The UK estate agency sector is the largest in Europe in terms of total market revenue but ranks just sixth when it comes to agency revenue per business, according to eXp UK research.

The eXp analysis found the UK generates an estimated annual total revenue of £13.3bn. This compares with £11.6bn a year in Germany, £8.6b in France, £5.4bn in Spain and £4.7bn in Belgium.

However, the UK’s total revenue must be divided among 27,965 estate agency businesses. Only France (52,815), Spain (37,160), Germany (36,702) and Italy (33,716) have more agencies in operation and, for UK agents, it means each individual business generates estimated revenue of £476,392.

This can be compared to Denmark, where the total agency revenue of £1.8bn is significantly less than the UK, but only needs to be split among 1,407 businesses. This means each agency generates annual revenue of £1.3m – more than any other EU nation.

In Finland, £884m revenue is generated by 1,263 businesses, which equates to an average of £699,681, and in Austria, strong revenue of £2.2bn splits between 3,522 businesses to create an average individual revenue of £627,269.

Meanwhile, the UK is also outperformed when it comes to average revenue per business by Luxembourg (£592,184) and Sweden (£478,783).

Adam Day, head of eXp UK, commented: “Estate agency continues to be a hugely profitable endeavour in the UK, generating by far the highest revenue of all EU nations. But it’s also an extremely busy market which forces agents to compete for the finite business available.

“Of course, the revenue per business doesn’t take into account the many overheads that the traditional agency model will have and so the actual earnings of the boots on the ground will be far lower.

“It’s no wonder, therefore, that more and more estate agents are opting to transfer to the self-employed because this ensures that they make and keep the maximum earnings available to them.”