We're recruiting a highly experienced and strategic Housing Options Service Manager to lead a large, fast-paced housing advice and homelessness prevention service. This senior leadership role is responsible for delivering statutory housing duties, driving service transformation, and improving outcomes for residents through proactive homelessness prevention, effective rehousing pathways, and strong partnership engagement.

This is a key role within Housing, with responsibility for leading multi-disciplinary teams, shaping policy and strategy, and ensuring high-quality frontline service delivery across assessment, prevention, allocations, and temporary accommodation management.

The Role
·Lead and manage Housing Options services, delivering high-quality housing advice, homelessness prevention, and rehousing functions.
·Oversee statutory homelessness assessments and ensure legal compliance across all housing duties.
·Drive service improvements through evidence-led decision making, performance management, and operational transformation.
·Lead on the delivery of allocations policy, housing register operations, lettings, and access to affordable and private rented housing.
·Act as senior point of escalation for complex and high-risk cases, ensuring sensitive and compliant case resolution.
·Manage relationships and represent the service across internal departments, registered providers, voluntary sector partners, and multi-agency forums.
·Provide strong leadership to a large workforce (c.150 FTE), embedding a culture of accountability, customer focus, and continuous improvement.
·Contribute to and support the development of homelessness strategies, temporary accommodation plans, and private sector engagement approaches.
·Oversee contract performance, operational budgets, and delivery of emergency/temporary accommodation provision.
·Deputise for the Head of Service and play an active role in senior leadership and out-of-hours emergency response.

Key Requirements
·Proven leadership experience within Housing Options, Homelessness Prevention, or a related statutory housing function.
·Strong working knowledge of Housing Act 1996, Homelessness Reduction Act, allocations legislation, and best practice in homelessness services.
·Experience managing large teams and driving performance in complex frontline housing services.
·Demonstrable track record in service improvement, change management, and delivering value for money.
·Excellent stakeholder management and partnership working skills across statutory, voluntary, and private sector housing networks.
·Confident decision-maker with experience handling high-profile or politically sensitive cases.
·Strong financial awareness, organisational leadership capabilities, and ability to influence at senior level.
·Housing qualification or equivalent senior-level experience in homelessness and housing policy.

What you need to do now
If you are interested in this role and meet the criteria above, please click APPLY NOW and send us your CV today.

If you do not hear from us within 48 hours of applying, your application has been unsuccessful.

Footnote
If you feel that this job matches your skills but not the rate, location, or seniority, please feel free to send us your CV anyway. We constantly recruit for similar roles across all levels, UK-wide, and would be pleased to speak with you confidentially about your employment status.
Even if you're currently satisfied in your role, we welcome calls from housing professionals looking to make future connections. Our specialist team at Carrington West has over 100 years of combined experience in this market. For more information, call Zubair at Carrington West on 02393 876065.
By applying for this position, you agree for Carrington West to hold and process your personal data in accordance with our Data Protection Policy. Your data will only be shared with third-party clients for roles relevant to your application. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.