One in five homes made by Britain's biggest builder are to be partly assembled in factories.

The homes can be built quicker, create less waste and are cheaper to produce, Barratt Developments claimed yesterday.

It is the latest developer to ramp up its use of prefabricated homes, which experts say could herald a revolution in house building.

Innovation: Modular homes like this model from ilke Homes can be built quicker, create less waste and are cheaper to produce

A typical three-bedroom home takes up to 40 weeks to build at a cost of around £120,000, industry figures suggest. But that time frame could be cut to just ten days – and slash the price – if it is built in sections in a factory and then assembled on site.

Barratt's plans involve mass producing parts in a factory, such as timber or steel frames, roofs, walls and even garages, and then transporting these to the building site.

These construction methods, it said, will be used to build 20 per cent of its homes a year by 2020 – or about 3,500 properties. It has designed a new range of homes for this purpose.

The company added: 'We continue to roll these ranges out across the business, providing us with the flexibility to replan sites to suit market conditions and meet consumer demands should the need arise.'

Last year Barratt said 1,700 homes were constructed using ready-made timber frames. Around 140 used similarly produced steel frames, 100 using wall blocks and about 1,400 using ready-made roofs. At the moment, only some sections of a typical development are built this way. Barratt, which is rated a 'five-star' builder, said the method does not impact the quality of its homes.

A spokesman said: 'This helps us to increase productivity through increased speed of build, as well as reducing pressures on skilled trades and materials. It also helps to reduce waste.

'In 2018 we constructed 19 per cent of our homes that way, so are well on track to hit our target.'

Barratt, which reported a record £836m annual profit in 2018, yesterday said the factory-made homes would help it keep costs down and deliver results 'above the board's previous expectations' this year.

More modern methods of building houses are also seen as vital if developers are to hit the Government's target of building 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s.

To reach this figure without the technology, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) this week warned builders would need to hire nearly 195,000 more workers. However, with a much bigger take-up of prefab housing, it said this could be reduced to 158,000.

This would involve half of all homes being built using at least some factory-made pieces. However, at the moment, just 6pc of homes are built this way, the CITB said.