Housing Benefits Officer

Bridge-IT Housing; Leeds; On-site; GBP 27,000 - 32,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

30 Days annual leave

Company events (Summer & Christmas)

Staff incentives

Staff discounts

Annual salary review

On-site kitchen facilities

Plus more

Job summary

Bridge-It Housing is seeking a meticulous Housing Benefits Officer to join our Finance Team at the head office in Bramley. You will reconcile Housing Benefit payments, match local authority payments to resident accounts, and support month-end processes with accuracy to help deliver safe housing for residents.

The role requires strong Excel skills, data cleansing and experience in rent accounting or income reconciliation, with collaboration across councils, lease partners and internal teams in a

Qualifications

• Experience in junior accounting, finance administration or rent accounting.
• Ability to reconcile data from multiple sources, including local authority payments.
• Strong understanding of accounting principles and controls.

Responsibilities

• Reconcile Housing Benefit payments against rent accounts, finance records and expected income.
• Match local authority payments to resident accounts, placements and lease agreements.
• Investigate and resolve discrepancies between council records, rent accounts and lease information.
• Identify and correct missing, duplicate, misallocated or incorrectly coded Housing Benefit payments.
• Maintain accurate reconciliation spreadsheets, records and audit trails.
• Support month-end financial processes, including income, accrual and debtor reconciliations.
• Liaise with local authority Housing Benefit teams to resolve payment and award queries.
• Work closely with Housing Officers, Team Leaders and operational staff to verify resident movements and rent liability dates.
• Collaborate with landlords and lease partners to ensure rent charges and eligible service charges are recorded correctly.
• Cleanse and maintain Housing Benefit, rent and lease data to improve accuracy and reporting.
• Produce reports on Housing Benefit income, outstanding queries, payment variances and aged debt.
• Ensure compliance with financial procedures, internal controls and audit requirements while escalating complex issues where necessary.

Skills

Data reconciliation

Excel proficient

Attention to detail

Communication with councils

Organised and audit trails

Sage (desirable)

Tools

Sage

Excel

Job description

Are you someone who takes pride in accuracy, organisation and attention to detail? Do you enjoy working with numbers while knowing your work helps provide safe and secure accommodation for people who need it most?

At Bridge-it Housing, we're driven by one simple purpose: to make a real difference in people's lives. We don't just talk about positive change; we live it every day. As one of our permanent team members, you'll play a vital role in supporting that mission behind the scenes, ensuring the financial processes that underpin our services run smoothly and effectively.

At our Head Office, we are looking for a Housing Benefit Officer to join our Finance Team. In this role, you'll be responsible for reconciling Housing Benefit payments and related financial information from local councils, lease partners and internal teams. You'll help maintain accurate financial records, investigate discrepancies, cleanse and manage data, and ensure payments are correctly matched to resident accounts and expected income records.

If you're looking for a role within a supportive, friendly and energetic office environment, where teamwork, professionalism and making a positive impact sit at the heart of everything we do, you could be the perfect fit for our Finance Team. Your eye for detail and commitment to accuracy will help ensure we can continue delivering the high-quality housing support our residents deserve.

Job Details

• Hours of Work: 35 hours working Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm
• Location: Head office – Bramley
• Salary: Starting salary £29,500 Per Annum
• Contract Type: Full Time, Permanent
• Closing Date: Friday 9th October 2026 (We reserve the right to close this vacancy early)
• Interview Date: TBC

Please note: As part of this interview process, you will be provided with 2 anonymized data as part of this interview process to amalgamate and return before the interview. We would then want this to be broken down and return before the interview. We would then want this to be broken down and discuss alongside the competency/values-based part of the process.

The Ideal Housing Benefits Officer

• Experience in a junior accounting, finance administration, rent accounting, income reconciliation or accounts assistant role.
• Experience reconciling financial data from multiple sources, ideally including local authority payment schedules or Housing Benefit information.
• Good understanding of basic accounting principles, reconciliations, debtors, income posting and financial controls.
• Strong Microsoft Excel skills, including filters, lookups, pivot tables, data cleansing and reconciliation formulas.
• Ability to review large volumes of data accurately and identify discrepancies, duplicates and missing information.
• Excellent attention to detail with the ability to meet weekly and monthly finance deadlines.
• Confident communication skills and the ability to liaise professionally with councils, lease partners and internal teams.
• Organised, methodical and able to maintain clear audit trails for reconciliation work.
• Experience with Sage is also desirable.

What you will do as a Housing Benefits Officer

• Reconcile Housing Benefit payments against rent accounts, finance records and expected income.
• Match local authority payments to resident accounts, placements and lease agreements.
• Investigate and resolve discrepancies between council records, rent accounts and lease information.
• Identify and correct missing, duplicate, misallocated or incorrectly coded Housing Benefit payments.
• Maintain accurate reconciliation spreadsheets, records and audit trails.
• Support month-end financial processes, including income, accrual and debtor reconciliations.
• Liaise with local authority Housing Benefit teams to resolve payment and award queries.
• Work closely with Housing Officers, Team Leaders and operational staff to verify resident movements and rent liability dates.
• Collaborate with landlords and lease partners to ensure rent charges and eligible service charges are recorded correctly.
• Cleanse and maintain Housing Benefit, rent and lease data to improve accuracy and reporting.
• Produce reports on Housing Benefit income, outstanding queries, payment variances and aged debt.
• Ensure compliance with financial procedures, internal controls and audit requirements while escalating complex issues where necessary.

Housing Benefits Officer Benefits

• 30 Days annual leave, rising 1 day on year 2 year 5 and year 7 to a total of 33 + Bank Holidays
• Summer and Christmas Party
• Staff Incentives such as Ideas Factory and Employee of the month
• Bright Exchange & Blue Light Card for Staff Discounts
• Salaries Reviewed Annually
• Full on-site kitchen facilities including tea and coffee
• Plus more

About Us

Bridge-It Housing provides housing and support to families, single males and females. We do not discriminate by race, colour or religion and see each client as an individual, a human being, with the ability to, with the right support, turn their life around.

We work to ensure that all our clients have as much respect, dignity, independence, choice and control over their own lives as possible.

Empowerment is an important part of how we work. By empowerment we mean building the capacity of people who have experienced homelessness to feel that they are part of our society, regain control of their lives and become more confident about participating in decisions that affect their future.

We work to foster an environment in which clients take responsibility for their own tasks and actions and learn to respect each other as individuals.

Bridge-It Housing is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from all backgrounds, cultures and identities.

We’re proud to have a diverse team of employees from all walks of life, that are all passionate about supporting those in need, and as helpful as previous experience with supporting vulnerable people is, what matters most to us is that you are passionate, empathetic and committed to making a positive difference, so if this Housing Benefits Officer role sounds like you