devcast...

I'm Joseph Morris, and I head up the accounting and finance division at deverellsmith, where I've been for just over a decade. On our latest devcast podcast, I sat down to talk about what's really driving talent movement in the finance market in real estate right now. Between candidates who are no longer prioritising salary, a widening gap in commercial skill sets and the arrival of AI in finance functions, hiring looks different to how it did a couple of years ago.  What is driving the real estate finance market right now? Candidates are reticent to move unless they are certain and comfortable with the move they're making.  It has become far less about whether somebody can earn an extra five or ten thousand a year.  What talent is considering instead is: Company culture, and whether they can genuinely learn from the people above them The progression they can see in the business The long-term vision, and whether they can see themselves still being there Whether there is job security for the next three years If a business feels volatile, or there's an element of risk attached, people simply aren't going to move. The companies in 'growth mode' are currently driving the market. The businesses investing, the businesses being seen to be active in the market, and the businesses with a vision and a story that people can genuinely buy into. Which sectors are hiring finance talent? The commercial arm is where the activity is. Certain aspects of commercial are very busy. Industrial, logistics and storage in particular are a huge growth area at the moment, largely because there is less complexity compared to residential development for example. The housebuilding sector has been through its challenges, and I suspect that will continue for a little while yet. Across the residential space, build to rent remains a strong choice for employees and student PBSA is a fruitful option. It's a mixed picture overall rather than a uniform one. Where is finance talent hardest to find? Anywhere you need somebody genuinely analytical. The shortage sits with people who have a commercial mindset. The ones who understand that the work they're doing is going to drive key decision making for the business, who can see what the investment looks like, what the development team are doing, and how what they do has a knock-on impact on those people. What we're seeing is a lot more focus on finding commercial, analytical, commercially minded accountants rather than those who are simply reporting. That distinction is where most of the difficulty in hiring currently sits. Should finance professionals be embracing AI? Yes, and it sounds generic to say it, but it's the one skill people aren't investing in for themselves enough of. The opportunity is using it to make yourself more efficient and better at your job, and learning from it as you go. The candidates I see getting the biggest wins are the ones embracing it rather than avoiding it. However, there's a danger of becoming over-reliant, of relying blindly on what these tools produce and hoping it's correct. It has its flaws and it makes mistakes. As long as you stay vigilant and use it to make yourself sharper rather than to replace your own judgement, it's one of the most straightforward ways to get a step ahead right now. How can companies compete for the best finance talent? A lot of it comes down to how you come across in the interview process, and this is the point I'd most want businesses to take away. Job specifications are hard to differentiate yourself with. Websites and similar are just as hard to separate from the competition. The interview, on the other hand, is the most underutilised selling point available to any business hiring. Rather than going into a meeting and grilling the candidate about what they can and can't do, there is far more value in going in and saying: this is our story, let me tell you about our business, let me tell you about where we're going, and let me tell you how I got here and what I like about working here. Use the interview to sell the business to the candidate. People often forget that an interview is a two-way street. It isn't just about getting a candidate in and working out whether they're right for the role. It's very much the other way around too. What has happened to finance salaries and bonuses? Salaries went through a period of climbing significantly, and very quickly, post-COVID. With inflation running incredibly high at the same time, that put real pressure on wage rises, and people were having some uncomfortable conversations about what increases they should be getting. That has plateaued a little now. Bonuses are more hit and miss. A lot of companies are still paying them, but it depends on which industry sector you're in. Some areas have been hit harder than others over the last two years, and those businesses have unfortunately had to pay slightly lower bonuses than people might have expected previously. As a company, as long as you're transparent about why, you're fine. On where the biggest jumps are happening, it's the mid to senior market. Financial controller, head of finance, and across FP&A at manager and head of level. That's largely because the FP&A skill set demands exactly the commercial mindset I mentioned earlier, understanding what the numbers mean from a commercial standpoint. There are fewer people able to do that job, so it's simple supply and demand, and they're being paid more money. What has changed about candidate expectations? There's still an expectation of some flexibility to work from home, but the needle has moved. Where roles were commonly three days in the office, four is increasingly the norm, with roles becoming a little more office based. Alongside that, we're seeing a significant talent shortage in certain areas, which has left genuine gaps across the industry. On keeping talent, so much of it comes down to culture. Can the manager be transparent and avoid overpromising? Don't tell somebody they're going to be promoted in a year's time if that isn't a feasible opportunity in the business. Just as importantly, hire people whose ambition and skill set match your business. Don't bring in somebody on a steep trajectory towards being an FD within three years if that facility doesn't exist. You may be better looking at a different profile of person who values different things in their day job, and you can reward them and keep them happy in different ways. Which skills will matter most over the next 12 months? A proper grounding in the fundamentals. The people in highest demand are those with a great core understanding of what's being done from an account's perspective. Talent who has gone through strong training routes, their ACCA or their ACA, and genuinely understand the fundamentals of accounting. When you strip back a system, or a system doesn't do what it's expected to do, those people are still able to do their day job. There's an over-reliance on systems in some finance functions, and the question nobody asks is what happens if that fails you. Are you suddenly going to melt down, when a business can't afford to shut down for a week or however long the system is playing up? That's particularly relevant right now, because more and more companies are moving systems currently, to more efficient ones, and that is never a smooth journey. How do we support finance teams in real estate? It varies entirely depending on what a business needs, which is rather the point. Some businesses are small enough that we do something ad hoc. We place one person with them, and they may not need our help again for a few years Others have a journey to go on, where we support them well beyond finance and into other areas of the business Our team covers everything from junior accounts assistants through to CFOs. I cover senior appointments - heads of finance, FD and CFO roles - the rest of the team cover part qualified and qualified, and interim and contract roles that mirror those levels That means we have solutions whether a business needs short-term support, a long-term hire, project work, or a cluster of hires that make up or grow an entire team Over ten years at deverellsmith I've watched businesses go from being really, really small to large companies with recognisable faces in the industry. What makes that possible is being honest and transparent about what they need at that time, rather than trying to push and sell as much as humanly possible at an early stage. Being an advisory business, giving honest advice about what they need, what they could look like in 12 months and what challenges they're going to face, so that they trust us with their business in the future. Frequently asked questions Why aren't finance candidates in real estate moving for higher salaries? Because security and progression now outweigh a modest pay increase. Candidates are assessing culture, what they can learn from the people above them, and whether the business will still be a good place to be in three years' time. Which finance roles are hardest to fill in real estate? Anything requiring a genuinely commercial, analytical mindset. Businesses want accountants who understand how their work affects investment and development decisions, rather than people who are purely reporting. Where are finance salaries rising fastest? In the mid to senior market, particularly financial controller, head of finance and FP&A roles at manager and head of level, where the commercially minded skill set is in short supply. How much office time do finance roles in property require? The expectation has shifted from around three days a week in the office towards four, though some flexibility to work from home remains standard. Should finance professionals be using AI at work? Used well, it makes people more efficient and is one of the clearest ways to get ahead. The risk is over-reliance and accepting outputs blindly, so vigilance and a solid grounding in the fundamentals still

I'm Hannah  Taylor, and I lead the investment and rental living team here at deverellsmith. On our latest devcast podcast, I sat down with my colleague Jonathan Catt, who works across the operational functions  of the living sector, to talk about what's actually driving movement in on-site and operational hiring.Between the arrival of commission structures in leasing, a wave of new compliance roles and a sector that has stopped being niche, rental living hiring looks very different to how it did three years ago. Here's what we discussed.Should rental living leasing roles have a commission structure?This is the conversation Jonathan is currently having most often, and it comes down to how operators pay their on-site teams. There are broadly two models in the market:Salary plus bonusSalary, commission and bonusWith real demand for properties in certain areas, teams must be more on the ball about getting homes let, and the question is how you incentivise that.Historically, rental living leasing hasn't had the same structures as estate agency and lettings, deliberately so, because operators wanted to protect the customer service experience rather than make the role feel ‘salesy’. That's beginning to shift. We're seeing talent with lettings and agency experience come into the sector, and Jonathan is a firm advocate for adding a commission element. On a role he's working on slightly outside London, commission turned out to be the key to getting it right.The caveat matters though. Build to rent and single-family housing exist because they're trying to change the way people rent, and that's built on customer service. The aim is a sales edge inside a service-led role, not the other way around.Where are salaries moving in rental living operations?For core on-site operational roles, salaries have been consistent. Where you see fluctuation, it's usually a function of building size rather than a shift in the market.The movement is happening in the newer and more specialist roles. Compliance and health and safety is one of the biggest talking points in the sector right now, and operators aren't just hiring into existing facilities management and health and safety roles, they're creating new ones around them. Demand for facilties management talent and recruiting for these roles has seen a significant uplift. That's where the salary fluctuation is showing up.Why are maintenance operatives the hardest role to fill?Maintenance is consistently the toughest area to recruit, and it's the one place where we've seen a steady salary increase.The difficulty is the profile. A maintenance operative in build to rent has to be genuinely versatile across what they do, but they also have to bring the customer service side with them. As Jonathan put it, "it's not just about fixing things. You need to do it with a bit of a service." That's a narrower talent pool than it sounds.There's a retention problem sitting behind it too. Part of it is salary, but a bigger part is that progression can be less linear from that position. The encouraging news is that as the sector matures, maintenance operatives can upskill into FM, which is a genuinely exciting and promising career path. Those opportunities just haven't consistently been there yet.What is really driving people to leave rental living roles?Progression, more than anything else. A survey we ran found that around 43% of people in the sector would consider leaving for career progression.In practice, that question is "where do I go next, and what is my next scheme?" Take a general manager looking after a 200-unit scheme. Their natural next step is something bigger or more complex. If their employer doesn't have that, they'll look elsewhere, or they'll go looking for the experience that gets them to the next level, which is often mobilisation. Running a site that's been established for five years and mobilising a brand new one are completely different jobs.Benefits are coming into play more heavily too. The point Jonathan made is that benefits are individual. What matters to one person on your team may be irrelevant to the next. Reviewing your benefits package properly, and understanding what your people actually value, is one of the more underrated retention levers available to operators.Can you offer flexibility in an on-site operations role?Hybrid working comes up constantly across our other desks, but in operations you're on site, and that limits what you can offer.This is where single family housing is starting to pull ahead. The roles tend to be more head office based, which opens up flexibility that multifamily struggles to match. One operator Jonathan works with runs four days on site, one day at home pattern for people still working in operations. In a sector where flexibility is the thing candidates ask for and rarely get, that's a real differentiator.Single family is growing quickly on its own terms as well. There are currently in the region of 12,000 professionally managed single-family homes, with tens of thousands more expected over the coming years.How has hiring into the living sector changed?When Jonathan joined just over three years ago, rental living was still quite niche. It isn't anymore.We've seen the build to rent boom, then co-living arriving on the scene, and now single-family housing is where a lot of the attention sits. As the sector has matured, the candidate pool has matured with it. There are far more operators and far more people with genuine industry experience.That's a good thing overall, and it means operators are now going after people with sector experience rather than training from scratch. The flip side is that it's become tougher for somebody trying to break into living for the first time, because they're up against candidates who already have it.What's the outlook for rental living hiring over the next 12 months?Steady, rather than booming, and that's no bad thing.Single family housing is where the growth is, and there'll be hiring to match. Co-living should help too. Multifamily is the one to watch, because there aren't as many new sites coming on and there are very few completions due in 2027. That said, there will always be a steady stream of replacement hires in multifamily, and there will always be a need for people with real industry experience.My own view is that operators and candidates alike should be looking to pivot a little away from multifamily and towards student, co-living and single family, because that's where the growth is going to sit.Frequently asked questions Do build to rent leasing roles pay commission?Increasingly, yes. Operators typically use either salary plus bonus, or salary plus commission and bonus. Commission is becoming more common as operators look to incentivise letting performance, though customer service remains the priority in the role.Which rental living roles are hardest to recruit?Maintenance operatives are consistently the hardest. The role needs genuine technical versatility alongside a strong customer service approach, which narrows the available pool considerably.Why do people leave rental living operations roles?Career progression is the single biggest driver. Around 43% of people in the sector would consider leaving for it. General managers in particular look for a bigger scheme or the chance to mobilise a new site.Is there any flexibility in on-site rental living roles?It's limited in multifamily because the role is site based. Single family housing offers more, as the roles tend to be more head office based, and some operators run patterns such as four days on site and one at home.What is the outlook for build to rent hiring?Steady. There are fewer new multifamily sites coming through and very few completions due in 2027, but replacement hiring continues, and growth in single family housing and co-living should take up the slack.About the podcast guestsHannah Taylor | Manager, Investment and Living, deverellsmithHannah heads up the rental living team at deverellsmith, recruiting across build to rent, co-living, student and single family housing. She works with operators and investors on both on-site and head office appointments, and brings a broad view of how the living sectors connect to the wider investment market. Connect with Hannah on LinkedIn or email [email protected] Catt | Principal Consultant, deverellsmithJonathan sits on the living desk at deverellsmith, specialising in operational and on-site hiring across build to rent, co-living and single family housing. In just over three years he has built a deep network across operations, facilities management and compliance in the rental living sector. Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn or email [email protected]. 

I'm Ryan Doyle, one of the Associate Directors here at deverellsmith. On our latest devcast podcast, I sat down with Suzanne Grundy, who looks after business support and suppliers to real estate, to talk about what's happening in a corner of the market that doesn't get anywhere near enough attention. Between the shift back to the office, the uncertainty around Renters' Rights and a generation of candidates pivoting from B2C into B2B, business development has become the busiest area on Suze's desk.  What is the third-party supplier market in real estate? The supplier market encompasses businesses that supply to real estate rather than transact in it. That covers a broad range of organisations, including: Interiors and fit-out firms Legal firms working with developers, agencies and investors PropTech businesses selling software and services into agencies and operators It's a genuinely wide market, and one that a lot of property professionals don't realise is a career option until somebody points it out to them. Why is business development the most active area right now? Business development roles see more movement than almost anything else, and there are two reasons for that. The first is structural. If a business's numbers aren't strong, business development is often the first area to feel it. So, where there's been uncertainty, people who have sat in businesses that haven't performed particularly well start looking to secure something more stable. The second is a shift in where candidates are coming from. Two or three years ago we saw a wave of people leaving estate agency for PropTech roles, chasing the same three things: no Saturdays, flexible working, and a higher basic salary. As people have come back to the office, PropTech roles have become less attractive and estate agency roles more so. What hasn't slowed is the flow out of lettings. With the uncertainty around Renters' Rights, a lot of the current movement into Business Development is coming from the letting's talent market. Where does the best business development talent come from? The one thing Suzanne looks for above everything else is B2B experience. That doesn't have to mean real estate. It can come from anywhere client-facing and sociable, and hospitality in particular produces excellent Business Development talent. Real estate itself is broad enough to cover a lot of ground too. The profile that works tends to be someone who wants to pivot in their career, genuinely enjoys building relationships and getting out to meet people, and wants to work with businesses and key decision makers rather than consumers. That move from B2C to B2B is the real change, and it's a bigger one than most candidates expect. Why do some business development hires not work out? The most common reason people leave a Business Development role is that they arrived thinking it would be easier than it is. As she put it, candidates often assume "I've done X, I can easily do business development", and that's not the case. It isn't as simple as it might seem, particularly if you've come from a B2C background. The kind of person who goes online looking for a role with the option to work from home and a higher basic salary often ends up applying to a startup or a smaller business. Those roles typically need somebody to get in the seat, hit the phones and work hard from day one, which goes against almost everything they searched for in the first place. That mismatch is a shock, and it's usually why the role doesn't last. Moving from a structured corporate environment into a smaller or startup business is a similar jolt. You have to be a real self-starter, without the senior people and the hierarchy above you that you were previously accountable to. What does a business development package look like in London? As a rough benchmark for London and the outskirts: Around £40,000 for somebody moving into their first Business Development role Around £40,000 to £50,000 basic for a business development manager Around £60,000 to £70,000 basic for a senior Business Development Manager, a team manager, or somebody handling larger or more numerous accounts On top of that you'd expect a tiered commission structure based on revenue brought into the business. The interesting part is what moves candidates, and it's the basic salary more than anything else which can often be a surprise to hiring managers given how much of the conversation in Business Development is about autonomy and flexibility. The reason is simple. In B2B, commission takes a long time to land in your pocket, so you need the stability of a regular income while the pipeline builds. With the cost of living where it is, security matters. Hybrid working barely features as a differentiator, because in business development it's essentially a given. The whole point of the role is that you shouldn't be chained to your desk. You should be out meeting people and running your own diary. Looking at the next 12 months, plenty of companies are fairly set on their salary bands. But these are reward-based roles, so the more revenue somebody brings in, the higher their earning potential. And if a candidate arrives with more experience and a black book, there's always movement. What should a business development interview process look like? When we asked Suzanne, the one thing she'd change about how companies hire, was the interview process. Processes need to be clear-cut from the outset. All parties need to know what the stages are and what they're assessing, rather than starting from "let's see who we've got, let's find a candidate" and working it out along the way. She had a live example from that same week where a different process would have produced a very different outcome. Business Development roles are usually more open to a Teams interview early on, which makes sense given how the role works. What's become standard, even at relatively junior levels, is a presentation stage at the end, and Suze is firmly in favour of it. It sets expectations from the outset, it shows an employer your confidence and your ability to present face to face, and more than anything it demonstrates willingness. Somebody who has done the legwork and the research has shown you they want the job. Where does a business development career go next? Progression in BD looks like more accounts, more revenue, more people to manage and more growth within the business, usually moving up into training and leading a team. Account management sits alongside it rather than after it. You can't really be a good account manager without the BD mindset first, which is why the two are so closely linked in this market. 

I'm Aaron Higgins, National Head of Development and Construction at deverellsmith. On our latest devcast podcast, I sat down with Verity Hampson-Smith, our Principal Consultant covering construction in London, to talk about which sectors are actually moving, where the work is going and what employers need to do to hold onto good people. What does the London construction market look like right now? Tough, and more than anything, inconsistent. It's genuinely hard for businesses to plan and move forward with residential developments at the moment, and residential is where a lot of our focus sits. The market is moving, but sporadically. Some businesses are cash rich and building a lot. Others are far more cautious about committing to projects at all. The causes are well known by now: getting through planning, the gateways, securing investment, and house builders sitting on too much stock and not wanting to build more. The result is a market with no consistent pattern to read. Which construction roles are actually hiring? There isn't one area showing consistent movement, but there are clear pockets. Document control, which is the standout. There are companies that have never had a document control function at all and are now seeing a significant need for one, driven by the gateway regime and the golden thread of information Project leads and project directors, particularly people who can get involved at the earlier stages of a site and hold a holistic view of the process rather than simply running a live development The common thread is that anyone with gateway or pre-construction knowledge remains in demand, whatever the wider market is doing. Where is the work moving to? In three directions, and all three are worth paying attention to. The first is asset class. Developers who would usually build purely for private sale have diversified into build to rent, co-living and student accommodation, partly because sales have been at close to an all-time low and partly for planning reasons. There are definitely fewer homes being built to sell, but homes are still being built, mainly for the rental and student markets. The second is region. A London based PM and QS consultancy that has traditionally worked in and around Greater London now has sites in Edinburgh, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham and Leicester. Businesses are going further afield, and they want to know what candidate pools exist there. Well established London businesses are also opening regional offices, because they value boots on the ground who know the local contractors and planning authorities, and they're bringing that London pace with them. The third is sector. Consultancies offering project management, quantity surveying and building surveying are increasingly turning their hands to life sciences, data centres and industrial logistics. Things move faster in those areas, planning is quicker out of town, there's less competition and the finance is stronger. As Verity put it, a good project manager should be able to build an office, a school, a hospital or a house. It's the same core skills, slightly adapted. Interestingly, it's rarely the very large businesses with teams dedicated to a single asset class that are growing fastest. It's the ones working across two or three. Candidates tend to enjoy that variety too. What has happened to construction salaries? Commercial salaries continue to climb. There will always be an increase available for a really good quantity surveyor, and on a 20 thousand pound rise to move, you'll make that back quickly. Beyond that, salaries have largely plateaued. There wasn't a significant increase last year and there hasn't been one this year. Expect a steady year on year rise rather than anything dramatic, and nothing resembling the COVID boom when people picked up 10 or 20 thousand overnight. That matters because, redundancy aside, there still has to be an element of financial motivation for somebody to move. If the money isn't doing the work, something else has to. If you can't offer a big pay rise, what else works? Flexible working is the first question Verity gets asked, but the honest answer is that flexibility is a proxy for something bigger. What people are really asking for is autonomy, whether that's working from home or simply having core hours and the freedom to come in late or leave late. What sits underneath it is a culture of trust. Culture builds a reputation in this market, and that reputation reaches candidates long before your job advert does. If you're known for high turnover, a lack of flexibility or a lack of autonomy, people will write you off before they ever reach interview stage. The reverse is just as powerful. If your people are advocating for you, everybody is interested. As we put it on the episode, if it's a great place to work you might tell one or two people, but if it's a bad place you'll tell everybody. Culture isn't pizza on a Friday and a beer on a Thursday. It's the raw things: trust, autonomy, and letting people work where they need to and when they can. The other thing that genuinely moves candidates is a significant pipeline of work. The last few years have been start, stop, start, stop, with unexpected redundancies and businesses going into administration that nobody saw coming. People are looking for security and longevity, quite possibly more than they're looking for a pay rise. This, incidentally, is why we go out and meet the businesses we work with, visit sites and see offices. If the answer to that is "just send us a few CVs and we'll pick the best one", that's the worst possible outcome. You wouldn't recommend a restaurant to a friend without having eaten there, and the same applies to recommending somewhere to work. What should the hiring process look like? Stick to a timeline, and commit to it. There's nothing more frustrating than a business saying it needs to hire somebody tomorrow, then going quiet. We understand people are busy and holiday season happens. But if a candidate doesn't hear anything for three or four weeks, they talk themselves out of the opportunity, and by the time it comes back around the engagement has gone. Time kills deals. A candidate who hears nothing starts to think the business doesn't want them, and then when the offer does arrive they assume the business simply couldn't find anybody better. That's the worst possible position to make an offer from. So if you're hiring, commit to a process, commit to a timeline, and commit to fair, honest feedback. It pays off beyond the current vacancy too. Somebody who had a good experience but didn't get the job will happily re-engage with you in a few years' time. Somebody who had a bad one won't. Should a candidate accept a counteroffer? Our view is no, in most cases. When a business makes an offer, around 90% of the time it's a fair reflection of what they think that person is worth. Unless they've gone in with a low-ball offer, there's no real case for a counteroffer. And if a candidate's only reason for moving was financial, they probably weren't the right person for the job in the first place. There need to be other motivators. The statistics back it up. Something in the region of 80% of people who accept a counteroffer leave anyway. The phone call we least like receiving is the one a few months later saying the money wasn't worth it, or that the flexible working they were promised has quietly turned back into five days a week in the office. By then the other role has usually gone. How do you keep your best people when you're not busy? Be honest with them. When candidates come to us, it's usually because of broken promises, doubts about the leadership team, or a lack of visible projects ahead. If you've told a project manager or QS that hitting certain metrics means a promotion, a pay rise or a bonus, give it to them. If it isn't going to happen, don't make the promise in the first place. Make a smaller promise that you can actually keep. People aren't asking for the world. They aren't expecting 20 or 30% pay rises and enormous bonuses every year. What they will notice is a big corporate away day for the directors followed by news of pay cuts. The last point is the simplest one. Treat people like adults. The days of micromanaging and banging on the table to get things done are gone. We hear endless conversation about Gen Z, Gen X and millennials and how to manage each of them, but people are people. Whether somebody is 21 and entering the industry, 40 with a family, or later in their career and wanting to do their own thing, their expectations will be individual. Ask them what matters to them and, within reason, give it to them. It takes time upfront, particularly in a large business, but it saves a lot of money, time and heartache later. Far too many counteroffer conversations begin with a manager saying "you never told me you needed to come in late on a Monday to drop your son at school." What's the outlook for the next 12 months? Delays, and then a pick up. Our main contractor partners are extremely busy, but almost all of that is pre-construction services agreement work. There's a lot of design work going on and a lot of jobs being priced. If those jobs come to fruition, we'll be very busy again in 12 to 18 months. For now, turnover is down because there's a significant lack of live sites. Realistically, expect the rest of this year to continue as it is, with things starting to pick up in the early part of next year. In the meantime the work is out there, particularly outside London and outside traditional residential. You just need to know where to look. Frequently asked questions Which construction roles are most in demand right now? Document control is seeing the sharpest rise, driven by the gateway regime and the golden thread of information. Project leads and directors with pre-construction experience remain in demand. Why is there more temporary than permanent hiring in site management? Because busines

I'm Hannah, and I lead the investment and asset management team at deverellsmith. On our latest devcast podcast, I sat down with my colleague Hugh van Grutten to talk about a market that has quietly changed shape over the last two years. Between a slowdown in acquisitions, flat salaries and the arrival of AI in the analyst's job, what businesses are looking for in this space is not what they were looking for four years ago. Here's what we discussed, straight from the podcast. How has the investment and asset management market shifted? It has not been a booming year for hiring, and the change has really played out over the last two years rather than the last one. Investment and development hiring has been very quiet, for a straightforward reason. The hiring market echoes the real estate market, and there simply has not been a great deal of investment, acquisition or development activity taking place. What that has done is redirect the focus. Almost everyone I speak to is concentrating on asset and portfolio management instead, looking to maximise the portfolios they already hold and extract more value from them while they pivot away from the investment and development side. Why is the hybrid skill set suddenly in demand? This is the most significant change in the market, and it has happened quickly. If I look back four years, investment roles and asset management roles were two separate things. You did one or the other. Now, businesses are actively looking for people with genuine experience across both, who can flip between the two and redirect their time towards asset management when the investment side is quiet. There are not many candidates with that profile, which puts the ones who have it in a very strong position. What's interesting is that candidates have noticed. A lot of the people I'm working with are now deliberately seeking out the extra experience so they can tick that box, and it's a fair question for anyone in the sector to be asking their current employer. What is driving people to leave investment roles? Two things, and both are retention problems that businesses can do something about. The first is the pivot itself. Where somebody's role has been quietly reshaped into an asset management position, that often isn't what they joined the business to do. Some people take to it. Others don't, and the ones who don't are usually the ones who come to me looking for something new. The second is the opposite problem. Somebody joins in an investment role, and then the company isn't investing. There's no growth, no pipeline and no money to deploy. That leaves them sitting there twiddling their thumbs, either feeling concerned about whether their job is safe, or simply bored. Neither is a state anybody stays in for long. People do occasionally leave the sector altogether, though it remains a handful rather than a trend. Some take a payout and go and do something entirely different. I saw someone on LinkedIn recently who I used to deal with, previously in investment, who has started a meditation company. What has happened to salaries and bonuses? Salaries have been stagnant for a couple of years now. If you stay in your role, you're generally only seeing inflationary rises, and that holds across both investment and asset management. The practical consequence is blunt: to secure a meaningful pay increase at the moment, you need to move. That's a real shift from 2022, when people were getting substantial rises simply for staying where they were. Bonuses have followed the same pattern. Most people I speak to have seen bonuses come in lower than they have been used to historically, and that's consistent across both disciplines rather than isolated to one. If you haven't got a strong bonus to look forward to and your salary is only moving with inflation, there isn't a great deal keeping you in a role you've gone off. That's worth thinking about if you're trying to hold onto good people. Is now a good time to hire in investment and asset management? It's an excellent time to hire, and that's the part businesses may be underestimating. Most of the current hiring is happening at the junior end, where there's less risk and less of a cost commitment. That coincides with a genuinely difficult period for graduates, which means the talent available at that level is unusually strong. The clearest evidence is in the shortlists. Where a shortlist might once have been three or four good people plus a couple of average ones, the ones I'm working on now regularly have six who are all genuinely strong. If you're hiring at the moment, you are spoilt for choice in a way you haven't been for some time. What is AI doing to the analyst career path? A lot of the analysts I speak to are worried about it, and I understand why, though the concern is more nuanced than simple job displacement. AI can build an excellent model and manipulate it very well. That much is not really in dispute. The concern I hear from more senior candidates and hiring managers is what happens next. If you use AI to do an analyst's job, you end up with people rising through their careers who have never actually done the modelling themselves. A few years down the line, you have senior people making decisions without the underlying skill set, and without a real grasp of how these deals come together. You have to know the foundations. If somebody can't understand the numbers because AI produced them, that's a genuine problem for the business relying on their judgement. It's a watch this space issue rather than a solved one, but it's worth factoring into how you're developing people now. What is the outlook for the next 12 months? I'm cautiously optimistic, and that's roughly where most of the people I speak to sit, candidates and hiring managers alike. Investment hiring has started to pick up a little over the past few months, and I'm hopeful that continues. Asset management is likely to stay steady, neither dropping off nor increasing dramatically. On pay, salaries and bonuses have been flat for a few years now, and it feels like it's probably time for a bit of an increase. That would be welcome news for candidates, and it's something businesses should be planning for rather than reacting to. Frequently asked questions Why has investment hiring in real estate been so quiet? The hiring market mirrors the real estate market, and there has been limited investment, acquisition and development activity over the last two years. Businesses have redirected their attention towards maximising the portfolios they already hold. What skills are most in demand in real estate investment right now? A hybrid skill set covering both investment and asset management. Four years ago these were separate disciplines, but businesses now want people who can move between the two as market conditions change. Do you need to move roles to get a pay rise in investment? Largely, yes. Staying in a role tends to produce only inflationary increases at present, whereas moving remains the route to a meaningful uplift. That is a clear change from the market in 2022. Is now a good time to hire investment and asset management talent? It is one of the better times in recent years. Hiring is weighted towards the junior end, and with graduates finding the market difficult, shortlists are unusually strong across the board. Will AI replace real estate analysts? The more pressing concern is not replacement but skill erosion. If AI handles the modelling, people can progress through their careers without ever having built those foundations themselves, leaving senior professionals without the underlying understanding of how deals work. Listen to the full episode Hear the full conversation with Hannah and Hugh on the devcast podcast. Whether you're looking to get hired, or looking to hire, we've got you covered. Never miss an episode. About the podcast guests Hannah Taylor | Manager, Investment and Living, deverellsmith Hannah leads deverellsmith's investment and asset management team, partnering with investors, fund managers and asset owners on appointments from analyst through to senior leadership. She has a broad view of how the investment and living sectors connect across the UK market. Connect with Hannah on LinkedIn or email [email protected]. Hugh van Grutten | Business Manager, Debt, Equity and Mortgages, deverellsmith Hugh heads up the mortgage desk at deverellsmith, recruiting across debt, equity and mortgage advisory for brokerages, lenders and property businesses. He works with employed and self-employed broker models across the UK market. Connect with Hugh on LinkedIn or email [email protected].