Housing Development Officer

CIH International Housing Group; Leicester; Hybrid; GBP 32,000 - 45,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Local Government Pension Scheme

Bus/train discounts

Job summary

Leicester City Council invites applications for a Housing Development Officer in the Housing Development Team in Leicester. The role focuses on delivering more affordable homes through council housing and partnerships, leading on proposals and ensuring pipeline opportunities.

Hybrid working is available with minimum two days in a non-home location. The post offers career progression within the top band of the grade, competitive benefits, and opportunities to influence housing supply in the city.

Qualifications

• Substantial experience of project management in housing or construction.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills.
• Ability to lead and motivate cross-functional teams.
• Experience with site appraisals and planning processes.

Responsibilities

• Provide decisive leadership to project teams delivering new affordable housing in Leicester.
• Lead site appraisals and identify opportunities for council housing and acquisitions.
• Coordinate with partners and secure investment for affordable housing provision.
• Advise developers on pre-planning and respond to planning applications.

Skills

Project management

Stakeholder engagement

Communication

Negotiation

Education

Relevant degree or professional qualification

Job description

Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Permanent

Would you like to put your project management skills to best use? Do you want to make a difference and one you can see? Then come and join our Housing Development Team as a Housing Development Officer.

We'd love you to bring your project management experience and 'can do' attitude to Leicester, to help us to address Leicester's need for more affordable homes.

The Housing Development Team's primary objective is to secure additional affordable housing in Leicester. Your role will be to project manage proposals to achieve this, including newbuild council homes, acquisitions, working with a range of partners to secure/enable their new supply and to investigate all possible options to deliver new affordable housing in the city. Would you like to be a key part of our service?

You'll have flexibility in hybrid working being both office based, at City Hall or working remotely from home to suit your needs. However, under our New Ways of Working Policy you'll be required to work from a non-home location a minimum of two days a week.

Whilst this is a career graded post, we are, on this occasion, looking to appoint only to the top band within the career grade.

What you'll be doing

As Project Manager, you'll provide decisive and effective leadership to project teams, ensuring the best delivery of new affordable housing in the city via new council housing and in partnership with other providers. You'll implement the Council's key strategic priorities to provide more new affordable housing and lead on site appraisals to ensure a pipeline of opportunities for the future supply of new affordable housing.

Your role will include identifying, investigating, and assessing the potential of existing properties and sites available for the provision of affordable housing and giving developers pre-planning advice in terms of affordable housing.

Using your excellent communication skills, you'll negotiate and comment on planning applications on behalf of the Director of Housing, whilst identifying & securing investment for affordable housing provision in the City, with strategic partners, including bidding for funding from the Homes England.

What you'll need

With your substantial experience of project management coupled with significant relevant experience and/or relevant degree or professional qualification, you'll use your significant experience in housing development activities to lead and motivate project teams in initiating and delivering newbuild council housing projects and the acquisition of private housing for use as new council homes. Your excellent communication and negotiation skills will see you exploring, assessing and advising on new initiatives and opportunities, including preparing and presenting reports, business cases and presentations when appropriate.

Your background in Housing, planning, urban regeneration or a construction related discipline, and your knowledge of problem solving, and analytical skills will enable you to assess sites and innovative proposals.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We'll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from several flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses and trains. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the 'our approach to recruitment' page.

For an informal discussion about this post, please contact Robert Grewcock at [e-mail]