30 Sept 2025
Professional standards: Expanding your knowledge base
Having an in-depth understanding of the housing sector will help you to do the best job you can in your day-to-day work. You’ll be able to make the right decisions with confidence and tenants, colleagues and partners will trust you to be up-to-date and informed on the latest industry developments.
This article explores how you can expand your knowledge of the housing sector as part of your continuing professional development.
In our professional standards framework, we cover more detail of how to continue learning to reach your most knowledgeable self.
What does it mean to be knowledgeable?
Knowledge consists of information and skills acquired through learning, and so, to be described as knowledgeable, you need to know a fair amount about a certain subject. As someone in the sector, you’ll already have more specialist knowledge than most about housing.
- Theoretical knowledge involves understanding the main principles and facts of a subject and is often gained through typical study methods like reading a policy document, attending a training course, or undertaking a qualification.
- Practical knowledge involves understanding how to carry out specific tasks and is acquired through the hands-on experience of your everyday work.
You need both theoretical and practical knowledge to thrive as a housing professional, but the ratio between the two will be unique to every job role. For example, a housing support officer will need theoretical knowledge of current housing law but they will also need the practical knowledge of how to interact with vulnerable tenants.
What can housing professionals do to build their knowledge?
Are there any topics you hear colleagues discussing that you wouldn’t feel confident explaining to someone else? Is there something a tenant asked you about that you didn’t know the facts on? Have there been any stories in the news that you haven’t looked into yet?
Asking yourself these questions can help to identify gaps in your knowledge. From there, you can make a plan on how you’re going to build your expertise in these areas.
Formal learning activities are a way of gaining knowledge and demonstrating to others that you have a certain understanding, often through a certificate or the awarding of a new qualification. You might sometimes be asked to undertake these by a manager but finding a course yourself and completing it can be an impressive way of showing initiative. Browse through our list of housing qualifications to see if any are the right fit, or look into our Housing Academy training courses for a shorter learning experience. Check if your organisation has a professional development fund, as this could be used to help pay for your learning.
Informal learning activities occur everyday in your role. Whether you have a team meeting or a one-on-one discussion with a colleague, you have a chance to learn something. Make sure to write down any questions you might have as you think of them so you’re ready to ask and learn when the opportunity arises.
As well as using your team and colleagues as learning resources, reading topical articles or watching videos can be a great way to develop your knowledge by yourself. Our Knowledge Hub was created to help housing professionals find the most useful resources, and our bank of previous event recordings holds a fountain of knowledge from industry professionals.
Everyday is a learning opportunity, and you should make sure that you have the knowledge, not just do your job, but to do it to the absolute best of your ability.
Knowledgeable — our characteristics
There are six characteristics under our knowledgeable professional standard: breadth and depth, contextual understanding, currency, self-aware, reflection, and sharing.
Understand the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills you need to do your job:
- Be confident in the general and specialist knowledge required for your role
- Regularly reassess your knowledge and identify opportunities for learning
- Ask for help when needed and utilise team members’ knowledge.
Understand the bigger picture to set your role in context:
- Interact with a wide range of people and understand that you can learn from anyone
- Work collaboratively with all departments in your organisation and understand how they interact with your role
- Identify relevant local institutions or groups to your role and interact with them.
Keep up to date, stay aware of current issues, trends and changes in best practice:
- Stay up to date with new developments in housing news
- Assess the needs of people you support and identify policy updates that are relevant to them
- Make a plan to continually develop your sector knowledge and stick to it
- Regularly revisit the foundation knowledge of your job role to ensure you have a strong base to build on.
Demonstrate awareness of your own strengths, areas for development and the limits of your ability and expertise:
- Regularly reflect on your job performance and highlight areas for improvement
- Identify areas of the housing sector you are passionate about and wish to improve
- Recognise your achievements and make sure others in your team know your strong points in case they need support.
Assess and commit to your continuing professional development and reflective learning:
- Use your knowledge gaps or set-backs as learning opportunities
- Ask for feedback from those you support and colleagues to document how you could do an even better job
- Understand where your knowledge is limited and don’t act beyond your competence level
- Use your colleagues’ knowledge to understand and fix situations that went wrong.
Share your knowledge, skills and expertise freely with others:
- Share your successes with colleagues so they know how you could help them if they need support
- Regularly discuss best practice with colleagues and regulate processes where possible
- Encourage colleagues to learn more about the housing industry with you
- Share your knowledge with those you support so they understand how policy and laws apply to them.
Take aways and questions to consider
As we’ve shown above, it’s important that you have the correct knowledge for your role in the housing sector so that tenants, colleagues and partners have confidence in you. Ask yourself the following questions to understand if you currently have the most relevant knowledge:
- Do I stay up to date with the latest policy and practice developments in housing?
- Do I regularly review my own development and progress, how am I doing, what do I need to do more of?
- Am I clear about the knowledge I need to effectively do my job
- Am I aware of all my legal and professional obligations?
- Am I clear about personal limitations (e.g. when to seek advice from others)?
- Do I share my knowledge with others to create a learning environment among my colleagues?
- Do I use my knowledge, research and data to make evidence-based decisions?
To learn more about our professional standards and to retake the self-assessment visit our professional standards section on our website.
