Modular house-builder TopHat will be tripling its factory workforce this year, and next year it will open its second factory, creating even more skilled manufacturing jobs. The new factory will be unlike anything else in the UK, the company says, and will deliver 3,500 net zero carbon homes every year.

The award-winning business designs and engineers green homes. Formed in 2016 by Jordan Rosenhaus and Krishan Pattni, who wanted to revolutionise housing, TopHat operates from a factory in Derbyshire, employs 250 people and is a privately owned business.

At the heart of TopHat’s innovative approach is its technology platform which runs through design, supply chain and manufacturing, to delivery, ensuring a precision-engineered product. The TopHat platform enables high levels of flexible design variation inside and out without compromising efficiency. Homes can be rapidly deployed on-site and cause much less disruption to communities than traditional building sites.

TopHat homes are built from sustainable timber and innovative materials, such as its 3D-printed brick cladding. They have heat pumps as standard and high levels of insulation. As a result, the company says that owning a TopHat home for 60 years is equivalent to living car-free for 30 years and means that the running cost for hot water, heating and lighting should be around 90p a day.

The company has built 200 homes already and more are under way in Bristol, in partnership with BokLok the Skanska/IKEA business, and in Rugby.