When viewed in isolation, appointment data can appear purely transactional. Roles are filled. Salaries agreed. Start dates scheduled. Yet when appointments are examined across organisations and over time, they offer something far more valuable. They reveal how boards interpret risk, how leadership capability is assessed under pressure, and where confidence genuinely sits when decisions carry reputational and regulatory consequence.
This analysis draws exclusively on Neemar Search’s search appointments across 2024 and 2025. It is not intended to represent the housing sector as a whole. Rather, it provides insight into the thinking and behaviour of boards and executive teams who engaged us as a senior advisory partner during a period defined by regulatory scrutiny, financial constraint and cultural recalibration.
Taken together, the data tells a story of a sector that has moved beyond immediate stabilisation, but which continues to wrestle with structural challenges around leadership readiness, internal progression and the depth of its senior talent pipeline.
2024 to 2025: From Stabilisation to Selective Risk
The contrast between 2024 and 2025 is less about volume and more about intent.
In 2024, most organisations we worked with were still operating in stabilisation mode. Leadership appointments were shaped by the after-effects of the pandemic, heightened regulatory intervention, consumer standards and reputational pressure. Boards were acutely aware of scrutiny and were seeking reassurance. Experience, predictability and perceived safety were dominant decision drivers.
This aligns closely with governance research. In periods of uncertainty, boards tend to prioritise leaders who signal control and familiarity, even if this comes at the expense of innovation or long-term development. The primary objective becomes risk containment.
By 2025, a subtle but important shift had taken place. While caution remained, boards and executive teams demonstrated greater confidence in making values-led and potential-led appointments. This is most clearly reflected in the increase in step-up Executive appointments, rising from 16.7% in 2024 to 64.3% in 2025.
Leadership research consistently shows that tolerance for potential increases once uncertainty becomes more predictable. When operating conditions move from crisis to complexity, boards begin to value adaptability, learning agility and judgement over linear experience. What we observed in 2025 reflects this transition.
This does not suggest a lowering of standards. Rather, it indicates a recalibration of what “ready” looks like. Leaders who demonstrated emotional intelligence, strategic thinking and coachability were increasingly trusted to grow into role scope, provided appropriate support and governance were in place.
For housing organisations, this represents an important window. Boards are signalling that they are open to backing leaders who are not fully formed, but only where there is clear evidence of learning capacity, self-awareness and resilience.
Pay Progression as a Signal of Market Maturity
Average Executive pay increases reduced from 22.8% in 2024 to 17.7% in 2025. This shift should not be interpreted as reduced investment in leadership. Instead, it signals a market moving from correction to equilibrium.
2024 absorbed significant pent-up adjustment. Pay increases reflected expanded role scope, delayed inflationary alignment and the heightened accountability placed on senior leaders during regulatory reset. By 2025, much of that recalibration had already taken place.
As a result, pay progression became more controlled and more closely aligned to role design and capability rather than urgency or scarcity.
Leadership economics research highlights that once financial incentives stabilise, intrinsic and relational factors become more influential in executive decision-making. Clarity of mandate, board dynamics, trust, and the availability of development support play a larger role in attraction and retention.
This has important implications for organisations. Where pay differentials narrow, the quality of leadership environment becomes a defining factor. Leaders increasingly assess whether they will be supported, stretched appropriately and trusted to lead, rather than simply compensated.
Notice Periods and the Normalisation of Patience
Notice periods continued to lengthen across our appointments. Average Executive notice periods increased from 3.9 months to 4.2 months, with the proportion of leaders on six-month notice rising to 28.6%.
This reflects a structural shift rather than a temporary trend. Longer notice periods are now a normal feature of senior leadership markets and are increasingly built into board planning assumptions.
Research into executive transitions consistently shows that rushed appointments carry higher failure risk. Poor handovers, unclear authority and insufficient induction all contribute to early derailment. The acceptance of longer lead times suggests a growing maturity in how boards approach leadership continuity.
Rather than viewing notice periods as constraints, boards are planning around them. Interim arrangements, clearer delegation and succession depth are now recognised as governance and leadership capabilities in their own right.
This marks a move away from reactive appointment behaviour towards more deliberate, strategic leadership planning.
Days in the Office: From Debate to Expectation
Expectations around time in the office emerged as one of the clearest behavioural shifts between 2024 and 2025.
In 2024, conversations about office presence were often cautious and unresolved. Many organisations were still navigating hybrid models shaped by pandemic-era flexibility. Office attendance was framed around personal choice, trust and transition. Expectations for senior leaders were often implicit rather than explicit.
By 2025, that ambiguity had largely disappeared. Boards were noticeably more confident in articulating expectations around presence and visibility, particularly for Executive and Director roles.
Increased time in the office was not positioned as a reversal of flexible working, but as a leadership responsibility. In 2025, 83% of our appointments were expected to be in the office 3 days a week or more, a stark contrast to 46% in 2024. Senior leaders were expected to be visible, accessible and physically present, especially in organisations undergoing cultural change, regulatory engagement or transformation.
Leadership research reinforces this shift. Visibility and informal interaction are strongly correlated with trust, cultural alignment and speed of decision-making. In complex organisations, senior leaders play a symbolic role. How and where they work sends signals about priorities, accountability and commitment.
The comparison between 2024 and 2025 suggests that the debate has moved on. Hybrid working is no longer the central question. The question now is how senior leaders demonstrate leadership through presence, particularly at times when organisations are asking more of their people.
Director-Level Appointments: A Reawakened Leadership Engine
Director roles re-emerged strongly in 2025, with 40% of appointments representing step-ups. This reflects a renewed recognition of the Director layer as a leadership engine rather than a holding tier.
Research consistently shows that the transition from senior manager to Director is one of the most challenging in a leadership career. It requires a shift from operational control to strategic judgement, from functional focus to enterprise perspective.
Without deliberate exposure to ambiguity, trade-offs and board-level thinking, leaders can appear technically strong but strategically underprepared. This risk is heightened in housing, where Directors often carry significant regulatory and reputational accountability.
If Director roles are to function as genuine preparation for Executive leadership, organisations need to be intentional about how these roles are designed, supported and stretched.
Benefits, Bonuses and What Boards Really Value
Across both years, bonus prevalence remained low, below 15%. This consistency is revealing. Variable pay remains selective and purpose-led rather than a default component of Executive reward.
Car allowances remained common but moderated, with narrower ranges and more tailored application. Annual leave reduced slightly but remained at the upper end of market norms with an average of 28 days annual leave.
These patterns point to a broader truth. Associations are not competing for leaders through excess. They are signalling seriousness, sustainability and expectation. Senior leadership roles are positioned as positions of trust and responsibility rather than incentive-driven propositions.
This aligns with research on public and quasi-public sector leadership, which shows that purpose, values alignment and stewardship increasingly outweigh financial differentiation at senior levels.
What This Data Is Really Telling Us
Taken together, our appointment data points to several deeper truths.
Housing Associations are more willing to back potential, but only where readiness is visible and risk is mitigated. Leadership breadth and transferable capability are being prioritised over sector tenure.
Pay has stabilised, but expectations of leaders have risen significantly. Director roles are re-emerging as critical development platforms, yet are not always being used as such internally.
Perhaps most importantly, the data highlights a persistent gap between succession intent and succession reality. Many organisations speak confidently about growing their own leaders. When appointments are made, boards still look elsewhere.
Developing the Next Generation of Leaders
These insights sit behind why we have invested in initiatives such as the Elevate Programme, designed to support aspiring Chief Executives and senior leaders approaching Executive accountability.
Elevate focuses on judgement, exposure and confidence rather than technical capability alone. Participants engage with real leadership dilemmas, board-level thinking and peer challenge, recognising that readiness is built through experience and reflection, not frameworks.
Alongside this, the Neemar Search Community Platform brings together leaders across the UK, both online and in person, within their respective disciplines. Built on the values of collaboration, creating change and being a force for good, the communities provide safe spaces to share best practice, explore challenges and test thinking beyond organisational boundaries.
Across each community, the emphasis is on learning from lived experience, strengthening perspective and driving positive change across the housing sector.
A Closing Reflection
This analysis is not a critique of ambition. It is a call for realism and honesty.
If organisations want boards to appoint internal or in-sector leaders, development strategies must move beyond capability frameworks into lived experience. Exposure, stretch, consequence and visibility matter more than potential statements.
Our data suggests that boards are open to backing leaders who are not finished. But they need evidence that those leaders can operate under pressure, across boundaries and in full view of scrutiny.
At Neemar Search, our ambition is to be more than a search partner. We exist to support the long-term strength of leadership across the sector, through insight, community and development, as well as appointments.
If you are interested in discussing some of the data analysis in more detail, please do contact me for more information.
