EDITOR’S COMMENT Male, pale and privileged. That, unfortunately, remains the most truthful description of the real estate sector, and it breaks my heart to write it. Especially when, only last week, I took to the stage at the EG Awards and delivered a clarion call for this industry to show off how brilliant it is, how much good it delivers, how open and full of talent it is.
With 50 businesses taking part, and almost 800 individuals, Real Estate Balance’s survey should give us an accurate picture of our market. And if it does, it is really depressing. No matter how you try to dress it up, the results show us that nothing has really moved.
We have fewer women in senior roles, and we’re failing to develop and promote women, despite there being plenty coming into the sector. Is it women failing to push themselves? Maybe. A CBRE survey earlier this year revealed a touch of that among Millennials and Gen Z. Or is it good old nepotism and unconscious bias rearing their ugly heads, enabling like to recruit like, time after time?
I wonder if we have gone backwards on gender because the sector has got distracted by other elements of diversity. If we are an industry run largely by men, are we actually able to multi-task and tackle all aspects of diversity? I’m being facetious and playing to a stereotype, but there is a serious question here. Has our industry got caught up in trying to fix diversity and inclusion all at once and, in trying to do so, found itself standing still?
We should have moved further on gender diversity. For the percentage of women in senior positions to have fallen from 32% in 2016 to 25% in 2024 just isn’t right. Not if the percentage of women in qualified and graduate positions is nudging close to 50%. There is a pool to fish in. The women are out there.
But have we got distracted when it comes to gender equality by neurodiversity and by mental health, etc? Not to say that those things are not important, but should we as businesses, as employers, as the creators of places, be more focused on gender, ethnicity and social mobility? Those are the big problems every sector faces, not just ours.
On a national scale, real estate is actually pretty good on ethnic diversity, if you look at the headline figures in Real Estate Balance’s survey. Dig a little deeper, however, and we are woefully behind. The majority of respondents taking part in the survey are London-based. Compare the sector’s ethnicity levels with London’s and we are 9% Asian against a 20% London average and 5% Black against a London average of 14%.
Add into that how privileged the sector is – more than one quarter attended a fee-paying school, compared with a national average of 7% – and it’s not hard to see where we need to concentrate if we want to move forward.
If we can get those things right, then perhaps the rest follows. If we bring more gender and ethnic diversity and a broader range of backgrounds into the sector, then among that deeper pool we will bring in neurodiversity, we will have a better understanding of mental health and wellbeing, and of how to manage a working environment to build resilience and deliver flexibility.
The big question, particularly after such poor progress, is how.
One of the biggest levers the industry and individual respondents to the survey think they have is incentivising inclusivity. Bring diversity into your business or place, be inclusive, get a financial reward. It sounds very property, doesn’t it? But does it sound right?
I’m sure it would lead to change. It seems to be working in sustainability. But as I said in my clarion call at EG’s 20th awards, this industry is better than that.
What this industry does every day impacts on every single person on this planet. And if it sees that in what it does, then it needs to reflect that in who it is. An incentive won’t bring that about. Being proud, caring and wanting to be better will.
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