In her two years at Foxtons Group Plc, one of London’s biggest estate agencies, Lucy said her managers and co-workers groped her, sent her explicit messages, discussed her weight in work WhatsApp chats and told her to start an account on OnlyFans, a streaming service used by sex workers. Her story is not unique.
When she confided in a manager, she told Bloomberg News, he said she needed thicker skin. “Everyone goes through that,” she recalled a female colleague saying. She ended up in hospital with work-related stress, her medical records show.
It started in 2023, when a sales director in Lucy’s high-end central London office began sending her suggestive messages, seen by Bloomberg, commenting on her body and saying he wanted to have sex with her. She was 21 years old at the time. (Her name is an alias used to protect her privacy.)
It wasn’t long before his behavior escalated. The sales director, who was roughly 20 years Lucy’s senior, would grab her hand or try to kiss her in the office, she said. WhatsApp records show he sent her and other female colleagues explicit photos and videos of himself, sometimes as late as 3am, and asked for photos in return.
At the pub after work one night, another senior employee slapped Lucy’s bottom as she walked past with a drink in each hand, she said. She started to have nightmares, she said, and would cry for long periods most days. Lucy didn’t want to upset her parents by telling them what was happening.
She was afraid to report the sales director to Foxtons’ human resources team, but she did call to complain about what happened in the pub. The HR representative asked if she was sure, she recalled, telling her the man in question was well-liked. (The HR employee no longer works at Foxtons and did not respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment via LinkedIn.) The rep said they would not address the complaint unless Lucy filed a police report, she said, which she worried would only bring more stress. She burst into tears and retracted her statement.
Eleven current and former Foxtons employees told Bloomberg that co-workers had repeatedly subjected them to unwanted physical contact, requests for sex or other explicit and offensive comments between 2021 and late 2024.
Eight of the women said they had complained to their boss or to Foxtons’ human resources department and were met with a lack of interest or told the behavior was unexceptional. All 11 said they had not complained about some incidents because they did not believe any action would be taken. All said senior staff who were supposed to protect them were aware of inappropriate behavior and either ignored it or were complicit.
The women worked at more than a dozen different branches around London, including Marylebone & Mayfair and Hampstead. Most were in their mid-twenties or younger, while nine were in their first proper jobs.
“We are concerned that colleagues have told Bloomberg of offensive behavior and urge them to report it to the independent, confidential whistleblowing process,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Any matters of sexual harassment or misconduct are taken extremely seriously, thoroughly investigated and in no way tolerated at Foxtons.”
“We don’t recognize allegations that colleagues escalating issues are not taken seriously,” the spokesperson said, adding that the broker is committed to a culture where employees feel able to speak up.
This story is based on interviews with more than 20 former and current Foxtons employees, as well as legal and employment records, emails, screenshots and other documentation. The employees asked not to be identified, fearing reprisal from Foxtons or from individuals who have been employed by the company. All of them worked for Foxtons between 2020 and 2025 and the majority were with the company after Guy Gittins became Chief Executive Officer in September 2022.
Thirteen interviewees described examples of racist or antisemitic comments made by their Foxtons co-workers, and 16 said that heavy drinking and drunk-driving were commonplace. Roughly two years ago, one senior employee took a series of allegations about sexual harassment and discrimination directly to Gittins, who said he could not engage with the complaint personally, legal documents and messages seen by Bloomberg show. The ex-employee said a manager offered him more potential clients if he stopped speaking out about workplace behavior. When his approach didn’t change, he said he was starved of clients and dismissed by the estate agency for poor performance.
Another former employee said the CEO refused to believe his complaint about a senior colleague who addressed him using a racial slur against people of south Asian descent. He said he told Gittins in a telephone call that the co-worker called him a “p—.” The CEO said he did not believe the man in question would have used the term, according to the employee and a former Foxtons staff member who he confided in at the time. The employee did not pursue a complaint, he said, because he had no confidence that any action would be taken.
In a written response, lawyers acting for Foxtons said Gittins “does not accept” that a colleague made this complaint and that the CEO dismissed it. “He does not tolerate racism and would wish for all such allegations to be the subject of immediate investigation and appropriate disciplinary steps,” they wrote.
Referring to the senior employee’s case, Foxtons’ spokesperson said that “complaints of this nature are automatically referred to the HR department to ensure they are investigated in the appropriate, confidential manner.”
Foxtons can be a combative and sexually charged workplace, interviewees said. Managers would sometimes tell female staff to wear high-heeled shoes and feminine or sexy outfits, according to nine people who have worked there.
Five former employees told Bloomberg they had heard managers, area directors and male negotiators making obscene comments about women who came to the office for interviews. Three women felt the chatter was a way of testing them, to see whether they fitted in or were likely to complain.
One woman said a colleague started making sexual comments on her first day in 2022, as they drove back from a property viewing. On the walk from the car park to the office, he pushed her against a wall and groped her breasts, she said. The then-20-year-old said she told her manager a few months later, who responded, “That’s just what he’s like.” On another occasion, she recalled, her area director asked her for sex and later told her that if she’d agreed, she “would have been promoted by now.”
Interviewees also told Bloomberg about bullying behavior related to race and religion. Five interviewees who worked for the company between 2021 and late 2024 said managers commented on their foreign accents. One was called an “immigrant” by a sales manager, who on another occasion made a light-hearted comment in response to an antisemitic image posted in a Foxtons group WhatsApp chat, screenshots seen by Bloomberg show. Foxtons’ spokesperson described this incident as “unacceptable” and said the company took “appropriate action.”
In the U.K., anti-discrimination law protects workers against being treated less favorably than others because of their race, sex and other characteristics. Since October 2024, a new law requires employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their staff and encourage cultural change where necessary.
At Foxtons’ regular Friday meetings, dozens of negotiators from different branches gather in one of the company’s central London offices to hear their individual sales performances read out to the group. Publicly available LinkedIn posts show Gittins and other top executives at some of the meetings.
“The most severe harassment thrives in workplaces where so-called sexual banter is accepted by leaders,” said Jemima Olchawski, CEO of the campaign group the Fawcett Society, speaking generally about office culture. “The young men witnessing this will be the same men who will make future decisions on how the workplace runs.”
Lucy has been out of work since leaving Foxtons. She has continued to receive texts from the former sales director who touched her and messaged her, records seen by Bloomberg show. While she never reported him, others made complaints and he is no longer at Foxtons. The company says it took “decisive action.”
Foxtons is an integral part of the UK property industry, Lucy said, so many employees don’t want to speak out. Without a good first reference, she said, people worry their careers will be over when they’ve barely started.
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