Estate agency gender pay gap has widened in past five years
Analysis of gender pay gap reports shows salaries and bonuses for female agency staff remain behind male equivalents.
Women working in estate agencies have seen their pay fall further behind men in recent years, undoing much of the industry’s progress.
Female estate agency staff were paid 28.7% less than men last year, a deterioration from the 24.7% deficit in 2020-2021.
That was after bringing the gap down from 32.7% in 2017-2018, the first year that companies were required to start reporting pay and bonus data to the Government.
Estate agency is an industry where plenty of women thrive but if there really were equal opportunities the gender pay gap would reflect that.”
The findings, based on analysis by Parapet Intelligence of gender pay gap returns from more than 25 of the largest residential and commercial real estate agencies, has led to calls for pay imbalances to be put back on the agenda.
The study also reveals how more women at agencies are being paid bonuses, but here the pay gap is even worse.
Three quarters – at 75% – of women in estate agency were paid a bonus last year compared with 63% in 2017-2018 but they are on average 48.7% behind men’s, although this has fallen from 53.6% eight years ago.
The proportion of men paid a bonus was slightly higher than women last year at 78.9%, suggesting women are in fact well-represented in senior roles that attract this sort of pay structure, they’re just not rewarded as well.
Insufficient progress
Vikki Bennett, co-founder at Parapet, said: “It’s scandalous really that we should witness progress when it’s politically convenient only to see much of that undone when it falls out of the news.
“It reeks of paying lip service to structural problems in the sector that need to be constantly under the microscope. Estate agency is an industry where plenty of women thrive but if there really were equal opportunities the gender pay gap would reflect that.
“It’s time to put this back on the agenda and make sure senior teams understand that evenly diverse teams and more equal earnings belong to companies that are agile, competitive and stronger.”
