Commercial real estate is entering a new era of reckoning over pay equity, but data from the CREW Network’s 2025 Benchmark Study shows the gap is proving stubborn despite years of industry and societal focus. The latest study paints a mixed picture—while average base salaries for women and men are closer than ever, men continue to pull ahead in total compensation, largely because bonuses and commissions remain more lucrative for male professionals at every level and in nearly every specialty.
CREW’s landmark survey, which canvassed 2,450 industry professionals, finds the average woman in commercial real estate receives $191,103 in total compensation, compared with $220,275 for the average man. That equates to a 13% disparity in absolute terms—a significant improvement from the 34% gulf reported in 2020, but still a gap amounting to nearly $30,000 per year. The convergence in salaries is noteworthy: average base pay now stands at $146,103 for women, $151,418 for men, a difference of just 4%. This reflects that fixed pay has become the dominant component of earnings in the sector.
The report attributes much of the shrinking gap to a dramatic decline in men’s commission and bonus haul, which dropped from $122,826 in 2020 to $68,857 in 2025. Yet, despite both headwinds in discretionary income and a normalization in base pay, men still lead the field in additional earnings, taking home an average of $23,856 more each year just from bonuses and commissions. The premium is most striking in brokerage, where the average male broker earns more than $52,000 above female peers from these sources. In other key disciplines such as development, men outpace women by $104,403 in total compensation, while in asset management and finance, the disparity narrows but does not disappear, at $32,751 and $4,108, respectively.
The further up the ladder, the wider the gap grows—male executives in C-suite positions earn 24% more than their female counterparts and the pattern is replicated across multiple cohorts under 40. Notably, these disparities persist even as women now represent 38% of the industry, a ratio virtually unchanged over two decades.
The study sifts through reasons for the persistent gap. One critical factor is the structure of compensation itself; men are both more likely to be offered roles with higher commission potential and more willing to accept risk-heavy, commission-based positions—45% of males indicated openness to such structures, compared with only 32% of women.
Economic research referenced by the report suggests that risk aversion, shaped by social factors and traditional roles, remains a drag on parity. As compensation in the field has shifted toward base pay, the trend offers women greater stability—but it eliminates only part of the structural bias that accumulates over careers, especially for those seeking the industry’s highest rungs.
Race and ethnicity also intersect with the gender story. CREW Network highlights that Hispanic/Latinx and non-Hispanic white women fare best among female cohorts, earning about 90 cents for every dollar earned by men—while Black women earn only 74 cents and Asian women 79 cents on the dollar.
Workplace realities compound these challenges. Women are more likely to take career breaks for family or personal reasons, with 19% of women leaving the workforce for extended periods, compared with 12% of men. Crucially, 27% of women report compensation setbacks due to marital status or caregiving, more than double the figure for men, and this dynamic has only worsened since 2020. Despite more flexible work arrangements in the wake of the pandemic, the data notes a warning: those spending more time in the office are promoted more quickly and remote work may introduce a new layer of unintentional disparity.
Even as the fixed salary gap shrinks, the greater story is one of persistent barriers. For the first time in the history of the CREW study, women identified gender discrimination as the primary obstacle to professional advancement—an acknowledgment that structural change has not kept pace with headline compensation gains. While some men in the survey reported believing conditions for women have improved, women themselves remain more circumspect, reflecting a significant gap not just in pay — but in perception.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.