We recently worked with the professionals and experts below on a discussion kindly hosted by Bidwells for Cambridge’s property community on some of the challenges and opportunities facing the city and its real estate industry and what they mean in terms of social impact and community cohesion.
- Sue Foxley, Research Director, Bidwells
- Nick Pettit, Senior Partner, Bidwells
- Mark Addley, Real Estate Restructuring Leader, PwC
- Liz Peace CBE, Adviser on Property, Politics, and the Built Environment, Chair of the University of Cambridge Property Board and Co-founder of Real Estate Balance
- Steve Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, Form the Future
Liz started the conversation by explaining her role in co-founding Real Estate Balance as an advocacy organisation to help promote gender balance in real estate businesses and how we have expanded our focus over the past decade to wider dimensions of diversity.
Sue presented on Cambridge’s position as a leading region for the growth of knowledge-intensive jobs in areas like science and technology and how the employment growth in these areas was also faster than in other parts of the local economy.
While there may be the misconception that this growth is driven entirely by people moving to the city, putting pressure on the residential market and more, 40% of the recent demand for office and laboratory space was coming from companies already in Cambridge.
Sue pointed out that a nuanced look at Cambridge’s Gini Coefficient rating alongside data on how people live together in the city reveals that while income inequality is prevalent, many parts of the city are populated by a mix of household incomes, with the diversity less in lower income neighbourhoods.
While Cambridge benefits from above-average employment growth, wealth and productivity, it lacks support structures in areas including transport, infrastructure and affordable housing, she added.
Liz discussed the objectives of the University of Cambridge’s Property Board:
- Working with the Estates Department’s ‘ReShaping the Estate’ team to support a rationalisation of academic space that would ultimately lead to the estate being better connected and more of it being available and accessible to the broader Cambridge community. The relatively new West Hub being an excellent example of a facility open to all.
- Providing the facilities for the commercialisation of science allowing bright ideas to grow into something much bigger, bringing more jobs and opportunities to a whole range of people from all levels of education. The plan being to create an Innovation District at West Cambridge and an Innovation Hub in Hills Road.
- Building out Phase II of Eddington Cambridge to provide accommodation for post-docs and other university people. The plan is for this to be a mix of key worker and market housing and creating a vibrant community with excellent facilities for everyone, not just those who live there.
- Bringing in commercial real estate partners early in the process to leverage their expertise of placemaking and more.
Mark discussed the very recent release of the PwC 2025 Good Growth for Cities Index.
The Index combines 50 cities’ actual performance on 12 measures including jobs, health, income, safety and skills, as well as work-life balance, housing, transport, income equality, high street and shops, environment and business startups alongside resident sentiment on how the cities are performing.
York, Edinburgh and Bristol topped this year’s table, with Cambridge falling 10 places to 21st due to dissatisfaction with housing and transport. Mark highlighted that people were less focused on financial factors this year, with local concerns, essential services and “how it feels” to live somewhere becoming more important.
Mark also discussed several macro challenges to which Cambridge is not immune, including global geopolitical instability, a soft M&A market, an oversupply of office space and development difficulties stemming from material costs, interest rates and uncertainty around values.
In Cambridge specifically, he said that he had seen more stress and distress in early-stage life sciences and technology companies than before due to difficulties in accessing seed funding.
Nick highlighted the opportunities for Cambridge to strengthen its approach to social mobility, alongside addressing challenges around transport, unevenness in local government and the city’s pockets of severe social deprivation. He encouraged greater collaboration between real estate businesses and education providers to help open pathways for local talent.
He also expressed optimism that progress on gender balance at senior levels in real estate businesses is achievable, noting that the growing emphasis on STEM subjects will, over time, support a stronger pipeline of women progressing into leadership positions.
Steve cautioned that Cambridge’s growth in knowledge-intensive jobs could lead to the gap between the providers of those jobs and local education institutions widening, echoing Nick’s view that developers and occupiers need a structured link to local schools, colleges and sixth forms either in the city or in its outskirts.
He also highlighted recent changes in work experience – whereby young people must complete two weeks of placements but not in a single block or with a single employer – opening up significant opportunities for employers to engage with up-and-coming talent before they even enter higher education. He urged everyone in attendance to ensure their workplaces pay work experience participants in some form as it “makes a massive, massive difference”.
Steve’s organisation Form the Future is a Cambridge CIC dedicated to helping young people through education and into employment via job gender stereotype workshops at primary school level all the way through to the ‘Cambridge Unlocked’ initiative connecting disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-olds with employers offering work experience and internships.
He spoke about his recent interactions with people undertaking apprenticeships in ground laying and brickwork and how careers in those specialisms come with a salary potential of £50,000 per year – just two examples of the opportunities for social mobility our industry can provide in Cambridge and elsewhere.
Thank you very much to Sue, Nick, Mark, Liz and Steve for sharing their insights and experiences, the team at Bidwells for facilitating the discussion and to all who attended and contributed to the first Real Estate Balance event in Cambridge.
