The Commercial Real Estate Women network is including the UK in a major study of gender diversity in commercial real estate for the first time, and is looking for UK property professionals to take part in a wide-ranging survey.

Every five years, CREW teams up with the MIT Center For Real Estate to undertake an industrywide study measuring progress for women and benchmarking diversity in commercial real estate.

Responses for the 2020 study close on 31 March, and the results will be published in September. The study is open to both men and women. You can take it here.

The 2015 study found:

• Women’s career satisfaction and feelings of success increased across all industry specialisations. Women with higher commission-based pay reported the highest career satisfaction.

• More women fill senior vice president, managing director and partner positions than ever.

• The percentage of women with direct reports is now on par with their male counterparts.

• An "aspiration gap" exists between men and women: 28% of women aspire to the C-suite vs. 40% of men; 47% of women respondents aspire to the senior vice president, managing director or partner levels.

• In 2015, the industry median annual compensation was $115K (£88,994) for women and $150K (£116,014) for men — an average income gap of 23.3%. The income gap was widest in the C-suite, at 29.8%.

• One in five women surveyed said that family or marital status has adversely impacted their career or compensation.

CREW has about 12,000 members globally, and launched in the UK in 2017.

UK government data released last year and analysed by Bisnow found that large UK property companies had a gender pay gap of 25%. That does not mean that women were paid less for doing the same job, which is illegal, but that the average woman was paid 25% less per hour worked than the average man.

That 25% represented a decrease from the previous year, when the gap was 27%, but is higher than the 14% average pay gap across all sectors.