Fortune, fatigue and being the chameleon

Sometimes it takes a combination of fatigue, bloody-mindedness, sound judgment and no small amount of luck to secure change at scale. Thankfully, there’s enough of each of them in circulation to set in train the beginnings of what we should hope to be an industry-wide transformation.

Fatigue with a status quo that has seen real estate’s reputation slump and stay slumped in the eyes of the public and politicians. Bloody-mindedness among those determined to pursue a prize that could mean more influence and a better built world. Sound judgment in not getting derailed from the right course. And luck? Well on that we’ll see – there’s certainly some good fortune in the fact that so many of these initiatives are happening together and coming together.

The University College of Estate Management is now the University of the Built Environment. “Haven’t we already got one of those?” more than one person asked me on news of the change. No, we didn’t. Now we do. It’s more than a name change; it’s a statement of intent that to deliver growth, productivity, the government’s infrastructure strategy and more, we need a workforce rich with the skills that make the built world go round.

Speaking of skills, we’ll look back on May’s NLA report Skills for Places as another seminal moment. The report demonstrates that, for the London economy, the built world is a bigger sector than financial services and as rich and diverse as the creative industries. It’s as true nationally as it is in the capital.

Representative bodies are changing too. The British Property Federation, Association of Real Estate Funds and the Investment Property Forum are coming together to form Real Estate: UK, or RE:UK. If you were a government minister, would you be more inclined to listen to a larger trade body with a bigger representative base or have your diary crowded with meetings with several smaller ones serving narrower interests?

In a business climate that is getting tougher and tougher, there is little option but to change and to innovate. (And speaking of innovation – and resilience – good luck to the team behind Aram, a new real assets segment launched on London’s challenger stock market Aquis this week.)

At CREtech last week a stellar CEO panel made it clear just how tough it is to develop these days – and the qualities needed to cope.

Landsec’s Mark Allan, British Land’s Simon Carter and Seaforth Land’s Tyler Goodwin believe that volatility is here to stay, but saw a world where the UK operated as a safe haven for capital. Be a chameleon (and perhaps a comedian too), they suggested, and above all stay positive, be constructive and invest time in thought leadership and analysis.

And while there is much that is already happening, the pace cannot be allowed to slow. Clarity of message, amplified through louder voices, is critical. Find allies and focus on skills – including tech, digital, data and AI. It will pay dividends.

The price of not doing so will be high.