Location: Sevenoaks, Kent (TN13)
Contract: Permanent | £75,000 per annum
Hours: Full-time, 37 hours per week
About the Role
We are seeking a dynamic, forward-thinking Head of Repairs to lead a high-performing, customer-centric responsive repairs service. You’ll be responsible for ensuring services are efficient, safe, and aligned to organisational priorities — with a strong focus on quality, value for money, and resident satisfaction.
Reporting to the Executive Director of Property and Asset Management, you will oversee a team of three direct reports and around 45 staff members, managing a budget of approximately £13 million.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the strategic direction of the responsive repairs service, ensuring alignment with corporate goals and compliance with regulatory standards.
- Drive transformation and continuous improvement, introducing modern working practices and digital tools while prioritising resident engagement.
- Oversee the efficient operation of an in-house delivery team (DLO), ensuring quality assurance and effective scheduling.
- Manage the end-to-end delivery of emergency, urgent, and routine repairs, ensuring works are completed to high standards and within target timeframes.
- Ensure value for money and performance by using data and analytics to enhance service delivery and reduce failure demand.
- Champion a strong customer experience culture, including ownership of high-profile or complex complaints.
- Promote a learning culture by embedding insights from complaints and resident feedback into future service design.
- Ensure services meet all housing health and safety responsibilities, including obligations under Awaab’s Law, damp and mould remediation, and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
- Provide clear, visible leadership across operational teams, fostering collaboration with compliance, planned works, and strategic asset management colleagues.
- Repairs completed within target timeframes across all categories.
- Customer satisfaction maintained at or above benchmark targets (e.g. >4.5/5).
- Average cost per repair job within budget benchmarks.
- Reduced volume of avoidable complaints and repeat visits.
- Compliance with health-related housing standards and legislation.
- Productivity and efficiency improvements within DLO operations.
- Budget adherence across revenue and capital spend.
Experience & Knowledge
- Significant experience leading large-scale, customer-facing repairs and maintenance operations — ideally within housing, construction, or property management.
- Strong understanding of housing repairs regulations, disrepair obligations, and compliance standards.
- Proven ability to lead operational teams and manage subcontracted services.
- Skilled in interpreting data to drive service improvements.
- Demonstrated ability to deliver services within budget while achieving high-quality outcomes.
- Strong background in complaint resolution and service recovery.
- Excellent leadership, team development, and people management skills.
- Confident communicator with ability to engage with a wide range of stakeholders.
- High level of commercial and financial acumen.
- Strong grasp of health & safety and risk management within repairs environments.
- Relevant technical or leadership qualifications (desirable but not essential) such as HNC, NVQ Level 4+, ILM Level 5 or similar.
