Meet the member: Chloe Prince on bridging barriers

Lack of awareness remains the biggest barrier to entry, says Landsec portfolio manager and BCO NextGen committee member

By BCO Media

November 26, 2025

BCO NextGen London committee member and portfolio manager at Landsec Chloe Prince is on a mission to open up the world of real estate so that young people don’t miss out on the exciting career opportunities it offers.

Why is she so passionate? Well, because she could have missed out on the opportunity herself. At Prince’s school – like so many – commercial property wasn’t discussed as a career option. The smart kids, of which she was clearly one, became lawyers or doctors.

“Property wasn’t on the agenda,” she says. “To be honest I always thought that property meant estate agent and that was it.”

Now, of course, she knows is wrong. But it took a turn studying French and Spanish and stints living in Paris and Valencia for Prince to find her way to property.

“When I was looking for something to do in Paris, I decided to take an internship. At that point I was desperate and this property management internship came up. I didn’t know much about commercial property but I loved buildings and architecture and they loved that I could speak English. I did lots of translation and a lot of their property management with their English clients. And that’s how I discovered real estate and  property surveying.”

The power of determination

The rest is history. Prince came back to the UK with a mission to be a surveyor and get chartered. She finished her degree and started applying for non-cog graduate schemes. There were knock backs, but again that passion kicked in.

“I was so determined,” says Prince. “I was getting into real estate, no matter what. I was going to get chartered so  I decided to go slightly through the back door and I applied for a role in Savills residential.”

Prince worked in the firm’s Wandsworth office in an admin role, but used her spare to researching so that when the opportunity to apply for Savills’ graduate scheme came up, she was more prepared than anyone else.

And the rest really is history.

Prince clearly doesn’t want others to have to take such a wiggly path, however, and has been working with her fellow BCO committee members this year to deliver a partnership with charity Bridging Barriers that culminated a real estate insight  day on London’s South Bank.

The day, which saw a number of young adults from London communities visit LandSec’s The Forge and Native Land’s Bankside Yards site to learn more about development and the many careers in real estate.

Barriers to entry persist

“One of the key challenges for social mobility for the industry is barriers to entry and awareness,” says Prince. “I’ve spoken to countless young people who have no idea what a surveyor is, so for me, one of the key ambitions for the committee was to increase awareness among young people and for them to really understand what we do. And to understand that there are so many different routes that you can go into property.”

The event was a hit. Pretty much all 15 individuals involved in the day have created connections with members of the BCO committee. Prince has piqued their interest and shown them that there is a way into this industry that doesn’t necessarily have to take you round the houses.

But, while the industry has become more diverse there is clearly more to do. While Prince says that even in the relatively short time she’s been working in the sector, she’s been encouraged by how the narrative around social mobility has changed.

“People often talk about social mobility, DEI, etc. as either a box tick exercise or just something to do as a good thing, which is true, but there’s also a huge amount of value that is brought by it,” says Prince. “We make buildings for people, so our leadership should reflect that. And if you have diverse opinions, your building will only be better.”

“Whenever I talk about this, I just I like to frame it in the sense that it’s just good business to ensure that your employees don’t all look the same, don’t all think the same, don’t all come from the same background,” she adds. “It makes so much sense to have people who have different experiences and may challenge things or look at certain aspects differently. And that’s why social mobility is really important.”

And that’s why listening in and learning from Prince is important too, which you can do in this episode of the Workspace Unwired podcast.

Subscribe to the BCO’s Workspace Unwired podcast on any of your favourite podcast players, including Spotify, Podbean and Apple, to make sure you never miss an episode.