Assistant Director - Market Engagement (C0081N)

Job summary

The Assistant Director – Market Engagement is a high‑profile leadership role, responsible for overseeing and leading Homes England and the National Housing Bank’s strategic engagement with the housing and regeneration sector. This is a maternity cover opportunity running from May 2026 to April 2027.

Job description

You will lead a specialist Market Engagement team, providing professional leadership and setting the strategic direction for how the organisation understands, engages with and builds relationships across the housing and regeneration market. The role plays a critical advisory function, providing strategic insight and intelligence to the Chief Executive, Board, Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to inform decision‑making, delivery strategy and programme design.

You’ll be joining a highly skilled, collaborative and motivated Market Engagement team, committed to professional excellence and continuous improvement. The role reports directly to the Executive Director for Strategy, Markets and Analysis and has responsibility for leading and developing a team of senior professionals, embedding a culture that champions inclusion, innovation and high performance.

This is a varied and influential role, balancing strategic relationship with operational delivery. You will lead Homes England and the National Housing Bank's market engagement systems and strategies, including the Key Account Manager programme, Customer Relationship Management system, and the National Partner Perception Survey. You will lead on the gathering and analysis of qualitative market intelligence, ensuring insight is used to inform investment, delivery and strategic decisions.

You will lead the design and delivery of corporate partner engagement strategies, including segmentation and prioritisation. Working with our Communications colleagues, you will oversee and co-ordinate large scale engagement events and activities, including national events such as Homes England Live, senior-level roundtables and executive-led partner engagement.

Person specification

You’ll be comfortable operating at pace in a complex environment, supporting senior leaders with high‑quality strategic insight and advice. You will bring deep expertise in market intelligence, partner engagement and stakeholder management, ideally within housing, regeneration or the built environment.

You will be confident leading teams and systems, experienced in using CRM platforms and research insight to drive better decision‑making, and skilled at managing relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders. You’ll be resilient, credible and persuasive, able to balance strategic thinking with practical delivery in a regulated public‑sector context.

As an experienced leader, you will demonstrate a collaborative and inclusive approach, role‑model strong values‑led leadership, and be motivated by the opportunity to make a tangible impact through market‑leading engagement and insight.

Benefits

Homes England is an executive non-departmental public body with its own terms and conditions, benefits and pension scheme. We are a government agency working in partnership with the private sector and want to employ and retain great people. In return we offer a range of excellent benefits, some of the key benefits include:

Holiday - Homes England offers all staff 33 days annual leave per year in addition to 8 statutory bank holidays.

Working Flexibly - At Homes England we have a strong culture of flexible working and encourage all employees to have a healthy work/life balance. We offer a wide range of potential working patterns, including part time, job share and compressed hours.

Health and Wellbeing - We offer health screening with Nuffield Proactive Health Clinics, a free Employee Assistance Programme which offers confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as access to Occupational Health.

Professional Development - At Homes England we are committed to your continued professional and personal development with learning as one of our core values. We pay for one job-related professional membership subscription per year for our employees.

We also offer an excellent range of family friendly benefits, for example, maternity, paternity, shared parental leave.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to apply?

To apply please follow the links to our careers page.

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Selection process details

For more information on the role, please see the attached Job Description.

Successful applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application and interviews held as soon as practical after the closing date. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in this role and Homes England.

Please note – Homes England has a responsibility to ensure compliance with HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard to address the potential problems of identity fraud, illegal working and deception generally. To ensure compliance we will carry out a pre-employment Personal Identity and Vetting Report through Experian to meet the standard and you will therefore be asked to provide certain information in order that the verification check can be carried out if you are successful in your application.

Homes England are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer that values and respects the people who work for us. Our aim is to be an employer of choice, enabling everyone to reach their full potential.

Homes England is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. For further information please refer to our Privacy Notice which can be viewed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england/about/personal-information-charter

Nationality requirements

Open to UK, Commonwealth and European Economic Area (EEA) and certain non EEA nationals. Further information on whether you are able to apply is available here.

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a guaranteed disability confident interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Further information

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Recruitment team
• Email : Recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk

Attachments

AD - Market Engagement JD - Revised v4 Opens in new window (docx, 290kB)