Should your next move be a Non Executive Director role?

Should your next move be a Non Executive Director?

Why Becoming a Non-Executive Director in Housing, Property & Regeneration Can Level Up Your Career (and Your Impact)

Affordable housing and regeneration is where big, messy, high-stakes decisions live: resident safety, service standards, financial resilience, development risk, and public trust. If you’re looking for a way to broaden your influence and do work that actually matters outside your day job, becoming a Non-Executive Director (NED) is one of the sharpest moves you can make.

And no, you don’t have to be a “full-time NED.” Most people aren’t. Many NEDs hold a board role alongside a permanent leadership role (CEO, FD, Director), or alongside interim assignments and consulting. It’s often part of a portfolio, not a replacement for your career.

What a NED is (in plain English)

A NED is an independent board member who helps steer the organisation by providing:

• Strategic oversight (are we aiming at the right things?)
• Constructive challenge (are we kidding ourselves anywhere?)
• Governance and accountability (are we safe, compliant, ethical, well-run?)
• Support to exec leadership (especially the CEO and senior team)

You’re not there to run operations. You’re there to improve the quality of decisions and reduce the odds of preventable disasters.

The career benefits (the stuff that follows you back into your day job)

1) You build strategy muscle fast Board work forces you to think long-term: risk appetite, investment priorities, development strategy, asset management, resident experience, and organisational resilience. It’s a different kind of leadership than “delivery.”

2) You become better at influence, not authority In the boardroom, you can’t rely on hierarchy. You learn how to ask sharper questions, challenge without antagonising, and steer outcomes without owning the execution. That skill translates directly into stronger executive leadership.

3) You widen your perspective beyond one organisation Housing, property and regeneration are shaped by regulation, funding, planning, contracting capacity, supply chains, community dynamics, and politics. Seeing how different organisations manage these pressures makes you smarter and more adaptable.

4) Your credibility deepens Being trusted with governance responsibilities signals judgement, integrity, and composure under pressure. In a sector where reputation and compliance matter, that credibility is powerful.

5) You expand your network in the rooms where decisions are made Boards connect you to senior leaders, local authority partners, investors, advisors, and sector bodies. These aren’t “nice to meet you” connections. They’re high-trust relationships built around accountability and outcomes.

The impact benefits (why this sector needs good NEDs)

This isn’t abstract “giving back.” Board decisions affect:

• resident safety and building compliance
• service quality and complaints culture
• investment in existing homes (repairs, retrofit, decarbonisation)
• whether developments are viable and deliverable
• how organisations respond when things go wrong

Strong governance makes organisations more resilient. And in housing and regeneration, resilience is not a “nice to have.”

Who boards want (and it’s not just ex-CEOs)

Registered Providers (including not-for-profit and for-profit), property companies, and regeneration organisations often look for specific expertise such as:

• finance, audit, treasury, risk
• development, construction, planning, asset management
• building safety, compliance, consumer standards
• digital, data, transformation
• HR, culture, organisational development
• customer/resident experience and service improvement
• legal, governance, regulation

They also value lived experience, community connection, and people who can keep the organisation honest about how decisions land on residents.

Time commitment: realistic, but manageable

Many NED roles sit alongside full-time work. Typical commitments include board meetings, committee work, reading time, and occasional workshops or site visits. The key is being honest about capacity and treating it like real responsibility, not a branding exercise.

Bottom line

A NED role in affordable housing, property or regeneration can make you a better leader, broaden your options (permanent or interim), and let you contribute to something tangible: safer homes, stronger places, better-run organisations.

We appoint to Executive and Non-Executive roles across the affordable housing and wider property sector. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss becoming an NED, or if you are looking to strengthen your Board.