Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Northstowe

Assistant Director - Financial Distress

Salary: £85,862 - £100,140
Working Pattern: Full Time
Contract Type: Fixed Term
Hours: 35
Closing Date: Thu 14 May 2026 - 10:59 pm UTC
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Assistant Director - Financial Distress

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Assistant Director - Financial Distress

Closing Date: 14/05/2026

Interviews will take place from 18/05/2026

This is a 24 Months Fixed Term Contract 

There will be an interview process and you will also be required to complete an online Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ)

 

A bit about the role

 

Working within our Help to Buy Transformation & Re procurement Programme, Assistant Director – Financial Distress will play a key role in delivering a complex, multi year public sector change programme.

You will join a highly skilled, collaborative programme team tasked with reshaping a nationally significant service at a critical point in its lifecycle. Our focus is on strengthening data integrity, reducing operational and financial risk, improving customer experience, and ensuring long term service portability while protecting public funds.

This is a programme that values disciplined delivery and thoughtful decision making. Our Programme Director champions evidence based choices and a diversity of perspectives, recognising that the best outcomes come from constructive challenge and collective problem solving.

This is a rare opportunity to help shape the future operating model of one of the UK’s most high profile home ownership public services. You will work closely with colleagues across a range of specialisms to design and deliver an integrated, coherent and defensible service model. One that can stand up to scrutiny from governance forums, audit and value for money assessments while delivering long term benefits for the Agency and our customers. 

 

A bit about you

 

As Assistant Director – Financial Distress, you will play a leading role in shaping how financial distress and arrears risk are understood, managed and mitigated across the Help to Buy Equity Loans service. Sitting at the heart of a major transformation programme, you will bring strategic clarity and operational grip to complex financial risk, ensuring it is embedded into service design, operating models and re procurement activity. You will lead the development of clear, evidence based insights to support senior decision making, strengthen controls, and protect both customers and public value. You’ll be working collaboratively across operational, commercial, policy and legal teams to help future proof a nationally significant service.

 

Who are we? 

 

Homes England: The Housing and Regeneration Agency

We believe that affordable, quality homes in well-designed places are key to improving people’s lives. As the government’s housing and regeneration agency, we create thriving new places and transform urban areas, combining the full breadth of our powers, expertise, land, capital and influence to bring investment to communities and get more homes built.

How? We form long-term partnerships that bridge the gap between the public and private sector to meet local needs and aspirations. We use our influence to champion the creation of sustainable homes, communities and places that are brilliantly designed for the people that live there now, and in the future. And we use our funding and support to build a more resilient, diverse and innovative housing sector, helping new entrants in the market, encouraging modern methods of construction and design, and promoting the utmost attention to building safety.

Together with our partners, we’re accelerating the pace of house building, remediation and regeneration across the country, as we seek to deliver ever more affordable homes in places people are proud to call home for generations to come.

Help to Buy, alongside other products in our portfolio, provided equity loans to support people onto the housing ladder. Homes England is the legal lender for these loans and now manages one of the largest residential mortgage portfolios in the country. While no new loans are being issued, the service remains critical. Our role is to ensure customers are supported to understand, manage and redeem their loan with confidence, while safeguarding public money through fair, proportionate and well controlled financial management.

 

What we offer... 

 

As well as a competitive salary and 33 days annual leave, we are committed to 50/50 hybrid working. We’ll support you, wherever possible, so that you don’t miss out on what matters to you. 

Membership of the Homes and Communities Agency Pension Scheme, which is a contributory defined benefit scheme with the amount you receive on retirement based on your salary and years worked at the Agency.

Internal applicants: please note that if you are successful, the salary you are offered will be in accordance with our pay policy. You can find details on the HR Hub SharePoint site.

If you ever need a bit of extra help, we have a great employee assistance programme, a wide range of healthcare plans, financial wellbeing support and access to many great discounts with leading high street names. 

Our range of network groups are also there to support you to be yourself at work and play a key role in helping shape our future. 

If you are a member of a professional body, we’ll pay for your membership and once you get your digital kit, you’ll be good to go. 

Homes England are a geographically diverse community. We work to a 50/50 office/ home based model. Moving back into our office environments has enabled us to utilise our space and time together in the most collaborative way. 

We would encourage all applicants to apply as soon as possible as we may close vacancies early should we receive a high number of applications. 

We also encourage you to apply using the full application option as opposed to quick apply, this is especially important if you would like to indicate to us that you would like to be considered under the disability confident scheme. 

We’re a diverse team of more than 1,000 professionals spanning 17 professions, helping Homes England to be effective, efficient and deliver for communities.

Our people remain at the heart of everything we do, and we’re committed to building an Agency that not only reflects the diverse communities we serve, but also champions inclusion in how we shape homes and places across the country. For more information about our  Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report 2024 to 2025 — Second Edition - GOV.UK

You will be required to have the Right to Work in the UK and Homes England do not offer visa sponsorship. If your application is shortlisted to interview we will require you to provide proof of your Right to Work in the UK at this stage.

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

You are applying for...
Assistant Director - Financial Distress
Salary: £85,862 - £100,140
Working Pattern: Full Time
Contract Type: Fixed Term
OR
Questions
Do you currently have the right to work in the UK without the need for visa sponsorship? If you answer yes to this question, we will need to see evidence at interview stage.
Please tick yes to confirm that the responses provided are your own, reflect your personal understanding and experience, and have not been generated by AI tools such as ChatGPT.
This role will require working on hybrid basis from our listed offices as advertised. Please can you confirm which office would be your preference?
Provide an example of how you have translated complex financial or risk data into clear, actionable insight for senior decision makers. How did your analysis influence decisions or change direction? In no more that 300 words.
Tell us about a time when you embedded financial risk considerations into service design, an operating model, or a transformation programme. What challenges did you face, and how did you ensure the final approach was realistic and defensible? In no more than 300 words.
Describe your experience of leading work on financial distress, arrears, or credit risk in a lending or financial services context. What was your role, and what impact did your leadership have on outcomes for customers and the organisation? In no more than 300 words.
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We ask this because we're interested in your suitability.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Thank you for assisting us by completing the questionnaire.

We want to understand our candidates. We ask these questions to collect overall statistical information – not to pinpoint individuals. It helps us understand which groups are underrepresented in our candidate pool and whether all groups’ needs are met.
Your information is safe. There are strict laws to make sure your information is stored safely and responsibly. For further information please refer to our Privacy Notice which can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england/about/personal-information-charter.
Your answers are confidential and will not be shared with hiring managers, therefore no decisions in relation to your application will be made based on this information. Homes England is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data.
Your information will be stored in our internal recruitment system and will only be used to monitor our recruitment processes. If successful, this data will not be shared to our onboarding team, they will ask you to provide this data separately.
Your information will be used for statistical purposes only and will help to drive the actions that Homes England takes to ensure that our recruitment process is as inclusive as can be and that we are reaching out to a diverse pool of candidates. This will help us to create an organisation that reflects the diversity of our communities.
By completing this information you can help us become a more inclusive employer. By learning more about our candidates, we can make sure everyone has access to the same opportunity, remove any barriers faced by specific groups and ensure that all candidates feel welcome, supported, and able to succeed here.

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The Equality Act 2010 defines disability as ‘a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities’.
If you chose the answer Yes, please indicate the nature of your disability.
If you have multiple disabilities, please select multiple boxes, or self describe:

Please advise if you require any reasonable adjustments for the recruitment exercise:

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