Property Manager CV Examples & Writing Guide

A CV for an on-site build-to-rent property manager who came up through lettings. The person and the companies are invented. Notice that every job opens with flat count, property type and team size before it claims anything.

These CVs are screened by a regional manager, a landlord or investor, or an HR recruiter working from the regional's list. They are hiring someone to protect an asset, so they read like an investor.

• Portfolio size and type. Flats or homes, or square footage and tenant count for commercial; build to rent, block management, lettings agency, social housing, student or retirement housing, lease-up or stabilised. Team size and who you reported to.
• The money. Occupancy, rent arrears, renewals, budget variance and NOI. A property manager without numbers reads as someone who was told what to do rather than someone who ran a property.
• Qualifications and memberships. There is no general licence to manage property in England, so ARLA Propertymark, IRPM, RICS or CIH credentials tell a regional you have been trained rather than just promoted. Wales and Scotland have their own registration rules.
• Software. Yardi, Reapit, Alto and Arthur Online are not interchangeable, and firms hire for the one they run. Name yours and say which modules you actually use.

“Occupancy and arrears in the first three lines, and I will read the rest. What I really want is the story behind the numbers, because anyone can inherit a good property. Tell me what you found when you took it over and what you changed.”

• Occupancy: physical and economic if you know both, with a starting point and an end point. "Held 96%" is weaker than "took it from 91.4% to 96.8% in 11 months and held it four quarters".
• Rent arrears: as a percentage of rent due, plus the collection routine that changed it. This is the number landlords worry about most.
• Renewals or retention: percentage, and what you did about it. Resident turnover costs a landlord far more than a rent incentive.
• Budget and NOI: portfolio budget value, variance against budget, and NOI change. If you are not given NOI, use controllable costs instead and say so.
• Void turnaround: days from move-out to ready to let, and the rent that recovered. Maintenance-heavy properties live and die on this one.

If a number came from a market recovery rather than from you, say what you did anyway: reduced incentives, better renewal pricing, faster voids. Landlords have seen enough CVs claiming credit for a good year in the local market.

Three or four lines: years, portfolio, team, two numbers, qualification or membership. Write a career objective only if you are stepping up from lettings or assistant manager.

• Operations: occupancy and pricing strategy, renewals, rent arrears and collection, tenancy administration, move-in and move-out accounting, deposit protection in an approved scheme, possession procedure.
• Financial: annual operating budgets, monthly variance reporting, NOI, capital project budgets, purchase orders and invoice approval, service charge budgets and reconciliations if you manage blocks or commercial property.
• Property and people: void turnaround, planned and preventive maintenance, contractor tendering and agreements, insurance certificates, hiring and coaching on-site staff, out-of-hours and emergency response.
• Compliance: Equality Act 2010, Right to Rent checks, deposit protection, gas safety and electrical (EICR) certificates, HMO licensing where it applies, and the specific rules if you handle social housing.
• Software, named exactly: Yardi Voyager, Reapit, Alto, Arthur Online, Fixflo, Qube for block management, MRI for commercial, plus your referencing and utility billing tools.
• Do not list: "customer service", "multitasking", "team player". Replace each with a number or a system.

Rules for letting and managing property differ across the UK. In England there is no licence to manage residential property, but letting and management agents must belong to a government-approved redress scheme and, if they hold client money, a client money protection scheme. Scotland requires letting agents to be registered, and Wales requires a Rent Smart Wales licence for letting and management work. Check what applies where you work before you write anything, and put your membership and its status in your header if you hold one.

• ARLA Propertymark membership. The main professional body for residential letting and property management agents, and the membership most lettings employers recognise.
• Propertymark qualifications in residential letting and property management, with Level 3 the usual starting point for negotiators moving up.
• Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM) qualifications and membership for block management. They carry real weight with freeholders and residents' management companies.
• RICS membership (for example AssocRICS or MRICS) for commercial office, retail and industrial management, where chartered surveyors often lead.
• Social and affordable housing: a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) qualification such as a Level 3 or Level 4 Certificate in Housing. If you manage housing association or council stock, one of these belongs on the page.
• Equality and Right to Rent training with a recent date. It is not a qualification, but landlords like seeing it current, and it is a fair thing to be asked about in the interview.

• Build to rent and residential blocks: flat count, occupancy, rent arrears, renewals, void turnaround, resident satisfaction, on-site team size. Lease-up experience is its own selling point; say so if you have taken a scheme from practical completion to stabilised occupancy.
• Commercial office, retail and industrial: square footage, tenant count, lease expiry and rent review schedule, service charge reconciliations, fit-outs and dilapidations, service contracts and building systems. Renewals are measured in leases, not percentages of residents.
• Social and affordable housing: compliance is a large part of the job. Rent arrears, void turnaround, tenancy audits, gas, electrical and fire safety checks completed on time, and inspection outcomes. Say which landlords you have worked for (housing association, council, ALMO).
• Lettings agency and private landlords: number of properties managed, geography, landlord reporting, maintenance coordination across scattered properties, and how you handled landlord communication.
• Student and retirement housing: changeover season volume, re-letting percentages by date, parent or guarantor handling, and any support or care coordination you were involved in.

This is a field people enter from lettings, maintenance, hospitality, banking and retail. Property management companies hire on judgement, nerve with arrears and a clean record more than on a degree.

1. 1Get a Propertymark Level 3 qualification early if you can. It is not a legal requirement in England, but it is often what turns a maybe into an interview.
2. 2Translate the money part of your last job. Cash handling, collections, account balances, budget responsibility, invoices approved, contracts signed. Property management is bookkeeping with buildings attached.
3. 3Translate the people part with numbers: complaints resolved, occupancy or bookings, customers checked, staff on your rota, out-of-hours calls handled.
4. 4Learn one software package. Most platforms offer training, and naming one on your CV gets you past a screen that most career changers fail.
5. 5Apply for assistant property manager and lettings roles first, and say plainly in your personal statement that you are aiming at a manager seat. Firms promote from the inside constantly.
6. 6Add equality and Right to Rent training with the year. It signals you understand the legal risk the landlord is handing you.

• Two pages is the UK norm once you have a few years behind you; one page is fine early on. Property lists go on page two, not the skills.
• Plain layout, no photo, no date of birth. Third-party management firms run applicant tracking systems and columns break them.
• Mirror the advert title: property manager, lettings manager, block manager, community manager, assistant property manager, estate manager, housing officer. Different firms use different names for the same seat.
• Words that recur in UK adverts: occupancy, rent arrears, renewals, NOI, voids, lease-up, build to rent, Right to Rent, deposit protection, compliance, service charge, planned maintenance, Yardi, Reapit, budget.
• Put your membership, qualifications and software in the header area so a screener does not have to hunt for them.
• Send a PDF named firstname-lastname-property-manager.pdf unless the advert asks for Word.