While cash remains king, the idea of having a better culture, improved office conditions with a focus on wellbeing, such as yoga rooms, and sustainable lighting and agile and flexible work spaces are higher on the list of requirements.

The Avdiev Remuneration report is a formal Australia-wide survey of remuneration in the property, investment, development and construction employers and design and building consulting companies.

The report shows that pay rises remain subdued in the property sector, but still ahead of the general workforce.

But 46 per cent of respondents said they are developing new "non-remuneration" policies to motivate and retain their teams.

"The young are still ahead, average increases were 2.5 per cent for senior and mid-level staff and 3 per cent for the juniors, with the building and construction and IT sectors faring best," Avdiev managing director Rita Avdiev said.

"Remuneration structures are being reviewed and refined to reflect strategies put in place early in 2019.

"These include a better pay and incentive mix, changing performance targets, aligning pay for performance to market practices and developing new non-remuneration policies, being flexible hours, wellbeing and mental health programs, culture and training."

On a sector basis, property development is the most lucrative for the industry, with an average pay of $280,000 a year, followed by a senior analyst in property investment, funds & trusts management, who garners about $153,000 per annum.

For retail management, where times are tough trying to get and keep tenants, a marketing executive earns about $149,000 a year, according to the Avdiev survey respondents.

The mixed outlook for the property investment sector is reflected in a number of sentiment data released last week by the NAB business confidence index, which fell from +1.1 points in August to a six-year low of -0.3 points in September.

Ryan Felsman, senior economist, CommSec, said despite interest rate cuts in June and July (the survey pre-dates last week's rate cut), business confidence has fallen to six-year lows and business conditions remain stuck near five-year lows. That said, capacity utilisation remains around long-run levels, employment conditions are still above long-run average levels and mining investment is rebounding.

Australian firms continue to face mounting profit margin pressures as rising operating, purchase and labour costs weigh on constrained balance sheets. Rising global import duties are also contributing to lifting input costs.

But Ms Avdiev said employers know to ''keep the best people for the worst times'' in case of a downturn in business.

She said 75 per cent of companies plan to pay the usual increase or a catch-up component, 25 per cent intend minimal or no increases.