External Affairs Manager (Midlands)

Salary: £46,698 (London) / £42,373 (National) per annum

Hours: 35 hrs per week

Contract: Permanent

Benefits: 27 days annual leave + statutory holidays + 3 closures days over the Christmas period; Flexible working for all staff including working from home / hybrid working, and flexi-time/TOIL scheme; Attractive family friendly policies; Private healthcare cover; Season ticket loans; Employee awards, and training and development opportunities.

Location: The successful candidate will be based in the Midlands or be prepared to spend a substantial amount of time in the Midlands (including early starts/late finishes and overnight stays where required) to meet the requirements of the role. The successful candidate will also be required to travel to our London and Bristol offices, and nationwide to NHF events, on an ad hoc basis.

An exciting opportunity has arisen at the National Housing Federation (NHF) to join our team of External Affairs Managers. The NHF is the voice of housing associations in England. We are the trade body to almost 600 housing associations, who have grown from philanthropic roots to provide 2.6 million homes to around 6 million people.

This is a unique and varied role which would appeal to someone with a background in areas such as stakeholder management, policy, public affairs, communications, programme management – or a combination of these areas! You will operate at the heart of social housing by working with key decision makers across the housing association sector – including managing relationships with chief executives, chairs of boards and executive directors. Strong communication and influencing skills are essential to the role, as well as the confidence to work at the most senior levels.

It is crucial that you can work collegiately to lead key programmes of work across the NHF with colleagues in other teams, for example from our policy, press, events, and public affairs teams. Equally, you will be comfortable working autonomously and shaping your own work programme.

The core of the role involves being responsible for engagement with a whole geographic region of our membership; and working closely on or leading one of the NHF’s key themes of work, which include areas such as devolution; developing new homes; decarbonising existing homes; ensuring the building safety agenda is delivered; or representing our rural or smaller housing associations.

The role is wide ranging and in addition to stakeholder management and programme leadership, will include running roundtables between our members and government, chairing sessions at NHF conferences, and presenting political and policy updates to senior teams within housing associations.

You will be part of a team of eight External Affairs Managers sitting within the member services directorate, which is there to ensure that we provide excellent value for money for our housing association members.

Key elements of the role:

• You will build and maintain brilliant relationships with housing associations leaders, using your well-developed communication and advocacy skills to maximum effect.
• You will develop knowledge, insight and understanding of housing associations to shape our policy and influencing work and to create structured programmes of member engagement on critical policy and political issues.
• You will be the contact point for housing associations in your region, ensuring they receive first class customer service on the issues which matter to them.
• Working closely with NHF members you will facilitate the organisation of regional chief executive or leaders forums and sounding boards.
• In addition to your regional work, you will lead on the strategic planning and delivery of a key NHF policy priority.
• You will play a leadership role, creating structured engagement strategies to ensure members are able to influence policy as well as engaging key NHF stakeholders and sharing best practice.
• Your role will be to implement structured member engagement to ensure our policy priorities, positions and influencing work are member-led.
• You will influence debates at the highest level and you will spot in advance and act strategically to mitigate the risk to our membership.
• You will work with colleagues in our Commercial and Events teams to maximise commercial opportunities and help shape content at our conferences, as well chairing conference sessions.
• To be the face and voice of the NHF with members, stakeholders and the media.
• To ensure that as an organisation we deliver as a whole team, seamlessly, to members to achieve greatest impact in line with the business strategy.
• To maintain high quality standards and follow NHF policy and process.

The successful candidate:

• A sound knowledge and understanding of housing associations and issues affecting the wider sector.
• A sound understanding of the political and policy landscape that housing associations operate in.
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of establishing and maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders, demonstrating excellent customer service and value for money.
• Effective communication skills, in person and in writing, including the ability to credibly and confidently present at meetings and events.
• Ability to listen to and influence senior stakeholders, demonstrating diplomacy, effective communication and negotiation skills.
• Clear leadership skills, able to lead complex and strategic programmes of work effectively, including experience of matrix managing and motivating a team.
• Excellent analytical skills and strategic nous with the ability to summarise complex information effectively to aid decision making.
• A commitment to excellent customer service.
• A positive, energetic and agile approach to work.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

The NHF has published its equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, which was co-created with staff. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and we value the contribution each individual makes to our work.

Disability confident employer

We are a disability confident employer and if you are a disabled person who demonstrates you meet the skills and experience we consider essential for the role, we will offer you an interview.

We are happy to consider reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process if you have a disability or have a condition that you feel may affect your performance during the recruitment process.

Our role profile and job advert can also be requested in large print or in accessible format.

Right to work in the UK/UK VISA sponsorship

You must have the right to work in the UK and it is important to note that the NHF does not sponsor individuals to work in the UK.

Closing date for applications: 2 April 2025

Interview dates: 14 and 15 April 2025