London lettings and sales agency Dexters is the first in the UK to gain OFSTED accreditation for its training.

Its academy offers coaching for all staff, including school-leavers and graduates, to become qualified professional estate agents.

The agency says an OFSTED review report praised the Dexters Academy recognising that “apprentices can confidently provide help and advice to clients through their thorough understanding of the estate agency profession”; and that “Apprentices feel valued and motivated”.

Dexters says it has over 250 staff working towards professional apprenticeship qualifications.

The agency group, which operates over 150 offices across London, employs over 2,000 staff members, with almost half having achieved professional qualifications including RICS membership.

Agency chief executive Andy Shepherd says: “Dexters was the UK’s first estate agency employment training provider, and now we have achieved another industry milestone, this time as the UK’s first estate agent to gain accreditation by OFSTED for our dedicated Dexters Training Academy.

“Our strategy is to invest in our people and recruit, train, retain and develop future leaders of the business, and our training programme has now been officially and independently recognised by OFSTED. We have always agreed with the government that estate agents should be suitably professionally trained and qualified to ensure they can give the very best expert advice to customers.

“At Dexters our vision is to deliver this through investing in and nurturing the finest talents, as part of our ‘spend your career with us’ culture, about 90 per cent of our management have risen from our own in-house training programme, I am hugely excited about working with the next generation of Dexters Academy graduates.”

The firm says that after basic training Dexters employee targeted earnings start at £27,500 to £45,000 rising up to over £70,000 for senior negotiators and office managers.