Analysis by proptech provider Reapit is seeing agents across the UK turning to AI and automation in an effort to combat a skills shortage in the industry.
The company’s inaugural Property Outlook Report 2025 reveals that most agencies are struggling to recruit and that the number of payrolled people working in real estate is growing at its slowest pace since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the highest unemployment rate since May 202.
It has found that more than half of the agencies that were hiring were receiving fewer than five qualified applicants per vacancy.
According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the number of UK payrolled real estate employees grew by just 1% between July 2024 and July 2025. This is the weakest year-on-year increase since May 2021, when payrolled employee growth stood at 0.9% amid the global pandemic.
As a consequence, where agencies are struggling to find the right people for their job opportunities, they are increasingly turning to proptech, automation and AI to improve efficiency, says the report. Over 50% of those surveyed reported increased use of time-saving technology, while nearly 80% believe it’s cheaper to invest in automation than to increase headcount. A further 69% say it’s also more productive.
Dr Neil Cobbold, commercial director at Reapit UKI, explained: “As we see today with Reapit’s existing embedded AI, agencies aren’t using it to replace employees but to assist, helping them prioritise the key parts of the job that need the human touch.”
Of those surveyed, one-third said that proptech is central to their businesses’ drive for greater profitability, more so than cutting costs or raising fees. In all, while the majority were currently neutral, some 41.5% of respondent thought AI would be a net positive and only 2.7% said it would have a negative impact on their roles over the next five years.
Reapit says this marks a “cultural shift” in how technology is valued across the sector as it continues to develop autonomous, self-learning AI agents designed to support specific tasks and processes within a business and the wider industry. These AI agent will serve as continuously learning “digital companions to real-life estate agents”, it says, continuously learning but leaving property professionals in control.
The report also highlights a generational shift. While 76% of agents plan to stay in the sector for five years or more, a significant number either intend to leave the sector or retire, and agencies will need to replace not just people, but decades of operational knowledge, and the complexities of laws and regulations such as the Renters’ Rights Bill, money-laundering and EPC requirements. Agents can very effectively use AI and automation to free up time to focus on addressing new compliance requirements, says the Reapit report.
Cobbold commented: “While the nature of the current skills scarcity will become clearer over time, it is clear that agencies are still prioritising growth, and new hires are a vital part of the equation. Our report shows that many of them are embracing tech and AI to stay productive and profitable.
“It’s clear that automation and AI are no longer luxuries but strategic necessities to grow an estate or letting agency. We will only see this cultural shift towards faster adoption of proptech accelerate as technology improves. Both employers and the workforce would do well to embrace the new wave of AI and automation-enablement.”
