Will The Tiktok Generation Save Real Estate?

Real estate has suddenly woken up to the fact it has a huge skills gap, one that could hit profits hard and have a detrimental impact on the planet. The gap in the sector’s knowledge relates to environmental, social and governance issues, particularly sustainability and decarbonization.

“About 25% of all placements my team has received this year have been ESG-related, compared to none last year,” Madison Berkeley Director of Development and Construction, Christine Scott said — The firm is a specialist real estate recruitment consultancy.  Who is going to fill this gap? Younger workers, the "Tiktok generation" as Scott puts it — workers who have left university in the past five years and chose to pursue degrees and acquire the skills real estate now needs to help it decarbonize.

The leap in firms looking to hire workers with ESG skills has been sudden and dramatic. A major UK property agency, is currently looking to fill 60 ESG-related positions in various parts of its business. It has dawned on real estate developers and investors that regulations, such as Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards in the UK, mean they have to take action to reduce the carbon intensity of their assets now. And many don’t have the right staff to do that. 

Analysis by Cushman & Wakefield, earlier this year, shows that 96% of the office buildings in London don’t meet the Energy Performance Certificate B standard, which means that after 2030 it will be against the law to lease them.

It will take a lot of money to fix this problem. But it takes people, too. 

The specialist skills needed for the positions being created mean that real estate is hiring from outside its traditional talent pools. Rather than hiring candidates with only real estate qualifications from university, those with engineering or environmental science degrees, among other areas, are now in demand. This is enforcing a degree of open-mindedness and diversity on an industry not typically noted for being outward-looking.