Real estate services reach 40 billion (+45% in 10 years)

The real estate services industry in Europe (management, consulting, design, etc.) has grown more than construction in the last ten years: +60 per cent (compared to +55 per cent). Not only that. In 2023 the turnover of real estate services reached EUR 40 billion, an increase of 9.6 per cent on the previous year. But the average turnover per employee increased by 26.5 per cent, demonstrating that there is ample room for growth. Finally, in Italy, the weight of construction and real estate activities in relation to GDP grew again in 2023, reaching and exceeding 19.5%, in line with the continental average of 19.4, but above all consolidating the co-protagonist role played by real estate within the national economy, together with industry and commerce.

This is what emerged in Milan during the 'First National Forum on the Real Estate Services Industry', in which the 'Report on the Services Industry in Europe and Italy', produced by Scenari Immobiliari in collaboration with leading sector companies, was presented. Italian construction and real estate activities have seen their share increase by 2.5 percentage points since 2015, with an increase of more than 3.5 percentage points between 2018 and 2023.

"The Italian market has demonstrated, and is continuing to demonstrate, a solid capacity for resilience and good resilience despite the persistence, and the succession of ever new, geopolitical tensions and conflicts," said Mario Breglia, president of Scenari Immobiliari at the opening of the Forum. The real revolution in the real estate sector is the impressive growth of activities at the service not only of more efficient management, but also of planning, of selling. Real estate becomes a place around which more and more innovative services are accentuated, and technology is leading the way'.

In terms of employment, the construction sector involves the largest number of workers, now close to 14 million in Europe, accounting for just over 5.5% of the total workforce. There are 3.4 million enterprises active in the sector, with an average size of just under 3.6 employees per enterprise. Germany, with 2.77 million employees spread over almost 392,000 companies and an average size of 7.1 employees per company, is once again the largest European market in terms of employment and distances the second largest, the United Kingdom, by almost 750,000, accounting for more than a third of the workforce employed in the UK. In France, the now 1.86 million people employed in the construction sector reached during 2023, is the result of a steady growth path (+15.5 per cent compared to 2015) that returns a level of dynamism, together with Germany, second only to that recorded by Spain (+29.2 per cent). In Spain, between 2015 and 2023, the number of enterprises increased by 16.5 per cent, from 380,000 to almost 445,000. The number of employees also increased, rising by 29.2 per cent, from 1.07 million to 1.38 million, taking the average company size from 2.8 employees in 2015 to 3.1 in 2023 (+11 per cent).

Italy, with almost 1.54 million people employed, up 10.3% compared to 2015, distributed in 518 thousand companies (-5.2% compared to the previous year and about -4% compared to 2015), is still characterised by a small average company size, three employees per company in 2023, approaching the Spanish average over the last year.