Service Manager – Housing Options

About the job

Key information

• Salary: £41,771 – £46,142 per annum (Grade 9)
• Annual leave: 30 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays
• Hours: Permanent, Full-time (37 hours) role
• Location: Based at the County Hall offices in Taunton or Bridgwater House in Bridgwater
• Hybrid working: Flexible working arrangements to support work-life balance

Regretfully, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. We are only able to proceed with candidates who already have the right to work in the UK without the need for visa sponsorship.

What will I be doing?

As a Service Manager for Housing Options, you’ll lead our dedicated teams to ensure the consistent and effective delivery of statutory homelessness and rehousing duties across Somerset. This is a pivotal role at the heart of our frontline housing service, where you’ll provide strong operational leadership and act as the key point of escalation for complex, high‑risk and multi‑agency cases.

We’re working to improve the lives of people in Somerset – and you’ll be a key part of that. Your day-to-day work will involve:

• Providing strong operational leadership to the Housing Options teams, ensuring effective workload management, supervision and performance.
• Handling escalations for the most complex and high‑risk cases, ensuring robust and lawful decision‑making in line with the statutory review process.
• Driving performance, quality and compliance through KPIs, audits and continuous improvement.
• Building effective relationships with partners and representing the service at key multi‑agency forums.
• Leading service development and improvement, contributing to policy, process and best‑practice changes.

What kind of experience or qualifications do I need?

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be, but it will really help if you have:

• In‑depth knowledge of homelessness legislation, including Housing Act 1996, Homelessness Act 2002, HRA 2017, Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the Suitability Order.
• Significant experience delivering statutory homelessness and housing options services in a high‑pressure operational environment.
• Demonstrable experience managing complex and high‑risk casework, including MAPPA, MARAC, domestic abuse, safeguarding and dangerous offenders, with the ability to lead lawful and defensible decision‑making.
• Strong leadership skills, with experience supervising and developing staff, managing workload pressures and ensuring consistent, high‑quality service delivery.
• High‑level problem‑solving, negotiation and conflict‑resolution skills, particularly in high‑risk or contentious situations.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset, and that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

What is in it for me?

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

DBS check

This post requires a criminal background check via the Disclosure procedure

Supporting documents and information

For more information about the role, you can contact Louisa Hill (Head of Service) on louisa.hill@somerset.gov.uk

Interviews are expected to take place week commencing 4 May 2026

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button – we can’t wait to hear from you.

Apply on the Somerset Council website

Apply now