If you are in commercial property you are most likely male, age 45 and called David…
If you are in commercial property you are most likely male, age 45 and called David… If you are a female in commercial agency you are most likely age 38, called Sarah and surrounded by 5 men.
Following our recent newsletter, distributed on 15th September, we thought it would be fun to look at the 5,500 first names of the agency professionals we contacted to see what they say about the industry.
We had a look at the top baby names from 1994-1954, released by the office of national statistics, and compared these with our list. We used this data to guess the age of each of our top 30 by looking at which year the name was most popular based on the statistics:
Check out the table below to see how old we think all of our top 30 are:
| Top First Names in Commercial Property | Year Most Popular | Most Likely Age | Number of contacts with this name |
| David | 1959 | 56 | 182 |
| Andrew | 1964 | 51 | 175 |
| James | 1989 | 26 | 170 |
| Richard | 1974 | 41 | 170 |
| Mark | 1974 | 41 | 136 |
| Chris | 1984 | 31 | 127 |
| John | 1954 | 61 | 123 |
| Paul | 1974 | 41 | 123 |
| Nick | 1974 | 41 | 118 |
| Simon | 1974 | 41 | 104 |
| Peter | 1954 | 61 | 97 |
| Tom | 1994 | 21 | 87 |
| Jonathan | 1984 | 31 | 81 |
| Stephen | 1954 | 61 | 81 |
| Tim | 1964 | 51 | 70 |
| Ian | 1964 | 51 | 66 |
| Robert | 1954 | 61 | 61 |
| Ben | 1994 | 21 | 56 |
| Matthew | 1994 | 21 | 56 |
| Michael | 1954 | 61 | 51 |
| Alex | 1994 | 21 | 48 |
| Adam | 1994 | 21 | 46 |
| Phillip | 1954 | 61 | 44 |
| Mike | 1954 | 61 | 42 |
| Will | 1954 | 61 | 40 |
| Charles | 1954 | 61 | 39 |
| Colin | 1954 | 61 | 39 |
| Martin | 1964 | 51 | 38 |
| Neil | 1969 | 46 | 36 |
| Robert | 1954 | 61 | 35 |
| Total contacts with Top 30 names | 2,541 | ||
| Average Age | 45 | ||
You may have noticed that all of the names so far have been male. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten the females! It’s just that no female names appear until position 32 in our list. This is perhaps not too surprising as females account for less than 17% of our database.
Here are the top 30 female names from our database:
| Top First Names in Commercial Property | Most Popular Year | Most Likely Age | Number of contacts with this name |
| Sarah | 1979 | 36 | 33 |
| Emma | 1979 | 36 | 25 |
| Laura | 1984 | 31 | 22 |
| Katie | 1984 | 31 | 16 |
| Angela | 1964 | 51 | 13 |
| Claire | 1974 | 41 | 13 |
| Helen | 1969 | 46 | 12 |
| Jane | 1964 | 51 | 12 |
| Julie | 1964 | 51 | 12 |
| Kate | 1984 | 31 | 12 |
| Victoria | 1984 | 31 | 12 |
| Hannah | 1994 | 21 | 10 |
| Louise | 1974 | 41 | 10 |
| Debbie | 1964 | 51 | 9 |
| Heather | 1954 | 61 | 9 |
| Kirsty | 1994 | 21 | 9 |
| Rachel | 1984 | 31 | 9 |
| Rebecca | 1994 | 21 | 9 |
| Alison | 1964 | 51 | 8 |
| Amanda | 1974 | 41 | 8 |
| Caroline | 1964 | 51 | 8 |
| Emily | 1994 | 21 | 8 |
| Lisa | 1974 | 41 | 8 |
| Anna | 1984 | 31 | 7 |
| Charlotte | 1994 | 21 | 7 |
| Jennifer | 1984 | 31 | 7 |
| Jenny | 1984 | 31 | 7 |
| Jill | 1954 | 61 | 7 |
| Karen | 1964 | 51 | 7 |
| Lauren | 1994 | 21 | 7 |
| Total contacts with Top 30 female names | 336 | ||
| Average Age | 38 | ||
Let us know if we have guessed your age correctly by leaving a comment below or ask us to work out your potential age based on your name!
Methodology
The average age of people in commercial property is based on the top 30 names (accounting for 2,541 individuals, which happen to all be men) averaging the most likely age for each of these. For women the top 30 female names account for only 336 individuals. In total our database had 5,537 contacts, 4,616 had male names & 921 female.
Very arbitrarily we took the year each name was most popular as the most likely year of birth for people with that name. For David this was 1954 & 1964, so we took 1959 as the year of birth for ‘the average David’. So although the average male in commercial property is age 45 (and they are most likely called David), the most likely age for someone called David is 56.
The sample is based on those receiving our newsletters. These are all those involved in advertising commercial property and managing online listings: commercial agency surveyors, developers, marketing contacts & administrators.
The statistics released by the Office of National Statistics only cover England and Wales. This is not ideal as a lot of our contacts are based in Scotland. They also only show the top baby names within 10 year intervals. To access the data we referenced, please use the link below:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-243767
