How qualifications can help your housing career

No matter whether you are just starting out in housing (or not even joined yet!), have worked for a few years in the sector, or are a ‘lifer’ there’s always some level of personal development you can, and should, be doing to ensure you are the best housing professional you can be for your customers. In this article we highlight some of the qualification options open to you depending on where you are in your career and how they’ll benefit you in your future. 

Starting out 

Choosing housing as a career of choice is a smart option. There’s been a saying in the housing sector for many years: “I fell into housing but chose to stay”. This is frequently said by large numbers of those in the sector who didn’t specifically choose their housing careers, but actually the benefits and opportunities available to them meant they never left. In recent years though, we’ve started to see more of a shift to younger professionals choosing the housing sector, understanding that it’s worthwhile, offers great career progression and fits with the ethical working practices of those in younger generations of today. 

So, if you are just starting out and need to know where to start your studies, a great place to start is a CIH Level 2 Certificate in Housing Practice. This qualification will give you a basic understanding of housing and introduce you to some of the skills and knowledge necessary to take part in housing work. Having this qualification when applying for jobs in the sector will set you apart from others bringing their transferrable skills from other roles – you’ll have those skills and already have the basic knowledge of the sector! 

Starting on the ladder 

As we already mentioned, there’s a huge range of opportunities within the housing sector. As well as going up the ladder there are also plenty of options to go sideways too into new areas of expertise, specialisms and trades. You may find your first role in housing isn’t the one you want to stay in, maybe you joined in customer service, but after learning more about how each role works you want to try your hand at being a housing officer or a specialist homelessness officer. To help you move across into your future specialism you might want to consider that next learning opportunity by taking your CIH Level 3 Certificate in Housing Practice or a more specialised topic like the CIH Level 3 Certificate in Providing Homelessness Services. 

Stepping up through your career ladder 

You’ve chosen your career path and you’ve likely been in the sector for a few years now. Learning your trade, helping customers and building your reputation for being a great addition to your team. You know that the next step is leading that team (or taking that opportunity with another housing provider). In England in particular it’s now mandatory to have a qualification when you start getting to this stage of your career, and the rest of the UK would encourage it as well. So, to take the next step, why not consider your CIH Level 4 Certificate in Housing – it’ll give you the deeper understanding of how the sector works, equip you with the technical knowledge for housing practice and empower you to excel as a housing manager. 

Reach the ‘top’ 

Wow – what a career you have had in the sector. You’ve helped hundreds of people find homes, sustained tenancies, provided lots of advice and support. But now, you want to take a step up into strategy, help to influence how things work and move things forward in this fast-changing world. As with your previous career rung, in England you need the next step in your qualification journey to take the step to executive level and with the expertise the CIH Level 5 Diploma in Housing will give you, the rest of the UK would look favourably on it too. 

The career ladder goes sideways 

If you remember way back to when you started your career you had to make some sideways steps to learn the ropes, and choose which area of housing you wanted to work in. Well now you’ve probably reached the top (or near to it) and want to know – what’s next? 

Well, good news, the career ladder doesn’t stop when you reach executive level. There’s a whole future sector out there that needs your support, and you could be the one to help them. You could go into board involvement to help shape the organisations, or you could choose to become an internal verifier and help support the future leaders of tomorrow with their studies as they take this career journey from the bottom rung. 

Your career probably didn’t follow the ladder this strictly, careers move, change, adapt to the opportunities that arise as you move through life, but whatever stage of your career you are at, just remember there are housing qualifications to help you take the next step in whatever direction you want to go and the CIH Housing Academy is here to help support you take that journey.