HomeRecruitmentConstruction › Real Estate Development
Real Estate & Land Development Recruitment

Real estate & land development recruitment — the developer side of the built environment.

PHM recruits the people on the developer’s side of the table — the ones who decide what gets built and carry it from land to shovels: development managers, acquisitions, planning and entitlements, and feasibility. Distinct from the engineers who design and the managers who build.

Why this hire is hard

The numbers changed, and the people who can re-run them are the constraint.

Ontario and Ottawa now pay municipalities to cut development charges by a third to a half, for three years, and the first round of applications closed in June 2026. Where a municipality took the money, land residuals move and projects that were shelved come back. Very few development managers have underwritten a deal on the new numbers yet, the ones who have are holding a pipeline they will not leave mid-cycle, and the window has an end date.

What it costs while the seat is open

A development seat left open pushes decisions past a rate window or an approval cycle. Those windows do not reopen because you were still hiring.

How we run it instead

Our real estate development recruiters know which municipalities took the reduction and which did not, and place people with the market knowledge to match the pipeline — approached confidentially where the work is sensitive.

What we recruit for

From development managers to principals.

Genuine depth across the real estate and land development disciplines — we understand the roles and the work they answer for, not just the titles. A sample of the work and the projects we recruit for:

Skills we recruit
AcquisitionsDevelopment financeDevelopment managementFeasibilityLand acquisitionMunicipal approvalsPlanning & entitlementsPro forma & financial analysisSite servicingZoning & site plan
Project types
Commercial & ICIGreenfield & brownfieldInfill & redevelopmentLand developmentMaster-planned communitiesMixed-useResidential developmentSubdivision development

Recruiting to build it rather than to structure the deal? Site delivery sits with our construction management team.

Levels from development coordinators and analysts through development and senior development managers, and VPs and directors of development and principals.

How we engage

Exclusive contingency.

Retained-level rigour, on an exclusive basis, for a fee paid on the hire — no upfront retainer and the delivery risk on us. We also work standard contingency where a role suits it. How we engage →

Because we don’t run volume, an exclusive development mandate gets our full bandwidth — and we’re driven to deliver in less time than industry norms.

Where development teams work

Residential, commercial, and land development.

Residential & mixed-use developers

Low-rise, high-rise, and mixed-use developers — development management from acquisition through approvals and delivery.

Commercial & ICI developers

Industrial, commercial, and institutional developers building income-producing and purpose-built assets.

Land developers & builders

Land development and homebuilders — acquisition, entitlements, servicing, and the run to shovels-in-ground.

Common questions

Real Estate Development recruitment, answered.

What real estate development roles do you recruit for?

The specialties and levels are listed above. We recruit them for consultancies, owners, contractors and industrial employers across Canada and the USA.

How is this different from your construction or civil engineering recruitment?

This is the developer’s side - the people who decide what gets built and carry it through acquisition and approvals. Construction Management covers the build itself, and Civil and Structural Engineering cover the design — we recruit across all of them.

Do you work on a retained or contingency basis?

We work exclusive contingency. Retained-level research and assessment, no money before a hire, and we carry the cost if the search does not produce one.

Can you advise on real estate development salaries and compensation?

Yes. We provide real-time compensation insight for the specific role, region, and seniority you’re hiring for — so an offer is competitive without overpaying.

Where do you recruit development talent?

Across Canada and the United States. We’re headquartered in London, Ontario, Canada and work on-site where it counts and remote-fluent by design.

Are the best development roles even advertised?

Often not. Many of the strongest development roles are filled discreetly, through direct search — the roles no job board carries, because they are gone before one would.

Related disciplines

Explore where else our expertise runs deep.

Get in touch

Hiring a development professional? Tell us the role.

An advisory conversation about the development hire ahead of you — and where the right person is likely to come from. Not a commitment.