Propertymark Qualifications celebrates winners at British Museum

The Propertymark Qualifications Awards 2022 took place at the British Museum yesterday afternoon.

Hosted by Phil Spencer (main pic), TV property guru and founder of Move IQ, the awards highlighted the best of Propertymark Qualifications.

Tim Green, chair of Propertymark Qualifications, told assembled recipients and guests: “Whether your springboard is an apprenticeship or a qualification your actions are key to building the professional status of the property sector and you should have a profound sense of satisfaction in everything you have achieved to date.”

AWARDS

There were seven main award categories (winners and runners-up below) including Apprentice of the Year; Auctioneering Candidate of the Year; Employer Champion of the Year; Learner of the Year; Lettings Candidate of the Year; Level 4 Candidate of the Year; Sales Candidate of the Year and Rising Star.

Georgia Furmidge (pictured, beow), 20, from Nottingham-based David James, picked up the spoils for Rising Star of the Year – fending off competition from finalists Lydia Campey and Lynette Johnston.

“I’m ecstatic. I always wanted to be an estate agent,” she says.

Furmidge, who dropped out of a Maths degree at Nottingham to join the world of estate agency, told The Neg: “I’m ecstatic. I always wanted to be an estate agent – my Mum did too although never got into it.

“I was studying at Uni but wasn’t enjoying it. The opportunity for an apprenticeship at David James came up and I’ve never looked back. I’ve always found estate agency really, really interesting. I’m quite a nosey person I suppose and enjoy looking around people’s houses – you can tell a lot about a person doing that.”

“The support of my colleagues has been amazing.”

Rosie Croft (pictured), 29, based in the Humber office of Brown & Co, scooped the hotly fought category of Learner of the Year, pipping to the post fellow finalists Gemma Daw and Keeley Child.

She told The Neg: “I’m really made up. I’ve been working at Brown & Co for four years now and spent the first 18 months as a receptionist. This has been a difficult year for one reason or another and the support of my colleagues has been amazing.”

“I think everyone needs a re-evaluation period.”

Paul Rushworth, managing director of Oxfordshire-based Finders Keepers, won Employer Champion of the Year – beating finalists EW Estates and Miles and Barr.

Rushworth (pictured), who also picked up another Level 4 Qualification, told The Neg: “I picked up my first Level 4 Qualification in 1997 but so much has changed since then. I think everyone needs a re-evaluation period. For me it took 280 hours of study but I wanted to make sure I was up to date and make a point that you’re never too old to learn.

“Training staff can cost a lot of money but it’s money that you get back – through training, our staff are more committed and have bought into the way we do business which also means we don’t have high staff turnover.”

BENEFITS

Nathan Emerson (pictured), chief executive of Propertymark, said the organisation was seeing more employers embrace the benefit of qualifications.

“Certainly on the lettings side we are hearing of more landlords that want to deal with qualified agents. So from an ARLA point of view it does make a difference in terms of revenue. I’d hazard a guess that around a quarter of the industry is now qualified and that is a figure that’s only going to grow.”

Awards host Phil Spencer told The Neg: “I think this has been a terrific celebration of learning and apprenticeships; people committed to their careers, getting qualified and proving to both their business employers or employees as well as clients that they can do the job properly.”

FINALISTS 2022

Apprentice of the Year

Carys Reid (winner)

Alfie Copperthwaite

Abigail Brown

Auctioneering Candidate of The Year

Emma Price (winner)

Karen Evans

Puja Mehra

Employer Champion of the Year

Finders Keepers (winner)

EW Estates

Miles and Barr

Learner of the Year

Rosie Croft (winner)

Gemma Dawe

Keeley Child

Lettings Candidate of the Year

Hannah Baldwick (winner)

Ieva Sataite

Phoebe Wontner

Level 4 Candidate of the Year

Ramona Hirschi (winner)

Daniel Nulty

Sandie Matthews

Rising Star

Georgia Furmidge (winner)

Lydia Campey

Lynette Johnston

Sales Candidate of the Year

Catherine Slater (winner)

Jacob Littorin

Vicky Mackay