Head of Housing Safety & Regulatory Compliance

Job introduction

Are you a proactive leader who can develop a resident focused compliance culture that delivers high quality services for our residents in Brighton & Hove?

Do you have a background in the development and delivery of housing safety and compliance programmes to ensure our council homes meet all legislative and regulatory requirements?

Can you lead continuous improvement, support and develop our culture as a learning organisation and enable us to realise our goal to be a Great Landlord?

If so, we’d like to hear from you.

Brighton & Hove is a great place to live, learn, work and visit. Our diverse and vibrant community is passionate about the city and there’s a shared commitment to celebrating and promoting all that makes Brighton & Hove so unique.

We are an ambitious service working to be a Great Landlord and deliver our Council Plan and Housing Strategy priorities of improving housing quality and safety. Our priority is to ensure the health and safety of our residents and those who visit and work on our homes.

However, we face complex housing compliance and safety challenges that require resident focused leadership, collaboration, innovation and initiative to resolve. These include the age and nature of our council housing stock, historic underinvestment in many of our properties, data quality and use, workforce capacity, proactive monitoring and response to emerging risks and navigating a complex legal and regulatory environment.

As our new Head of Housing Safety and Regulatory Compliance, you will lead the delivery of building and fire safety improvements, ensure that the council complies with health and safety requirements in all our homes and meets the Regulator of Social Housing consumer standards.

We are aiming to transform the service, focusing on resident voice, using customer insight, quality data, technology and innovation to improve the service we provide We want to ensure the right leadership, culture, skills and technologies are all in place to make this a reality.

Interview date: w/c Monday 12 January 2026

For an informal discussion, please contact Martin Reid, Director Homes & Investment on martin.reid@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Successful candidate(s) will be able to start on or after 1 April 2026 subject to pre-employment checks being completed.

About the role

Brighton & Hove City Council are committed to meeting our regulatory requirements, and our priority of ensuring the health & safety of our residents and those who visit and work on our homes.

We are seeking a proactive and forward-thinking leader with a proven track record in delivering housing compliance, fire and building safety services. You will be confident in your knowledge and understanding of current and emerging building, fire safety and housing compliance regulations, risk and best practice. You will be ready to act swiftly and work proactively in what can be a complex and ever changing environment.

You will have responsibility for managing substantial budgets, procuring and overseeing contracts, and ensuring our resources are deployed effectively. You will lead both council teams and external contractors, ensuring full compliance with all regulatory and safety standards within your service.

You will:

• Have extensive knowledge and expertise in the relevant legislation, regulation and best practice relating to housing compliance, fire safety, mechanical & electrical and building and safety standards.
• Have significant leadership experience, with a proven ability to engage and empower teams, build trust and confidence, provide clarity, collaboration, drive change and progression.
• Have demonstratable experience leading housing safety and compliance programmes such as fire safety projects and remediation programmes
• Have a proven experience in risk measurement and proactive hazard mitigation, analysing underlying issues and be responsible for corrective actions.
• Have experience in both procurement and contract management for safety-related contracts, monitoring delivery, standards and value for money.
• Be resident focused, confident in your commissioning and delivery of effective services, adept at financial planning, ability to be reactive to operational issues and work proactively in a political environment.
• Be people centred, getting it right for our tenants and also for our colleagues and have a proven ability to build and maintain strong collaborative relationships with key stakeholders inside and outside the council.

We are a learning organisation, committed to innovation, collaboration and impact. As part of the Housing Leadership Team, you will be working in a directorate that is dedicated to empowering people from different communities and backgrounds to come together, live well and thrive, supported by our city-wide work on fairness, inclusion, and engagement. Despite financial pressures, we’re investing in transformation and building a council fit for the future. We are connected, creative and confident.

This role is politically restricted. For further information on what this means for employees in post, please click on the document attachment below.

Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to upload your Application Form and answers to some shortlisting questions. Your answers to the shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as it will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here (Application Form guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) and (Shortlisting guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

Additional information

Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us

Company information

Encouraging a diverse workforce

Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Please note that this post is subject to a Basic Disclosure Criminal Records Check.