Name: Ryan Jakes
Job title: Head of living and commercial at HB Reavis UK
What I do: I’m responsible for business planning across our developments and our strategic entry into living sectors in London. Essentially taking a piece of land and building the integrated strategic, financial and operational case that gets it from an initial concept to a committed, funded and profitable scheme. That means owning the full business plan from research and feasibility to delivery and exit strategy.
Why I got into the property industry: When I was 10, my parents who are both artists, bought a ruin in southern Spain and uprooted for a year to renovate it. In my earliest memories, I was surrounded by building materials. Architecture felt like the obvious path, combining art and construction. It was during my time qualifying that I realised there were enough architects who care about design, but not enough developers who are genuinely passionate about it. That’s exactly what drew me to HB Reavis, a developer that puts product at the centre of what it does.
My first proper job: I joined Make Architects as a Part 1 architectural assistant in 2017 as the first graduate taken on by their London studio after the Brexit vote. Immediately, I was thrown into Make’s wide range of international work from offices and hotels in London to retail in Sydney, mixed-use in Miami and residential in the Bahamas. Make’s culture with a flat hierarchy, high expectations and strong opinions shaped how I think about design.
How I did it: After spending three years at Make Architects, I was introduced to the development process and realised that property development was where I wanted to be. I joined HB Reavis in 2021 as an assistant product design manager, a role unique to HB Reavis. I was part of the development team, but I was focused on the design of our buildings up to their business plans being approved and we started on site construction. After a couple of years, I took on the role of development manager before leading HB Reavis’ entry into the living sectors with our first PBSA scheme at 10 Leake Street.
My first big break: Being handed control of Worship Square in 2023 and taking full ownership of the development through construction to exit. This was an opportunity to deliver our first net zero carbon office building through a hybrid MC/CM procurement route with direct management of over 60 trade packages.
My inspiration(s): Seeing the research and thought behind our initial value proposition pay off when people start using the building. It is inspiring to see occupiers interact with spaces you helped define, using them the way the brief intended, and sometimes in ways you never anticipated.
The biggest challenge I’ve encountered to date: Navigating the delivery of Worship Square against a backdrop of challenges including a pandemic acquisition, a cyber-attack on the planning authority, new Building Safety Act obligations introduced as fit-outs were starting as well as sustained inflation and interest rate rises following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the mini budget. Despite these challenges, we completed the building in June 2024 on programme, within budget, fully pre-let and outperforming local prime rents.
My greatest achievement/proudest moment to date: Development attracts an inspiring and genuinely diverse group of people ranging from communities, agents, designers, builders, end users and many more. I couldn’t pick out a single moment, but I am always most proud when reaching a milestone and being with all the people that got it there in the same room, knowing what it took.
The biggest misconception people have about the property industry: That developers are purely motivated by profit and indifferent to the quality, communities, end-users and places their buildings create. The reality is that the most passionate, thoughtful and committed people I have met work in development.
My biggest bugbear about the industry/the one thing I would change about the industry: The time and complexity it takes to get things built in the UK with regulation that comes from the right place, but is managed poorly. The Building Safety Act is a clear example as it was introduced following the Grenfell Tower fire to improve building safety, but implemented without clear guidance, consistency or resource. At a time when housing need is at its greatest, that poor implementation directly contradicts housebuilding targets and disincentivises developers with increased time, liability and uncertainty.
Why I’m so passionate about DE&I: Property shapes the spaces people live and work in, so it goes without saying that the people building those spaces must be representative of those who use them. Without that representation, the decisions about product, community and what gets built where are being made by people with an incomplete picture.
Where I’d like to be in five years’ time career-wise: Standing in the newly created Waterloo Square (the central hub forming part of future development plans) and seeing over 200,000 daily commuters enjoying the new space!
Who I’d invite, living or dead, to a dinner party: My late grandfather, Sir Hugh Cortazzi, who served as British ambassador to Japan and spent his life building bridges between two cultures that didn’t naturally understand each other. He died when I was just starting my career in London and there was so much more to learn from him. I’d sit him alongside my grandmother Elizabeth and to make the conversation interesting let’s add Churchill and Thatcher, because between them they shaped and lived through every chapter of the world he navigated. Finally, I would need my future wife Charlie to help me cut through the formality of that table!
What I do in my downtime: Currently… planning my wedding!
The job I’d be doing if I was not doing this: Not wedding planning.
My advice for someone just starting out: Learn how to use technology well. You have an expert adviser in your pocket for the first time in history, and it’s a superpower if you ask the right questions in the right way. But get it wrong and you can be confidently led in the wrong direction. Your peers will use their experience to spot the nuances so learning how to talk to it closes that gap.
My motto/mantra: My grandfather used to tell me, ‘Perseverance makes anything possible’. I’ve spent a career testing whether that’s true and haven’t found a convincing counterargument yet. This is my advice for anyone starting out.
