An old adage had it that “no-one got into Real Estate because they were good at maths”. If it was ever true that you didn’t need good numeracy skills in the property industry, it certainly isn’t now and one of the major challenges currently facing some university Real Estate courses is the number of students who need support in this area.

Prospective students need at least a Grade C in GCSE Maths to be offered place on our course but experience shows that this is sometimes an unreliable indicator of numeracy. It’s not clear whether the problem is due to the type of maths teaching at schools or because those with numeracy issues are disproportionately attracted to studying Real Estate. The simple answer would appear to be to raise the entry qualification to Grade B or even A, at GCSE Maths. This could negatively affect applications to Real Estate degree programmes and as numeracy is only one of a range of many desirable student attributes, the property industry does not want to select future professionals on the strength of a single criterion. So whatever the cause of the problem, universities need to ensure that all students are able to tackle those Real Estate tasks which have a computational element.

In most universities, additional numeracy support is provided on a voluntary participation basis. Students who meet the entry requirements for a degree programme cannot be compelled to undertake additional study in maths (or any subject), outside the programme to improve their skills.