Independent Board Member

Independent Board Member at the National Housing Federation

Location: Nationwide

Make your expertise count!

The National Housing Federation (NHF) is the voice of England's housing associations.

Our housing association members provide homes for around six million people and are driven by a social purpose: providing good quality housing that people can afford.

We support our members to deliver that social purpose, with ambitious work that leads to positive change, and we are looking for board members who are committed to helping us achieve this.

We have a vacant independent board member position and are looking to appoint to this post with a start date in September 2026.

Our board members come from both within and outside of the social housing sector, and we have a number of independent board members who bring a range of diverse experiences.

Successful candidates:

Although we do not expect the candidate to have experience in the housing sector, we are looking for relevant candidates with an interest in the sector or experience in working with membership organisations at a strategic level.

As a successful Board member, you will provide excellence in governance, be an ambassador, and use your strategic skills to make us an even more effective organisation.

You will be involved in influencing the NHF's business to ensure that we successfully manage the challenges and significant changes that the future is set to bring.

In addition to the above, the essential experience required includes:

• Proven strategic leadership, vision, and a collegiate approach.
• A strong track record of championing equality, diversity, and inclusion, and delivering change.
• Governance expertise and strong analytical skills.
• An excellent track record of effective stakeholder relationship management and ambassadorial activities.
• A passion for the social housing sector's purpose and the current challenges.

NHF remains committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion, and we are actively encouraging applications from people with lived experience and from communities currently underrepresented on our Board.

Our current board is not sufficiently reflective of the diversity of our members and the communities our sector exists to serve. We are especially keen to change this and strongly encourage applications from people in the following groups:

• Racially diverse backgrounds.
• Living with a disability/disabilities.
• LGBTQ+ community.
• Lived experience of social housing.
• We are Disability Confident Employer, and disabled applicants who demonstrate that they meet the essential criteria for this role will be offered an interview.

Commitment:

Board meetings will be a mixture of in-person meetings, generally held in Central London and virtual video conference calls. There may be occasional national travel; reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed.

In addition to Board meetings, each Board member also sits on one of NHF's sub-committees, either our Audit and Risk Management Committee or our Nominations, Remuneration and Governance Committee. The total time commitment from Board members is approximately six days a year.

If you believe in our work and understand the value of exceptional governance, we would love to hear from you.

Closing date: Thursday 28th May 2026.

Interview date: Friday 12th June 2026.

To apply for the post, please provide your up-to-date CV and a brief statement on one side of A4, stating why you are interested in the post, demonstrating how you meet the above criteria.

To comply with our blind recruitment requirements, please remove your personal details from both documents. This will help us to shortlist candidates for interview based solely on their knowledge, skills and experience.

For a discussion about the role, please contact us.