Having one of his public-facing offices dominated by one gender or another would be “awful” and “madness”, says Peter Rollings, chief executive of estate agency Marsh & Parsons.

Rollings says there is frequently a gender imbalance in his industry, and speaking to Recruiter for the construction and property sector focus, which can be found on p14 of the new edition, out this Friday (17 August), explains that “what usually happens in estates agency is that the majority of lettings negotiators are female and sales negotiators are male, which is madness”.

“So I am conscious of gender balance in the business. It goes for the business in general and the offices in particular,” he says. 

Customer-facing staff are especially important and he adds that “a male-dominated office is an intimidating place for the public to walk into so if I had a load of blokes sitting on desks it would be awful. There needs to be a balance.”

Marsh & Parsons employs nearly 250 people in 16 offices across London, and Rollings says that in both lettings and sales, the company’s gender ratio is “pretty much 50-50”.

However, he adds that there is not anything specific in the firm’s recruitment process that ensures a good gender balance, but notes that he might consider moving people between offices to create that balance.