The increases came against a backdrop of public spending cuts and Wates is looking to boost its headcount to fuel its expansion plans throughout 2011.
The contractor had a year-end cash balance of £169.2m and a forward order book of £2bn.
Chairman and chief executive Paul Drechsler said: “I am particularly pleased to report a year-end balance sheet that is one of the strongest in the industry, a forward order book of £2bn and a total pipeline of new business opportunities worth £4.1bn.
“To help deliver our ambitious growth strategy, we expect to hire around 300 new people in 2011.
“2010 was a challenging year with the UK economy still in recovery. However, through close collaboration between our clients, our supply chain partners and our people, we have been able to create value by delivering high-quality projects, winning a strong forward order book and engineering cost efficiencies.
“We have achieved a strong set of results while maintaining our market share and competitive margins.
“Economic factors, including a decrease in public sector funding, coupled with our commitment to deliver even more responsible value for customers mean we must continue to innovate across our entire business model.
“In this respect, our established key strategic programmes – safety excellence, operational excellence, supply chain management, marketing, people and CSR – have provided a robust framework for delivering progress.
“Our focus is on accelerating these improvements and we enter 2011 with confidence that we will build upon our results.
“We thank our customers for their continuing loyalty and fully acknowledge the contribution of our supply chain partners and professional service providers whose commitment to delivery helped us to achieve these results.”