As 2022 draws to a close, there is no better time to reflect on some of LMRE’s biggest accomplishments that have made this year so successful and worthy of celebration, both internally and externally.
This year, we have signed terms of business with 44 new clients and have made 230 candidate placements. As it stands, the LMRE community accounts for over 40,000 people, globally situated across the built environment sector. With a network of 30,000+ global candidates, 82% of whom have been referred to us, we have access to a highly targeted talent pool of experienced professionals, with skills ranging from tech to commercial.
Over the past 18 months, we have established a successful Tech and Data Vertical, which is now one of the fastest-growing verticals with specialist teams delivering mid-senior talent solutions within Product Management, Data / BI, Engineering, Design, Project Management, Business / Systems Analyst, IT Support and Cyber Security.
Being one of the largest UK headquartered recruitment businesses with a female co-founder, LMRE is committed to being a driver of change in DE&I and we are excited to be showcasing women both in our podcasts and PropTech Q&A’s, but also in our new global DE&I programmes that will be rolling out in the next few years, which will focus on addressing unconscious biases in hiring.
Internal Accomplishments
The LMRE team has grown significantly in the last 12 months, both in terms of new internal hires and promotions across the board. We are thrilled to congratulate the following for their internal promotions at LMRE this year:
In 2022 alone, we have opened offices in Singapore and New York and have made 27 new internal hires. We have also launched new teams including a Global Research, Key Accounts, and Nordic Team.
On top of this we also hired an HR manager who also manages our Internal Recruitment. Mette has worked to enhance our company culture and working environment, where we can continue to strive to create a fun and rewarding environment that allows individuals and teams to thrive. To reflect this growth, we have changed our values this year to mirror our progress, development, and evolvement within PropTech, highlighting our core principles of teamwork, honesty, and entrepreneurship.
To accommodate the rapid growth of our team and ensure maximum employee satisfaction and well-being within the company, our HR team has implemented new benefits included in LMRE’s employee packages, such as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP), Hybrid-working and Firm Maternity Pay, with more exciting benefits to come in the new year. Our team have also participated in several external training and leadership programmes throughout the year.
In the face of recent events in Ukraine, LMRE has supported various initiatives this year. In Q2, our team helped to raise £10,000 by donating a percentage of our quarterly earnings towards UNICEF to protect the children in Ukraine and we continue to offer our help and support necessary to anyone looking for relocation and career advice.
External Accomplishments
This summer, LMRE partnered with Fifth Wall, the biggest VC firm in the industry, to find out ‘What it’s Really Like to Work in PropTech’. From compensation to employee satisfaction and workplace models, we asked 500 people in the industry to tell us how they’re paid, if they’re happy at their current job, and what would make their employee experience better.
The report was published in September and includes comprehensive salary data from survey respondents in addition to benchmark data provided by LMRE based on average salaries for the most common roles they are actively working with clients to fill across marketing, sales, product, engineering, and data science. The data also includes the compensation and viewpoints of more than 40 CEOs and founders in this space, uncovering the widest compensation range of all job titles surveyed. In short, the salary survey has provided us with invaluable information and insights into the real estate industry, allowing us to confidently advise our candidates and clients on the state of the market, the trends that we are seeing, and our predictions for the future of PropTech.
In 2022 our team attended over 25 global events and took part in 45 speaking opportunities. MIPIM, CREtech, PropTech Symposium, Realcomm, Urban Tech Forward, EXPO REAL and the Real Estate Innovation Festival 2022 were among some of them. Ahead of the BuiltWorlds Americas Summit, Louisa was invited to participate in a Women in ConTech forum, and our managing director of North America, Xan Winterton, has put together and moderated a panel on ‘Talent Acquisition & DEI Initiatives within the Built Environment’ at Blueprint.
Our Co-Founder, Louisa Dickins, has had another incredibly successful year with her industry-known global podcast series ‘The Propcast’, interviewing some of the leading players in the industry, focusing most recently on ESG in the built environment for the tenth season. This year, ‘The Propcast’ has reached over 100,000+ downloads and is now in the top 1% of all podcasts in the property technology category and featured in the Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Podcasts to Follow by Occupier along with some of the best podcasts in the CRE industry.
What we have seen this year
Over the course of the last 5 years, we have seen exponential growth in the PropTech space. This year alone, the market was valued at $18.2 billion, with growth rate reaching 17%, and a 12% uplift in YoY M&A deal volume. There is, of course, a certain point at which technology sectors reach a critical mass and start to combine forces through mergers and acquisitions. Paired with the slowing down of the market, we could argue that PropTech is on this cusp now. We have seen a huge focus on VC money, and whilst VC investors have poured substantial money into real estate technology in recent years, the future of success in PropTech isn’t reliant on the capital, particularly after having seen the funding environment becoming strained this year and most likely continuing into next year.
With VC funding set to slow significantly, we have seen many start-ups beginning to prime themselves for acquisition and, luckily for them, many traditional real estate players looking to make strategic investments and acquisitions. This is because it is cheaper and more time efficient for firms to acquire talent and technology from start-ups than it is to create their own from scratch. Real Estate has historically shown a lack of permeability when adopting technology into its evolution. In the past, we have seen firms leaning towards licensing the asset as opposed to acquiring the IP that PropTech companies pose. Moving forward, our prediction is that PropTech will owe its success to owners’ and operators’ increasing adoption of their tech, resulting in some meaningful changes to the real estate ecosystem.
The rapid growth of the PropTech sector is attributed to innovative leaders and organizations working tirelessly to increase efficiency to allow companies to manage properties, facilitate customers with interactive platforms and track things like costs, valuations, usage data, and much more.
With technological advances moving so quickly in the PropTech space, it is a very real challenge for an internal Head of Innovation or CTO, for example, to keep pace with the latest innovations. Trying to decipher the most time-efficient approach to working out the purpose and plans for the development of in-house tech, ironically is incredibly time-consuming. Buying a solution is often much cheaper and quicker to deploy.
Working in tangent with this, our consultants have been having more conversations with large brokerages regarding obtaining the tech-specific talent that comes along with the company being absorbed. Brokerages that do this are getting a mass of qualified and relevant technical hires all at once without spending time engaging in lengthy hiring processes. These individuals are helping to drive digital transformation in traditionally rooted businesses, offering a fresh perspective. By combining the commercially savvy real estate leaders with the tech savvy PropTech industry drivers, a new dual perspective can be built and nurtured under the brand and capital of the brokerage.
Our predictions for next year
As it stands, 40% of global energy today is consumed by real estate and the projected increase in building CO2 emissions by 2030 is over 50%. In recent months, we have seen a huge shift in focus to reach net zero targets, with investors targeting green buildings for funding now more than ever. Commercial buildings that stick to net-zero targets show an increase of 5-12% in value, compared to a 30% drop for non-sustainable buildings, and companies with an ESG focus closed 33% of the financing rounds in Q2.
The new generation of job seekers entering the job market are increasingly interested in what sort of building and business they are working with, whether it be a healthy building or an impactful business. In this way, employers need to ensure that their sustainability and ESG initiatives are up to date with current trends, proving that their buildings, office spaces and general businesses are environmentally conscious, green, and proactively seeking to positively impact the environmental effects of the built environment.
LMRE are specialist PropTech recruiters, if you need help growing your business or making any key hires please get in touch via the form below!
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