Rent Specialist NB - 7978

Title: Rent Specialist NB. The formal title for this role is Rent Setting Specialist.

Contract Type: Permanent, Full Time – 35 hours per week.

Salary: Starting £42,149 per annum (London weighted salary) or £37,573 per annum (Regional salary), dependant on experience

Grade: 8

Reporting Office: London, Stratford or Manchester, Trafford

Agile Worker: 20% - 40% of contractual hours to be worked from reporting office/working location (hybrid working), NB. applicants should be willing and able to travel to London when required for training and business-critical activities.

Working Pattern: Monday to Friday - 09:00 – 17:00

Closing Date: 20th July 2026 – 23:59

Interview Dates: 28th July 2026 - Please note that in person interviews will be held for at least one of the interview stages for this role.

Please click here for the role profile – Rent Setting Specialist

Benefits include: Excellent pension plan (up to 6% double contribution), 28 days Annual Leave rising to 31 days with length of service + Bank Holidays, Westfield Health Cash Plan, non-contributory life assurance, up to 21 hours volunteering paid days, lifestyle benefits, Employee Assistance Programme and many more…

Early applications are encouraged as we reserve the right to close the advertisement and interview earlier than stated.

L&Q reserve the right not to progress applications from candidates with 3 or more unsuccessful applications/interview processes with L&Q in the previous 24 months

Join our Rent & Service Charge Team at L&Q:

L&Q is one of the UK’s largest housing associations and providers of social and affordable homes. We house around 250,000 people primarily across Greater London and Greater Manchester. Our purpose is simple – to provide social homes and landlord services that everyone can be proud of.

We are looking for a detail-focused and organised Rent Setting Specialist to join our Rent Team at L&Q. This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in ensuring our rents are set accurately, compliantly and on time across a diverse housing portfolio. As social housing regulations continue to evolve, this role is critical in helping L&Q deliver excellent customer outcomes while protecting rental income and maintaining compliance.

As a Rent Setting Specialist, you will support the accurate calculation and administration of social rent charges, shared ownership rents and annual rent increases, ensuring charges are set in line with the Government Rent Standard and relevant legislation. You will also be responsible for setting rents for new tenancies, assisting with annual rent reviews and supporting the investigation and resolution of rent-related queries and complaints.

The role is essential to ensuring L&Q maximises rental income, maintains accurate resident accounts and remains compliant with regulatory and legal requirements relating to rent setting. The team supports rental income worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year, making this a highly important role within the organisation.

Reporting to the Rent & Service Charge Performance Manager, you will be part of the Rent Team, working closely with the Senior Rent Setting Specialist and colleagues across the business to deliver an effective and compliant rent setting service.

If this sounds like you, we would love for you to apply!

Your impact in the role:

As a Rent Setting Specialist, you will help ensure all rents and charges are set accurately and maintained in accordance with legislation, policy and regulatory requirements. Key responsibilities will include:

• Monitoring the Rent mailbox and responding to customer and colleague enquiries within agreed service levels.
• Supporting the Senior Rent Setting Specialist with setting social rent charges and shared ownership rents across a range of tenure types, ensuring compliance with the Government Rent Standard.
• Setting accurate rent charges for new tenancies throughout the year and ensuring housing management systems are updated correctly.
• Assisting with the preparation, validation and administration of annual Rent Increase Notices, ensuring legislative deadlines are met.
• Completing regular checks on rent accounts and charges, identifying anomalies and escalating issues where required.
• Supporting investigations into incorrect rent and charge setting, carrying out root cause analysis and ensuring issues are resolved accurately.
• Assisting with the resolution of internal and external complaints, providing clear and accurate information to customers and stakeholders.
• Supporting the preparation of information and evidence for rent appeals, audits, regulatory returns and First Tier Tribunal cases where required.
• Maintaining accurate records across CRM and Housing Management systems and supporting the production of performance and management information.
• Working collaboratively with Lettings, Neighbourhoods, Income, Customer Services, Finance and IT teams to ensure rents are implemented accurately and queries are resolved effectively.

Through your work, you will help the department achieve its objectives of maximising rental income, maintaining data quality, delivering excellent customer service and ensuring compliance with social housing rent regulations

What you'll bring:

Essential:

• Experience working in a regulated, compliance-driven or highly controlled environment.

• Strong attention to detail with a diligent, accurate and methodical approach to work.

• Good numeracy skills and intermediate Microsoft Excel knowledge, including Lookups and Pivot Tables.

• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple tasks and competing priorities.

• Effective time management skills and ability to follow established processes, procedures and instructions.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly with a range of audiences.

• Problem-solving skills, with a logical and systematic approach to investigating and resolving issues.

• Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and stakeholders across different teams to deliver successful outcomes.

• Experience maintaining accurate records and working with data-driven systems.

• Ability to organise and prioritise work to achieve deadlines, quality standards and team targets.

• A customer-focused approach with a commitment to delivering a high-quality service.

Desirable:

• Experience working within social housing, property management, housing finance, income management or rent setting.

• Knowledge of social housing rent setting regulations, including the Rent Standard, Social Housing Regulation requirements and related legislation.

• Understanding of tenancy agreements and the application of rent charges.

• Experience supporting audit, compliance or regulatory activities.

• Experience handling customer complaints, escalations or complex enquiries.

• Knowledge of Housing Management Systems and CRM platforms.

• Experience supporting annual rent reviews, rent increases or rent accounting activities.

• Understanding of First Tier Tribunal processes, rent disputes or rent appeals.

This role would suit someone who enjoys working with data, processes and legislation, has a keen eye for detail, and takes pride in ensuring accuracy and compliance while delivering excellent service to colleagues and customers.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage during this process, including application stage, please email lqcareers@lqgroup.org.uk

About L&Q:

We’re one of the UK’s leading housing associations and developers. We were founded on a simple belief: high quality housing is vital for people’s health, happiness and security. Our purpose is simple – to provide social homes and landlord services that everyone can be proud of.

250,000 people call our properties ‘home’, and we’re proud to serve diverse communities across London, the South East and North West of England.

People are at the heart of our business and our success depends on employing the best people and getting the best from them. The foundation of everything that we are is built on our corporate values, which outline our core expectations and should be demonstrated at all times, and all levels, when representing L&Q – click here to read more.

At L&Q, we know that diversity and inclusion make us stronger – and they’re at the heart of everything we do.

When we recruit, we look at what really matters: your skills, experience, and potential. We’re proud to be recognised for creating an inclusive workplace. We’re a Disability Confident Leader (Level 3) and we’ve introduced our own Recruitment Advocate scheme to make sure every step of our hiring process is fair, transparent, and consistent. It’s all part of our commitment to ending discrimination and making L&Q a place where everyone feels welcome. Find out more here.

Sustainability is also at the heart of what we do. We recognise the responsibility we hold as one of the UK’s largest housing associations.

Click here to find out more about L&Q and why you should join us!

#TJ