Responding to the Housing Crisis and Redefining the Housing Professional

The project is a partnership with the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the professional organisation and standards
body for housing in the UK. Delivering affordable high quality housing and ensuring that housing contributes to
successful and progressive economic and social outcomes is one of the most pressing contemporary societal challenges in the UK (and, indeed, internationally). The components of the UK housing crisis are well documented, including its
causes and its impacts on different groups of the population and the reconfiguration of housing markets and localities.


However, much less academic attention has been given to how these dynamics and trends are transforming the
requirements of the housing profession in terms of challenges, knowledge, skills, partnerships and relationships,
particularly in a context of austerity and the loss of institutional memory and reduced capacity. This project seeks to
examine this radically reconfigured professional landscape in terms of how the new skills and competences required of
housing practitioners are being redefined, how they can be achieved and sustained, and how this is realigning
relationships and interactions with other actors in the housing system, including lenders, developers, local authorities and
tenant and resident groups.

The research will aim to enhance our understanding of these issues; to use the specific study of the new housing
professional to illuminate knowledge about wider reconfigurations in civil society, governance and institutions; and to
utilise this new knowledge to engage directly with a range of non-academic partners to influence the policy-making,
practices and training approaches of housing practitioners and professionals across the UK. Given that similar housing
challenges are evident in many other nations the research will also be of international significance and relevance.
The project is located squarely within a number of the WRDTP thematic pathways. Most centrally, it is located within the
Civil Society, Development and Democracy pathway, given that it focuses on the changing nature of civil and political
society, including governance, institutions, community and devolution in a period of crisis and growing housing inequality.
The project is also centrally situated within the Cities, Environment and Liveability pathway given its explicit reference to
property and housing policy and practice. In addition, the project resonates with the Sustainable Growth, Management
and Economic Productivity pathway through its emphasis on management, regulation and governance, including of public
services.