Explore the sector Independent guidance
Explore housing and support roles
Understand four housing career families, compare their work and find evidence prompts for housing officer, support worker, asset and leadership roles.
Choose a role by the work you want to do and the responsibility you are ready to hold. A title alone can hide important differences: one housing officer post may centre on tenancy management, while another includes intensive support or a specialist caseload. Read the actual duties before comparing opportunities.
Four ways to work in the sector
| Role family | The main question | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Housing and tenancy services | How do homes and tenancies work well for residents? | Housing officer |
| Housing-related support | How can a person build skills, use services and sustain accommodation? | Housing support worker |
| Property, assets and maintenance | How are work programmes planned, coordinated and checked? | Asset project manager in housing |
| Service management and leadership | How are people, resources and service quality brought together? | Head of services, with Kirklees context |
These are useful groupings for exploring work, not a universal employer structure. Some jobs cross more than one family. Each guide explains the work, the evidence you could gather and the questions to ask about an individual post.
Compare the parts that matter to you
Use the role comparison to look at purpose, work themes, evidence and boundaries side by side. Then shortlist two or three real job descriptions and note what changes between employers: the client group, setting, hours, travel, decision-making authority, supervision and required experience.
If you are new to housing, read about using experience from another sector. If a qualification appears in a specification, use our training guide to work out what to verify before paying for a course.
Turn interest into evidence
For each role you investigate, save one genuine example of planning work, explaining a difficult issue, keeping accurate records or following a boundary. Record what you did and what you learned in the skills evidence worksheet. A useful application makes that connection clear without stretching your experience.