The housing sector is a wide spectrum with people able to work within both the private and public sector, which provides opportunities for accountants to develop within this growing area.

However, it is housing associations that we predominantly work with and who employ the bulk of accountants in the UK housing industry, with professionals who have experience and knowledge of both small Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) through Housing associations and right up to include larger and well organised global organisations all registered with us.

Even though social housing organisations do not make profit per se, all of our clients within this area say that commercial proficiency is paramount as they are run as businesses, where a socially responsible profit (or surplus) is generated to be put back into developing further social housing and to support projects.

The Housing Corporation regulates Registered Social Landlords and housing associations and therefore the importance of the work undertaken within the finance department is essential. It is therefore very important that the right candidates are put forward to you.

In the housing sector, finance functions tend to be organised similarly to those within the private sector, and consequently we tend to register people with traditional job titles, namely:

• Director of finance
• Deputy director of finance
• Finance manager
• Management accounting
• Financial support staff

With ‘affordable homes’ on the agendas with all the main political parties, the opportunities within this area of finance are set to grow even further. This means that housing organisations must align themselves with a recruitment organisation who can deliver them the right staff at a time of diminishing numbers of professionals.

Select Accountancy continuously registers professionals for Housing Associations and RSL’s. Therefore if you wish to employ accountancy support staff, part-qualified and qualified accountancy and finance professionals, whether that is with the traditional public sector CIPFA qualification or a commercial and professional ACCA, ACA, ICAS or CIMA qualification, we will be able to offer a number of options.