Property – A flexible career choice

On the surface, many young professionals view a prospective career in property from a narrow lens that reflects their experience with it. From the moment we leave home, we’re likely to have regular engagement with a property professional – whether it is a lettings agent, property manager, or sales agent.

These engagements can lend themselves to negative perceptions – of an industry dominated by false promises, commission driven manipulations and outright deception. It makes an accurate assessment of the potential of pursuing a career in property clouded – there are very few young people who see the industry as one with the capacity to align with their high aspirations.

Property, and the diverse opportunity’s it can offer, is far more than a simple sum of the face-to-face experiences that drive our early understandings of it. And no – we’re not just talking about a team of back-room staff undertaking admin or working in accounts (although these roles do exist and are as vital as they are in any other professional services firm). If there’s a professional field you can imagine – there is a good possibility that an iteration of it exists within the industry.

The property industry is ‘mega’ – in every sense of the word. From the sheer vastness in value of its combined capital holdings, its broad footprint in policy and advocacy, its attractiveness to several different verticals and class of investor, its up and downstream economically dependent industry’s that it gives life to (such as builders, maintenance firms, landscapers, etc) – property is, simply put, huge.

Any industry with such breadth of footprint holds vast opportunity. From development managers, architects, property lawyers, brokers, conveyancers, financial advisers, sales managers, comms managers, marketing professionals to basically any field under the sun – there are those who specialise in delivering services either tailored to or based within this industry. While its impact is broad – barriers to entry remain low, providing aspiring professionals with ample opportunity to gain fence line experience with the potential to specialise in areas of expertise as their interest evolves.

“Many of us with long-standing time in the industry start in the roles with which we are all familiar with – Property Managers, Sales Agents or Lettings Agent’s,” said Omnia Property Group’s Managing Director, Joanne Race. “The beauty of a career in property is that it has some general and easily accessible entry points that provide a great introduction to property – and all of them deliver valuable lessons that stay with you on your journey. When you begin a career working on the transactional side of its services, this sets you up to not only learn about the subject matter, but to develop valuable people skills that stay with you your entire life.”

The flexibility of a career in property is not just in the scope of positions and fields of expertise where opportunities exist. With a multitude of dependent, subsidiary and supplementary sectors branching out from property, the chance to pursue commercial opportunities as an investor, owner-operator or Director are plentiful.  

Omnia Operations Director Amy Ryan is no stranger to realising such an opportunity. “Joanne and I were both working in the business with well-established property careers when the opportunity came up to invest and take on senior leadership positions,” said Amy. “It’s not something we necessarily envisioned when we both started out in the industry – but our ground-level experience and knowledge had bred the confidence in us that it was something we could take on and see through to yield results. It’s a career and industry of infinite possibility – you can get out of it whatever you are willing to put in.”

Time honoured perceptions of long-hours and low-pay aren’t reflective of the modern property industry in the United Kingdom, which has had to evolve and adapt in order to continue attracting talent. With flexible working patterns and options available within most fields, property is a career that provides options to scale up or down your investment in it, depending upon lifestyle, lifecycle and individual need.

“With the pandemic accelerating changes in thinking regarding the value proposition of employment – property is well positioned to continue to provide flexible choices to professionals,” Joanne concluded.

Established in Sheffield in 2004, Omnia Property Group is one of the nation’s major players in property with operations covering block and commercial property management, office and commercial lettings, student accommodation, residential lettings and facilities management. It is constantly seeking expressions of interest from aspiring young professionals who wish to learn more about how the industry can provide rewarding career options.  

To learn more about Omnia Property Group, its current positions available or to register your interest, contact Omnia on 0114 2792840 or blockmanagement@omniaestates.com for a confidential and no-obligation discussion.