Director of Housing
Lead a housing service through regulatory scrutiny, cultural change, and operational complexity.
Two councils, 200+ staff and nearly 7,000 properties.
Salary: Competitive
Location: Suffolk (Endeavour House, Ipswich)
Hybrid working with strong on-site presence
Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils are proud of the progress we’ve made in housing over the past few years, but we’re honest about the fact that there’s still work to do. We want a service that places residents at the centre and that they can trust, that meets the highest standards of safety and quality, that strengthens our communities and that is connected to the wider ambitions for our districts.
You will be stepping into a service that has been through major transformation and seen significant improvements to tenant outcomes. There’s a strong foundation, and we want to ensure that this progress is sustained, especially around compliance, repairs performance, and customer experience. Our current areas of focus are embedding our neighbourhood management offer to tenants, improving our void performance, bringing all our homes up to the Decent Homes Standard and developing a new Asset Management Strategy. We have just completed a mock inspection and expect a formal regulatory inspection within the next year, so your leadership will be critical from day one.
You will lead a service that spans two districts, with distinct geographies and political priorities, and manage a significant budget under pressure from repairs inflation and increasing compliance costs. You will need to balance HRA and General Fund sensitivities, make strategic trade-offs, and keep Members and the Regulator confident that risks are under control.
Your first year will be about:
* Getting us inspection-confident.
* Keeping compliance watertight.
* Embedding cultural resilience after a period of change, supporting teams, and building confidence.
* Driving further performance improvements in repairs, voids, housing management and customer experience.
* Continuing to build on the effective prevention and early intervention focus on homelessness.
* Delivering a plan to ensure all our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard following our stock condition survey, including developing a new Asset Management Strategy.
* Managing financial pressures and making smart decisions about HRA and General Fund resources.
* Tackling rural housing challenges, hidden deprivation, dispersed stock, and retrofit programmes.
* Making housing a visible, collaborative partner across health, social care and the wider council agenda.
The next two years will of course also be about playing a key role with colleagues across Suffolk to transform the design and delivery of services in preparation for the three new unitary councils in April 2028 and to influence wider system change alongside our statutory and voluntary sector partners. This is a true opportunity for fresh thinking to make a real difference for our residents.
If you’re ready for these challenges. and if our values of openness, ambition and accountability resonate with you, we would love to hear from you. For a confidential conversation, contact our consultants at Penna:
Mark Baldwins on on 07764 698139 or email: mark.baldwinson@penna.com
Bruna Varante on 07858 306725 or email: bruna.varante@penna.com
Vikhram Singh on 07885 643 273 or email: Vikhram.Singh@penna.com
For further information, please click the below link to download a candidate briefing pack:
Candidate pack – Director of Housing
Closing date: 11:59pm, Monday 20th April 2026