Recovery for house building firm - graduate jobs

Graduates who are looking to start a career in the construction industry will be pleased to know that house building firm Redrow has experienced encouraging trading through January, following a return to half-year profits.

Redrow boss Steve Morgan said that while it was too early to predict how the pivotal spring buying season would go, reservation numbers from the first six weeks of the year are "comfortably up" from the same period in 2010.

Mr Morgan founded Redrow in 1974 and returned to the firm two years ago following its worst ever set of results. The Wolverhampton Wanderers owner has helped to turn the company's fortunes around by moving away from the struggling first-time buyers market and focussing on building more family homes through its New Heritage Collection.

The strategy helped the Flintshire-based company make pre-tax profits of £8.5 million in the six months to the end of December, compared to a loss of £8.7 million a year ago.

The last time the company made a profit in the first half of its financial year was in 2007, before the credit crisis began.

Sales lifted 15% to £216.1 million as the average selling price of a Redrow home rose to £170,500, compared to £147,300 in the same period the previous year, an increase of 16%.