CBRE

About CBRE

CBRE is the global leader in commercial real estate services and investment, and a major provider of critical infrastructure services. The company employs more than 155,000 professionals across over 600 offices in more than 100 countries, and counts roughly 90 of the Fortune 100 among its clients.

Its scale is the point. CBRE operates across every dimension of commercial property, from advising an investor on where to place capital, through leasing and fit-out, to running buildings day to day over their working life. That breadth, combined with a large research function and proprietary technology, is how the firm positions its advice to clients.

Service Areas

CBRE organises its offer around five client needs rather than internal departments:

• Invest, finance and value – capital markets, debt and structured finance, valuation and appraisal, and investment management.
• Plan, lease and occupy – occupier strategy, tenant and landlord leasing, workplace planning and portfolio advisory.
• Design and build – project and programme management and supply chain sourcing, delivered through the unified project management business with Turner and Townsend.
• Manage properties and portfolios – property management, facilities management and building operations.
• Transform business outcomes – consulting work that uses real estate as a lever on wider business performance.

Alongside these sits a dedicated Energy and Sustainability Solutions practice covering decarbonisation strategy, energy procurement and performance across client portfolios.

Project Delivery with Turner and Townsend

CBRE's design and build capability is delivered jointly with Turner and Townsend as a single project management business, combining CBRE's client reach with Turner and Townsend's programme management depth across real estate, infrastructure, energy and natural resources. For AEC professionals this is the part of CBRE most likely to appear on a project: managing schedules, budgets and the construction process on behalf of an owner or occupier, and sourcing the supply chain through a global supplier network.

Property Types and Industries

CBRE works across office, retail, industrial and logistics, multifamily residential and hotels, alongside specialist asset classes including data centres, life sciences facilities and healthcare property. Sector coverage extends to banking and financial services, technology, media and telecommunications, and other industries where property strategy is material to operations.

Data centres and life sciences have become particularly significant. Both require highly technical buildings with demanding power, cooling and compliance requirements, and both attract capital that needs specialist valuation and management expertise.

Research and Technology

CBRE maintains a large research and thought leadership platform producing market reports and forward-looking analysis. Recurring outputs include The Weekly Take podcast and the Our Take newsletter, alongside research themes covering intelligent investment, future cities, adaptive spaces, evolving workforces, creating resilience, sustainability and total cost of occupancy.

The firm also invests in proprietary data and technology, and publishes a position on responsible artificial intelligence, reflecting how central data products have become to brokerage, valuation and facilities management.

Culture and Corporate Responsibility

CBRE describes its culture through four values: respect, integrity, service and excellence. Corporate responsibility work covers supplier standards through a supplier code of conduct, a published slavery and human trafficking statement, and a supplier engagement programme. The company is publicly listed and maintains a full investor relations function.

Why CBRE Matters to the AEC Industry

For architects, engineers and contractors, CBRE matters in two ways. First, it is frequently the client-side representative: the project manager, occupier advisor or asset manager sitting between the design team and the building owner, which means its processes and standards shape how projects are procured and run. Second, its research output is one of the most widely used sources of market data on occupancy, construction cost and asset demand, and it directly informs where developers choose to build. Understanding how CBRE frames a brief, a budget or a market forecast is therefore useful well beyond the brokerage side of the business.