Job Title: Head of Asset Optimisation
Contract Type: Permanent
Salary: £84,239.41 per annum (£93,106.72 is achieved after 12 months successful performance in the role)
Working Hours: Full time 35 hours per week
Working Pattern: Monday to Friday- Hybrid
Location : Liverpool, London or Carlisle
If you share our values and are excited about making a significant impact at Riverside, please ensure you attach a current CV and covering letter. At Riverside we recruit to potential not just on skills and experience, so we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all the essential criteria on the job description.
Please note that whilst we will accept applications based on any form of valid legal permission to work in the UK, we will be surrendering the Riverside Sponsorship licence, so for the avoidance of doubt, we are unable to apply for any further sponsorships whether on behalf of existing colleagues or candidates.
The difference you will make as a Head of Asset Optimisation
You will lead the delivery of Riverside’s strategic asset transformation agenda, encompassing sustainability, rationalisation, and the optimisation of asset performance. This role ensures that homes are future-proofed, efficient, and aligned with customer needs and corporate objectives. The postholder will play a central role in shaping and reviewing the Homes Strategy, providing clear reporting on progress and oversight of strategy across the organisation.
You will:
- Lead teams responsible for sustainability, including decarbonisation planning, environmental performance, carbon reporting, healthy homes and wider sustainability initiatives.
Lead Riverside's asset rationalisation and divestment activity, from appraisal and governance through stakeholder engagement, transaction management and completion, ensuring decisions are implemented effectively and aligned with customer, community and organisational priorities.
Lead the resolution of complex asset challenges and projects, working across teams to balance customer, operational, financial and strategic priorities and deliver agreed outcomes.
- Ensure the progress of the Homes Strategy is tracked, reported, reviewed and updated as priorities evolve.
This role spans sustainability, asset rationalisation and divestment, asset decision-making and stewardship of the Homes Strategy. Success requires the ability to lead across multiple disciplines, working with specialists to address complex challenges and deliver organisational priorities.
About you
We are looking for someone with
· Strategic Asset Management : Proven experience in leading asset transformation programmes, including sustainability and rationalisation, within a complex organisational context.
· Technical Expertise : Experience supporting or leading asset rationalisation activity, including disposals and portfolio change, informed by financial, operational and customer considerations. Deep understanding of sustainability and retrofit planning.
· Data-Driven Decision Making : Ability to interpret and apply asset performance data, risk assessments, and option appraisals to inform asset decisions.
· Customer and Community Focus : Demonstrated ability to improve customer outcomes through asset decisions that enhance affordability, wellbeing, and housing quality.
· Stakeholder Engagement: Strong communication and influencing skills, with experience engaging a wide range of stakeholders including regulatory and funding bodies, commercial partners and sector peers.
Why Riverside?
At Riverside, we’re a housing association with a difference – enhancing the everyday for all our customers. For 90 years, we’ve been revitalising neighbourhoods and supporting communities by providing the homes they need to live full, fulfilling and rewarding lives.
We have a portfolio of over 75,000 affordable residential and retirement homes across the UK. Our work ranges from homelessness services to social care, employment support to retirement living, and we need the best people on board to help us.
Working with us, you’ll enjoy:
• Competitive pay & generous pension
• 28 days holidays plus bank holidays
• Flexible working options available
• Investment in your learning, personal development and technology
• A wide range of benefits
Diversity and Inclusion at Riverside:
We are inclusive. At Riverside, we value diversity in all its forms. We foster a workplace where all individuals are respected, empowered, and heard. Our commitment to inclusivity drives our success and enriches the lives of our customers and colleagues.
Riverside is a Disability Confident Employer and operates a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for any applicant who declares they have a disability. If the applicant meets the minimum requirements for the role (as set out in the role profile and/or person specification) they will be guaranteed an interview.
This role also falls under our Ethnic Diversity guaranteed interview scheme. If you are Ethnically Diverse and demonstrate you meet the minimum criteria for the role you will be guaranteed an interview. If required
Applications may close before the deadline, so please apply early to avoid disappointment.
Role Profile
Leading and engaging a team
• Lead a multi-disciplinary asset optimisation function, setting clear direction, priorities and accountabilities aligned to portfolio performance and corporate objectives
• Provide leadership across rationalisation, sustainability and asset strategy, ensuring teams and partners are aligned to shared outcomes.
• Translate strategy into deliverable priorities, ensuring clarity of roles, responsibilities and expected outcomes across the function
• Manage performance through clear objectives, regular review and use of data and insight
• Build capability across the service, including asset analysis, sustainability and strategic decision-making
• Work across organisational boundaries to influence delivery teams and ensure alignment between asset strategy and operational delivery
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and evidence-based decision making
Strategic Asset Optimisation
• Lead the implementation of asset optimisation priorities aligned to the Homes Strategy, ensuring alignment with corporate priorities and regulatory requirements
• Oversee the planning and prioritisation of energy efficiency and decarbonisation roadmaps, including the development of roadmaps and investment scenarios to for delivery and business planning.
• Use asset performance data and option appraisal insights to identify underperforming or non-strategic assets, informing decisions on disposals, acquisitions, and reconfigurations.
• Support asset investment decisions through option appraisal and rationalisation, working in close collaboration with the Investment Planning team ensuring a cohesive and insight-led approach to asset transformation.
Customer and Community Impact
• Support a planned and prioritised approach to asset rationalisation, ensuring decisions are informed by portfolio performance, financial considerations and customer outcomes
• Ensure that homes are healthy, energy-efficient, and free from hazards such as damp, mould, and poor air quality, through the strategic use of asset data, investment planning, and rationalisation.
• Enable the delivery of Healthy Homes by coordinating planning, prioritisation, and cross-team collaboration to drive measurable improvements in customer outcomes.
• Support initiatives that improve affordability, wellbeing, and climate resilience by ensuring the right homes are in the right places, and that investment and rationalisation decisions reflect customer and community needs.
Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration
• Build strong relationships with local authorities, funders, commercial partners, and sector peers to share best practice, inform strategic asset decisions, and support effective delivery of disposals, acquisitions, and investment programmes.
• Lead internal stakeholder engagement to ensure alignment across asset transformation priorities, enabling joined-up planning and decision-making.
• Represent Riverside in external forums, networks, and professional groups that support asset optimisation, sustainability and portfolio development.
Data, Risk and Performance Management
• Oversee the use and analysis of property data to inform plans and strategic decision-making.
• Identify and manage risks, ensuring robust mitigation strategies are in place.
• Track the progress of the Homes Strategy, providing cyclical reviews ensuring it is underpinned by high-quality data and that ensure objectives continue to be aligned with operational and strategic priorities.
• Champion the continuous improvement of asset data quality, systems and reporting to enable effective investment planning and long-term portfolio optimisation.
Funding and Resource Management
• Identify and secure funding opportunities to support asset transformation priorities, including sustainability and rationalisation.
• Provide oversight of budgets and resource planning to ensure value for money, alignment with strategic priorities, and effective delivery of programmes.
• Lead the development and delivery of income activity through the disposal of assets, ensuring commercial decisions are well-informed, timely, and aligned with the Homes Strategy.
• Support the development of business cases and funding proposals, ensuring that investment decisions are evidence-based and deliver measurable impact.
Leadership and Culture
• Provide visible leadership across strategic asset optimisation, fostering collaboration and accountability across sustainability, rationalisation, and investment-related functions.
• Promote a culture of innovation, commercial awareness, and continuous improvement, ensuring teams are empowered to deliver complex programmes with clarity and purpose.
• Build capability across asset transformation functions, embedding technical knowledge, strategic thinking, and customer focus into training and development.
• Work across organisational boundaries to align strategy, investment planning and delivery
Other Information
• The role requires you to work collaboratively with team changes responding to business need.
Person specification
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
Essential
· Strategic Asset Management: Proven experience in leading asset transformation programmes, including sustainability and rationalisation, within a complex organisational context.
· Technical Expertise: Experience supporting or leading asset rationalisation activity, including disposals and portfolio change, informed by financial, operational and customer considerations. Deep understanding of sustainability and retrofit planning.
· Data-Driven Decision Making: Ability to interpret and apply asset performance data, risk assessments, and option appraisals to inform asset decisions.
· Customer and Community Focus: Demonstrated ability to improve customer outcomes through asset decisions that enhance affordability, wellbeing, and housing quality.
· Stakeholder Engagement: Strong communication and influencing skills, with experience engaging a wide range of stakeholders including regulatory and funding bodies, commercial partners and sector peers.
· Programme and Budget Management: Experience in managing complex programmes and budgets, with a focus on delivering value.
· Leadership and Culture: Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams, foster collaboration, and promote a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement
· Strategic Thinking: Experience in shaping and reviewing long-term strategies that align with corporate objectives, regulatory expectations, and customer needs.
· Professional Credentials: Relevant academic qualification or professional membership (e.g. IEMA, RICS, CIOB).
