Portfolio Innovation and Performance Manager
Operations & Supply ChainPosted 14 Jul 2026
Advertised as “Portfolio Innovation and Performance Manager WCC623723”
Job Details:
Salary range: £56,436 - £76,872 per annum. Salary negotiable depending upon experience.
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Permanent
Closing date: 29 July 2026
Interview date: Week Commencing 3 August 2026
About Us:
THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF KATE’S PASSION FOR NUMBERS AND PEOPLE.
Housing in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where dedicated and compassionate professionals bring everything to their work.
Take Kate, an absolute wizard at managing housing asset data for our annual £50m capital programme. Kate’s an inspiration to her team. Now a senior manager, she first joined as a college leaver in finance. Through Westminster’s encouragement, as well as her own hard work and determination, she’s gained professional qualifications and taken on a series of increasingly stretching roles.
Today, we depend on Kate’s analytical powers to keep track of the condition of over 21,000 of our tenanted and leasehold homes – from roofs and windows to kitchens and bathrooms. Kate’s committed to achieving the Decent Homes Standard for all our tenants and a high standard for all our leaseholders. Her passion is numbers but, because she grew up in social housing, she also understands the human stories behind the data.
More than that she understands the disruption renewal work entails. So when an elderly resident’s family mentioned that their mother needed not just a new kitchen, but adaptations to her bathroom, Kate got right on to it. She co-ordinated with colleagues to assess the resident’s disability needs.
Kate’s worked hard to ensure our routine external and internal stock condition surveys pick up on repairs and health & safety issues at the same time. And, by recognising patterns in the data that’s gathered, she makes a vital contribution to forward planning for large-scale capital renewal works.
The Role:
As Portfolio Innovation and Performance Lead, you too can make a powerful contribution. You’ll be joining the Council’s Housing Directorate, which delivers essential services to residents across the City, which manages a diverse portfolio of over 21,000 homes. You’ll be turning resident needs, asset data and compliance duties into decisions that maximise safety, value and lifecycle performance.
In leading reviews across the housing portfolio, you’ll shape where we invest, redesign, repurpose or retire assets. You’ll ensure that Housing asset policy, strategy and plans are not only up to date but co-designed with residents. We’d like for you to take a holistic approach to ensuring that all social housing stock is maintained to a high standard and in accordance with statuary requirements.
As the technical lead for asset data assurance, you’ll track portfolio performance and assure asset survey outputs. Then, you’ll work with the Data, Quality and Systems to translate that data into innovative outcomes. Plus, you’ll provide technical advice, reports and audit trails on a range of complex and sensitive issues that senior stakeholders will use for decision making.
You’ll develop clear performance measures and data insights to improve repairs, planned works and compliance — helping deliver safer homes, quicker first‑time fixes and better communication. Also, you’ll provide expert advice on asset investment and planning, balancing whole‑life costs, carbon, social value and resident needs to ensure we prioritise the right projects at the right time. To help us innovate, you’ll take lessons learned and implement them into smarter, improved ways of working.
You’ll also lead a lifecycle approach to our assets by developing scenarios, targets and pathways with Finance, Programme and Sustainability teams — shaping standards, strategies and prioritisation criteria that strengthen planning, support funding bids, improve HRA affordability and ultimately enhance project delivery.
You’ll provide day-to-day direction to project managers. Mentoring them to build on delivery capability and embed a culture of continuous improvement. Beyond that, you’ll act as a lead representative for one of four patches of the borough. You’ll build strong, trusting relationships with a wide range of stakeholders. Confidently representing the Council in high-profile forums.
We’re a forward-thinking, dynamic place to work. And as this is a newly created role, you’ll have the opportunity to shape it into your own.
Please refer to the Job Description for more information.
About You:
To be ready for the role, you’ll have experience in building or refreshing a prioritised multi-year investment plan using evidence and scenario modelling. You’ve created and refined performance measures that improve service quality (right first time, resident communication). You’ve provided expert options for appraisals that directed the right projects at the right time. With us, you’re motivated to translate resident needs, compliance duties and asset data into clear portfolio choices and priorities.
From brief to delivery, you’ve worked with programme and/or project teams, keeping to the strategic objectives and ensuring that residents get the best possible outcome. You have strong contract management and project management skills, with a good knowledge of relevant ICT systems.
You’ve overseen compliance activity across housing assets. You know how to act as an intelligent client — spotting when expert input is needed, commissioning the right surveys or consultants, and creating clear, evidence-backed decision trails that stand up to scrutiny. Also, you have a solid understanding of building safety legislation, and you’re experienced in ensuring compliance and monitoring performance against statutory, regulatory and best‑practice requirements.
An excellent communicator, you can explain complex information clearly. You’ve prepared reports and briefings that are easy to understand for senior decision-makers, residents and partners. You’re skilled at framing choices using business cases and scenario modelling. Plus, you’ve meaningfully engaged with tenants to maximise opportunities.
You can manage budgets and resources confidently — delivering value for money, ensuring strong governance and compliance, and setting evidence‑led annual revenue and capital budgets.
We’d like for you to have a comprehensive understanding of the current issues facing local government. You may have gained this from working in a political or similarly challenging environment.
As a leader, you’re supportive, dynamic and bring experience of leading change. You’re enthusiastic about fostering a continuous improvement culture.
We’d be interested in a relevant degree, membership of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, or equivalent.
Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.
The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority (GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' (formally known as B.A.M.E, Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.
What We Offer:
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.
At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties
As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.
The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.
We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants.
