Sector Practice Lead

Salary – Grade 5 - £38, 724 per annum plus £312 homeworker allowance

Hours – Full time – 35 per week

Contract: Fixed term until 31st March 2029

Location – Home Worker with regular travel to London for events and meetings

Closing date: Sunday 12th July 2026 at 11:30pm

Join Shelter as a Sector Practice Lead in our mission to drive systemic change and fight for housing justice. If you have strong experience of programme management and working with professionals or as a professional supporting people facing homelessness and with complex needs, then we welcome you to apply for this role.

At a time when the housing emergency continues to deepen, your experience could help transform lives and challenge the systems that perpetuate injustice. Come and play a central role in our mission to defend the right to a safe, and secure home. Working with Shelter means being part of a passionate team that believes a safe home is a fundamental right. Here, your skills don’t just change lives - they shape a fairer housing system.

About the role

You will support local authority and voluntary sector housing and homelessness teams in developing efficient, quality and successful services and implementing outcome focused training and best practice.

You will lead on the design and implementation of learning needs analysis and activities, to build understanding of challenges, areas for improvement and building capacity through targeted learning to empower frontline staff. You will also build collaborative capacity and partnership working, and coordinate and support professional guidance, sharing and demonstrating best practice tools and approaches for housing and homelessness professionals.

Project management will play a vital part in your role, with you ensuring the effective delivery of the London Plus delivery plan, objectives and outputs within timescale and budget, plus you will develop and manage monitoring approaches or systems to demonstrate impact. Ensuring that the project is designed and delivered with a clear commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion is key, as is ensuring that the voices and experiences of people with lived experience of homelessness are fundamental to the project design, delivery and implementation.

About you  

You will have experience of working with people who are facing severe and multiple disadvantage and of working on developmental projects within a voluntary or local authority setting, plus a sound knowledge of relevant external agencies, resources and networks across London and policies and approaches to supporting homeless people. You will also have a proven record of working across organisations, sharing ideas and skills and of multi-agency working and collaborative projects. A natural communicator, both verbal and written, you will have strong data collation and analysis skills and impressive interpersonal and relationship-building abilities, while a collaborative, flexible, and proactive approach to your work is vital.

Benefits 

We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave (pro rata), enhanced family friendly policies, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.

About the team

The Services for Professionals Team, aim to support and bring together practitioners from different organisations and disciplines to build the knowledge, skills and expertise needed to systematically challenge barriers to tackling homelessness and for people with complex needs. The role will be part of a team of ‘systems changers’ and trainers with extensive experience in homelessness and trained in systems thinking and experimentation. 

About Shelter

Home is a human right. It’s our foundation and where we thrive. Yet every day millions of people are being devastated by the housing emergency.

We exist to defend the right to a safe home. Because home is everything.

We need ambitious, passionate people to join us. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.

Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. To win this fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, equitable and transparent. We are committed to combating racism both within and outside Shelter. We welcome you on our journey to becoming truly anti-racist.

Safeguarding Statement

Safeguarding is everyone's business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies.

Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.