The UK real estate industry is undergoing a digital transformation, driven by the increasing abundance and accessibility of data. This shift is leading to a surge in demand for data professionals, as property firms seek to leverage data insights to make informed decisions and gain a competitive edge.
The Data Revolution in Real Estate
Traditionally, real estate decisions were often based on intuition and experience. However, the proliferation of data sources, such as property listings, market trends, and active monitoring of buildings, has empowered industry players to adopt a more data-centric approach. By harnessing the power of data analytics, real estate firms can:
The Growing Demand for Data Professionals
Despite current economic constraints, we have seen a steady growth in the number of jobs within real estate in the UK. Below shows the number of thousands of people employed within real estate from June 1978 through to current day. Even when normalised to the total number of jobs within the UK, real estate has seen impressive growth.
This begs the question of what new roles are there within real estate, to facilitate such an increase in the number of jobs? Even though the number of buildings to buy, sell and maintain, has grown over the period, the total number of jobs generally would be expected to increase in line with the number of people within the UK. Therefore, the information above suggests that there are an increasing number of roles within the sector.
Anecdotally, it is clear why some of these real estate jobs have appeared, for example ESG specialists were unheard of in 1978, when the dataset shown above begins. But a large element contributing to the growth is the bolstering of data teams by the majority of corporates, supported by industry clients we have conferred with.
Some of the most sought-after data roles in real estate include:
The Future of Data in Real Estate
As the real estate industry continues to evolve, the demand for data professionals is expected to grow even further. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) will further enhance the capabilities of data-driven real estate and drive the expansion of data to collect, clean, maintain, move, analyse and delete.
From our own experience of helping clients with their data accuracy and migrating data across systems, we see how much data is estimated rather than verified (often in the region of 60% for ESG figures). We also see how little knowledge there is of data accuracy, which will likely be many data professionals’ first tasks – checking the quality of, and then improving, the data used within real estate. This is no small task, and we expect that these data roles will initially be assigned to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the existing data, with the goal of driving better decision-making down the line.
To capitalise on this trend, real estate professionals should consider developing data skills or hiring data experts to help them navigate the increasingly complex data landscape. By embracing data-driven decision-making, real estate firms can unlock new opportunities, reduce risks, and achieve sustainable growth.