Housing Standards Officer WCC621441

Job Details:

Salary range: £41,580 - £45,399 per annum. Salary negotiable depending upon experience 
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Permanent and Fixed term (24 months) contracts available
Closing date: 13 July 2025

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OR THE POWER OF EMPOWERMENT

Environmental Health at Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where passionate and expert professionals go above and beyond for their communities every day.

Natasha started her career in the NHS. She came to Westminster to do more for vulnerable people. When a family in her community reached out to her after their heating was cut off, Natasha took their situation seriously. Living in terrible conditions, and reaching desperation, they had nowhere else to turn. Natasha stepped in, holding the landlord to account and getting them to improve conditions for the family. These are the moments that make her the proudest. Now, she uses her expertise and experience to empower others. 

The Role:

As a Housing Standards Officer, you too can make a powerful contribution. This role will sit within the Environmental Health Service, as part of the new selective licensing scheme. Our aim is to ensure that every resident, business or visitor of Westminster will thrive in a clean, safe and quiet city. By harnessing your knowledge of private sector housing, you will safeguard standards relating to people’s health and well-being, contributing to the council’s objectives and priorities.

Our team values inclusion. We are made up of environmental officers and licensing support officers, all with the shared goal of improving living conditions for residents. Learn from and be supported by senior colleagues who place great value on innovation and professional growth.

A key aspect of your role will be improving housing standards through engagement, education, and formal action, in accordance with your level of authorisation. You’ll ensure that private renters’ homes are safe, free from hazards and well managed. Further to this, you will be proactive in helping landlords to understand and meet regulatory requirements. If a landlord fails to engage, you will hold them to account.

As a Housing Standards Officer, you will carry out routine or unplanned visits and inspections to ensure compliance with legislation, including licence conditions. You’ll respond to complaints of a residential nature, and with guidance from senior officers, draft notices and schedules of work. All complaints and concerns will be dealt with in a timely, efficient manner, directed at securing a resolution. At times, you’ll have to balance differing expectations, perspectives and priorities from residents, landlords, council members, and external agencies. With them all, your focus will be ensuring legal compliance and that enforcement actions are effective.

In instances where enforcement action is necessary, you will have to gather the right intelligence, keep records well, initiate legal proceedings, prepare and give evidence in court.

This is brilliant opportunity to have direct impact on the lives our residents, creating a safer and fairer environment for them to live in. You’ll play a key role in ensuring that housing standards are met, enforcing property licencing, and holding rogue landlords to account. Westminster has some of the most high-profile and complex housing issues in the country, making it an invigorating place to develop your career and expertise. We encourage you to embrace your professional development, through seizing learning opportunities and ongoing training.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

To be a good fit, you will have experience in housing standards or have worked in a similar enforcement role. You’ll be comfortable responding to complaints from the public, stakeholders and public elected members, both in writing and in person.

Customer service and relationship building are integral. We’d like you to have experienced a customer-facing role and good interpersonal skills, as you often will have to build trust with vulnerable individuals.

Understanding and explaining legislation, its procedures and requirements to others is straightforward to you. You can listen carefully to other points of view. However, you know how to clearly inform on consequences and penalties of non-compliance. This is matched by good written skills, including document keeping.

You have good organisational skills with the ability to manage your own workload in an agreed timeframe to a set standard. Additionally, you can work with minimal supervision while out in the community, with an understanding of when and how to escalate.

Your IT skills are good, and you are proficient in Microsoft Office Suite. When working in the city, you are willing to use handheld technology to record information and undertake tasks and respond to customers.

It would be desirable for you to have an understanding and experience of using the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). We are also interested in any other relevant experience or qualifications.

For more information and to apply please see our dedicated recruitment site For more information and to apply please see our dedicated recruitment site Apply - Westminster City Council.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants. 

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.