Director of Estate Management

Stonewater; Leicester; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Stonewater is seeking a Director of Estate Management to lead estate services across a national portfolio, shaping a customer-focused, high-performing service and building a locality-based approach to improve visibility and connection with customers and communities.

You’ll oversee grounds maintenance, cleaning, tree management and other estate services, with an operational budget around £12 million, and lead a dispersed team of about 14 serving around 40,000 homes and 90,000 customers, ensuring

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading estate management in a housing or property organisation.
• Ability to translate strategy into action and drive improvements.
• Experience managing budgets, performance and risk.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Knowledge of regulatory environment in social housing.

Responsibilities

• Set the strategic direction for Estate Services.
• Lead and empower dispersed teams across communities.
• Champion the customer voice and use data to drive improvements.
• Transform services and drive efficiency and effectiveness.
• Maintain governance and strong financial controls.
• Build partnerships with senior leaders and external partners.
• Provide oversight of performance and risk across portfolios.
• Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Estate services expertise

Distributed team leadership

Social housing sector knowledge

Transformation / change management

Commercial & financial acumen

Analytical skills

Communication & influencing

Customer-focused service improvement

Job description

Home Based, with occasional travel within our localities

Are you an inspiring, commercially astute leader with the vision to transform estate services and create places where customers and communities can thrive?

We’re looking for an Director of Estate Management to provide strategic leadership for Stonewater’s estate management services, shaping and delivering a customer-focused, high-performing service across our national portfolio.As part of our customer strategy, we’re creating a new team that will strengthen our locality-based approach, helping us to be more visible, accessible and connected to our customers and the communities we serve.

This is a significant leadership opportunity with the scope to make a real and lasting impact. You’ll lead our approach to services including grounds maintenance, cleaning services, tree management and other estate-related services, ensuring our communities are safe, clean and thriving places for our customers to live.

With responsibility for an operational budget of around £12 million, leadership of a nationally dispersed team of approximately 14 colleagues, and an influence over services supporting around 40,000 homes and 90,000 customers, you’ll have the opportunity to shape how estate services are delivered now and into the future.

The role

Working alongside fellow Directors and Stonewater’s wider Leadership Team, you’ll set the strategic direction for estate services and create a culture where customer excellence, strong performance, commercial thinking and continuous improvement go hand in hand. You’ll use customer insight and feedback to challenge how things are done, identify opportunities for improvement and develop a localised estate services offer that is responsive, easy and personal for our customers. You’ll also play a key role in transforming services across Stonewater, ensuring colleagues have the tools, leadership and support they need to perform at their best, while maintaining strong financial, regulatory and operational control.

As our Director of Estate Management, you’ll:

• Set the strategic direction for Estate Services, creating a clear vision for how we deliver high-quality, customer-focused services across our communities.

• Lead, inspire and empower your teams, creating a high-performance culture where colleagues are accountable, engaged and equipped to deliver great outcomes for customers.

• Champion the customer voice, using insight, feedback and performance data to shape services, address areas of dissatisfaction and drive meaningful improvement.

• Transform and continuously improve services, challenging existing ways of working and identifying opportunities to make our services simpler, more effective and responsive to customers’ changing needs.

• Drive strong operational and commercial performance, ensuring services deliver quality, value for money and sustainable outcomes while maintaining effective financial control.

• Build strong partnerships across the organisation, working collaboratively with senior leaders and colleagues to remove barriers, improve efficiency and deliver a seamless customer experience.

• Develop effective relationships with external partners, including contractors, suppliers and Local Authorities, ensuring shared accountability for delivering excellent services.

• Provide clear oversight of performance and risk, using data and insight to identify emerging issues, inform decision-making and provide assurance to senior leadership and Board.

• Ensure strong governance and compliance, maintaining effective controls and ensuring services meet relevant legal, regulatory and organisational requirements.

• Act as a visible ambassador for Estate Services, bringing credibility, energy and expertise to the role while influencing stakeholders at all levels.

Ultimately, you’ll ensure our Estate Services are not only well managed today but continually evolving to meet the future needs and expectations of our customers and communities.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for an experienced and visible senior leader who can combine strategic thinking with the ability to turn ambition into action.

You’ll bring:

• Extensive leadership experience with a proven ability to build, inspire and develop high-performing teams.

• Strong subject matter expertise in estate services and a clear understanding of what excellent estate management looks like for customers.

• Significant experience leading a diverse and geographically dispersed function within a customer-focused or commercial environment.

• Strong knowledge of the social housing sector, including its regulatory and operating environment at a senior level.

• A successful track record of translating strategy into action and leading large-scale, complex transformation and business improvement.

• Excellent commercial and financial acumen, with experience of managing budgets, performance and organisational risk.

• Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn complex information into clear recommendations and decisions.

• Highly developed communication and influencing skills, with the credibility to build relationships and influence at the most senior levels.

• An innovative and forward-thinking approach, with a passion for customer-focused service improvement.

JD - Director of Estate Management.pdf

Appointment to this role will be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (if applicable), satisfactory references and possession of a valid Right to Work document.

This role may require specific qualifications, skills, knowledge, and behaviours to meet the Competence and Conduct Standard for Social Housing. If not already qualified, there may be an expectation to study towards a professional qualification.

Discover Stonewater:

Stonewater is one of the UK’s largest social housing providers, driven by our purpose that everyone has a place to call home. With around 40,000 homes, we proudly serve more than 93,000 customers, providing safe, affordable homes and the services and support that help people and communities thrive.

Our mission is to make a difference to our customers and communities through quality homes and great services that reflect our social ethos. Guided by our vision to be the most trusted, inspiring and sustainable provider of affordable homes, we offer homes for rent, shared ownership and purchase, alongside specialist housing and support services, including retirement living, supported housing, domestic abuse refuges, LGBTQ+ safe spaces and young people's foyers.

Everything we do is centred on our customers. We build trusted relationships, create lasting social value and invest in homes, services and communities that enable people to live independently, realise their potential and thrive. Through innovation, collaboration and a long-term commitment to sustainability, we are helping shape stronger communities for the future.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and working towards accreditation for becoming a Disability Confident Leader, which allows us to record and report on disability, mental health and wellbeing in the workplace to better support our colleagues. We have also achieved accreditation for being an Advanced Employer for Investing in Ethnicity Maturity Matrix.

Are you ready to #DiscoverStonewater?

Stonewater reserve the right to bring the closing date forward should enough quality applications be received.