Advanced Housing Apprentice

Swindon Borough Council Housing owns over 10,000 properties across Swindon. We are involved in a wide range of activities in managing these properties including allocating them to applicants, maintaining them to a decent standard, ensuring tenancy conditions are met, collecting rent and dealing with arrears as well as tenant involvement and

communications. We also provide support services to people who are homeless and

threatened with homelessness, including temporary and supported accommodation.

The Housing Team within Swindon Borough Council currently has four Housing Apprentice opportunities available for enthusiastic people who are keen to get started in their housing career.

A career in housing offers a wide variety of opportunities whether you are interested in administrative work or customer facing roles.

Your next role

As an apprentice you will be given the opportunity to learn and develop valuable skills such as customer service; team working; time management; decision making; working with information and administration.

You will also gain the Chartered Institute of Housing Level 3 Certificate in Housing Practice as well as the Level 3 Housing Apprenticeship qualification on completion of the 20-month course - a great starting point for a career in Housing.

We are looking for an apprentice to work in the Supported Housing Team where you will support residents at our permanent Gypsy and Traveller site, and six temporary accommodation buildings. At our permanent traveller site, you will assist the Neighbourhood Manager to carry out Housing Management functions, such as Rent recovery and Tenancy Management issues. You will be responsible for reading water meters using an online system and generating bills, reporting repairs on behalf of residents, and assisting with on-site inspections, with initiatives to improve the site.

You will be based at one of our Supported Housing buildings, managing a small low level caseload, where our residents reside, supporting the Housing Officer and Supported Housing Manager with the functions of the supported housing team, to improve the lives of our residents.

You will assist with the admin functions to ensure the smooth running on the buildings, streamlining parts of the service and assist in improving the signing process for new residents and the team to a kore digital approach.

You will engage with our residents, supporting the Housing officer whether this is through engagement activities, such as cooking classes, or supporting them to prepare to move into our general needs properties when an offer is made. 

Qualifications required for this post

Entry requirements for the Level 3 Apprenticeship are:

• GCSE English and Maths at grade C (level 4) or above or equivalent qualifications

Knowledge & Experience

In addition, we are also looking for people who have:

• Good IT skills, preferably with experience of using Microsoft Word and Excel
• Good communication skills – both written and verbal
• Ability to work to manage own workload and work within deadlines
• Ability to work independently or as part of a team
• Ability to show initiative and take responsibility for the quality of their own work
• A passion for learning

You must be fluent in the English language (as a requirement of Part 7 of the Immigration Act “for the effective performance of a customer-facing role”).

Your next package

Please see our Rewards and Benefits offer for more details.

As an employee, you will receive a diverse and exciting environment in which to work, encouraging creativity and innovation whilst recognising the need to support ongoing personal development and a flexible work life balance.

For Swindon to thrive in the future, we need to lay the foundations now. It’s why our regeneration and transformation programmes are already underway. So, you’ll be joining us at an exciting time on our journey. We’ll look to you to share your knowledge, influence decisions and drive real, positive change. With your contributions, we’ll achieve our vision of a prosperous, re-vitalised Swindon together. And you’ll be proud to say it was made better with you.

Please see our Vision and Values page for more details.

Please see our new Swindon Plan.

Potential applicants are sometimes put off if they don’t meet 100% of the requirements. We think individual experience, skills and passion make all the difference, so if you meet the majority of the criteria, we’d love to hear from you.

Your next steps

Read the role profile and select the Apply button where you will be redirected to the Swindon Borough Council website to complete our online application process. Clicking the ‘Apply’ button on this job website is not an application, you must register on the Swindon Borough Council website in order to be considered for the role.

Potential applicants are sometimes put off if they don’t meet 100% of the requirements. We think individual experience, skills and passion make all the difference, so if you meet the majority of the criteria, we’d love to hear from you.

For further information about the role, please contact Jenna King, Tenant Academy Project Officer, at JKing@swindon.gov.uk

As an inclusive employer, we welcome applications from a diverse range of communities, and in particular disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Read our statement of commitment to equality & inclusion.

If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your application please email resourcing@swindon.gov.uk