The UK real estate sector may be seeing movement on a long-standing gender leadership gap, with new data suggesting improvement at the highest levels of management.
Figures released by executive search firm Madison Lincoln show that 33% of its senior, C-suite and board-level placements in the past year have been women – well ahead of industry benchmarks.
While women account for 71% of entry-level roles in UK real estate, their representation drops to 42% at board level and has traditionally remained below 30% for top roles. Industry figures from Deloitte show female senior leadership in real estate rose from 22% in 2016 to just 26.2% in 2022, with C-suite representation at approximately 14.5%.
Tom McNally, managing director of Madison Lincoln, said: “Progress doesn’t happen by chance. It requires embedding diversity into the core of recruitment, not treating it as an afterthought.” He cited systemic issues – including the “middle-management bottleneck”, where women’s career progression often stalls – as a key challenge for the industry.
Madison Lincoln attributes its results to measures including gender-balanced shortlists for all senior mandates, bias-aware shortlisting, support for flexible leadership models, and alignment with mentoring and development frameworks from RICS. According to the firm, these approaches have helped increase the pool of female talent considered for senior posts.
Despite growing awareness, sector-wide progress has remained limited. While 96% of commercial real estate firms report DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives and 56% have formal strategies in place, McNally observed: “There’s a clear difference between having a DEI policy and delivering real change.”
He added: “Certainly, the firms we are partnering with for their leadership hires are bucking the trend when it comes to diversity. They know what they want in terms of DEI and understand how it will positively impact the future of their business.
“Happily, we can provide a network of highly talented, diverse senior professionals, which isn’t always easy in the real estate industry, as the figures above demonstrate. Our level of performance suggests that change is possible when firms are intentional about how they hire.”
