Head of Maintenance Repairs

Join our Team at L&Q: L&Q is embarking on a major transformation of its maintenance services. A key part of this change is the way outsourced delivery is managed, with an ambition to move away from fragmented, short‑term contracting arrangements towards long‑term partnerships that deliver greater consistency, accountability, and value for money.

The organisation is seeking to appoint a Head of Maintenance Repairs, with responsibility for a £30m portfolio covering responsive repairs and supporting other teams delivering minor works, disrepair, damp, and mould. This is a high‑profile, operationally and resident‑commercially focused leadership role with significant scope to reset how contracted repairs services are delivered at scale.

Your impact in the role:

• Leading the contracted‑out repairs’ contracts management function, providing leadership to up to six Contracts Managers – currently 40 contractors delivering circa 50,000 repairs per annum.
• Provide advice, support and contract management services to internal clients conducting minor works, disrepair works and damp and mould related works & services.
• Steer a long‑term procurement project for all outsourced repair services, manage the resulting mobilisations and service delivery.
• Foster high level relationships with contractors adopting a partnering philosophy with contractors.
• Work closely with the Commercial, Transformation and Strategy teams to align outsourced delivery with corporate priorities.
• Manage budgets, ensuring compliance with procurement policy and financial frameworks.
• Lead on process development, design, and documentation for the outsourced repair’s function.
• Drive continuous improvement across external delivery, using performance data to hold contractors to account and raise standards.
• Engage directly with residents and communities, ensuring their experience of contracted services is consistent and positive.

What you will bring:

This post requires a leader with a strong commercial background and experience of managing large‑scale maintenance contracts, preferably responsive repairs being delivered at scale across a large portfolio. Candidates will need demonstrable experience of procurement, contract mobilisation and contract management within housing, property services, or a related sector. They should bring resilience, credibility, and the ability to drive cultural change both internally and with external partners.

Candidates should be competent in:

• Workflow design (and/or process mapping), specifying process outputs for system implementation.
• Analysing and working with large data sets, design of insightful KPIs.
• Managing property related contracts using JCT (or similar) form of term contract.

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

Relevance of L&Q: 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 have introduced our own Recruitment Advocate scheme to ensure every step of our hiring process is fair, transparent, and consistent. We’re also committed to sustainability and ending discrimination, making L&Q a place where everyone feels welcome and safe.

Senior Leadership Roles: We value diversity in all its facets, including gender, disability, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and identity. For senior leadership positions, we are committed to offering an interview to at least one ethnic minority candidate and one female candidate for all senior leadership positions if they fulfil the role criteria.