This increase, added to the 2016 growth, reflects the expanding role of the consultancies in the development of the real esate market and in the country’s economy. The Association, founded in 2013, and which includes the seven big real estate consultancies operating in national territory (Aguirre Newman, BNP Paribas Real Estate, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, Knight Frank, and Savills) present for the second time consolidated data on employment in the real estate sector.
The general trend will be to follow the stability and growth in employment in the real estate sector throughout 2017, another sign of the recovery of the Spanish domestic economy. In this sense, if the seven members of ACI currently employ more than 2,500 people, it is expected that this number will be more than 2,700 jobs by the end of the year.
One year ago –2015 – which was particularly good in terms of the number of transactions carried out by real estate consultancies, 2016 has continued in the same direction. The seven firms that make up ACI have generated approximately 400 new jobs, both direct and indirect, and hope that in 2017 about 200 more jobs will be created.
Ricardo Martí-Fluxá, president of ACI, is sure that “several factors such as the recovery of confidence on the part of foreign investors, the improvement in the macroeconomic panorama – which has played an important role in various low interest rates – and the increase in consumption have contributed in a decisive manner to the consolidation of the sector. The improvement in the economic situation and a greater political stability indicate that 2017 will see a continuation of growth in the real estate sector and the consequent increase in employment.”.
Balance in growing professional profiles
Considerable balance can be observed both in professional profiles which grew in 2016, as will equally occur in 2017, where it is predicted that the number of contracts will grow in a variety of profiles. Due to the expanding activity which the members of ACI are developing, employment for service professionals during the basic stages of a real estate project will be created, also for profiles closely linked to the latest trends in the market (sustainability and the preservation of the environment). In detail, the most sought-after profiles in 2016 were investment analysts, IT and industrial engineers, consultants, high level architects and technicians, works managers and valuation supervisors, among others.