer service in the Home Builders Federation (HBF) survey with a customer service score of 4.24 under the new scoring system (current benchmark for five-star is 4.15)

·    Continue to lead the volume sector in quality with a Construction Quality Review (CQR) score of 4.96 (2024: 4.93)

Current trading and outlook

The Spring selling season has started well, with encouraging levels of customer interest, reflecting Taylor Wimpey’s locations, and focus on targeted marketing and high-quality lead generation. There continues to be good mortgage availability at competitive rates as lenders remain committed to the UK mortgage market. However, while affordability is improving, it remains difficult for first time buyers to access the market, particularly in the South of England.

Taylor Wimpey says it entered 2026 with a slightly lower order book compared to the previous year following a period of uncertainty for house buyers ahead of the Autumn Budget in the second half of 2025. As at 1 March 2026, its total order book excluding joint ventures was £2,182 million (2025 equivalent period: £2,283m), comprising 7,678 homes (2025 equivalent period: 8,097 homes).  

The year to date net private sales rate (w/e 1 March 2026) is 0.74 per outlet per week, (2025 equivalent period: 0.76). Excluding bulk deals the sales rate for the period is 0.73 (2025: 0.76). The cancellation rate is 14% (2025 equivalent period: 16%).

Taylor Wimpey says it set out its strategy for medium term growth with our Investor and Analyst Update in October, focused on delivering growth from our excellent landbank without the need for net land investment, cycling capital into smaller sites and freeing up working capital from larger sites to accelerate outlet-led growth.

The company states it is making good progress on outlet openings and are on site on all the outlets required to deliver its 2026 UK completions which they expect to be in the range of 10,600 to 11,000 excluding JVs. Reflecting the softer market conditions in the final quarter of 2025, the housebuilder expect 2026 performance to be more second half weighted with around 40% of completions in the first half.

As previously guided, Group adjusted operating profit margin for 2026 is expected to be lower than 2025, reflecting softer pricing in the order book coming into the year together with continued low single digit build cost inflation. Therefore, we expect 2026 adjusted operating profit to be around £400m. 

As they look to their medium term targets, Taylor Wimpey continue to drive the pipeline of new planning applications, benefiting from its quality strategic pipeline and the improving planning system. They add that they are on track to open more outlets in 2026 than in 2025 and continue to expect average outlets to increase year on year in 2026 and into the medium term. Newer land will help drive margin progress from 2027 onwards and they will continue to unlock value through what they describe as “operational excellence, protecting and maximising returns”.

Jennie Daly, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, commented: “We delivered a robust performance in 2025, with completions up 6% and results in line with guidance – testament to the hard work and commitment of our teams in delivering the Group’s strategy against a challenging market backdrop.

“The Spring selling season is progressing well, with encouraging levels of customer interest reflecting the quality of our sites and locations. We are also driving growth in outlets through improved planning outcomes and the consistent and proactive approach of our teams, which will support our growth ambitions. 

“Taylor Wimpey is a strong and agile business with highly experienced teams, and we are well positioned to generate value from our high-quality, well located landbank. Against a backdrop of continuing market uncertainty and more recent geopolitical events, we remain focussed on delivering our strategy set out at our recent Investor and Analyst event in October. This is progressing well and the actions we are taking give us confidence in our ability to deliver profitable growth and maximise shareholder returns over the medium term.”