The Healthy Housing Initiative (HHI) is pleased to announce a special Leadership Forum event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science taking place on 5th November 2026, focusing on the evolving landscape of key worker housing in the UK.
What’s on offer?
Join the Healthy Housing Initiative for a live podcast event exploring the housing challenges facing emergency service and healthcare professionals. Through an informal, hosted discussion with invited speakers, the event will examine housing affordability, rising costs, commuting pressures and the potential impacts on workforce wellbeing, recruitment and retention. Audience members will have opportunities to ask questions and contribute to the conversation. The discussion will be recorded as a live podcast and shared after the event, allowing the conversation to reach a wider audience beyond those attending in person.
What’s it about?
Can emergency service and healthcare professionals afford to live in the communities they serve?
Rising housing costs and affordability pressures are creating significant challenges for workers across the emergency services and healthcare sectors. For some, accessing suitable housing can mean longer commutes, difficult financial decisions or moving away from the places where they work. These pressures may also have wider implications for wellbeing, recruitment, retention and the resilience of essential public services.
This live podcast event will bring together professionals from housing, emergency services, healthcare and related sectors to explore these issues through an accessible and engaging conversation. Speakers will discuss the barriers frontline workers can face in accessing affordable housing, the impacts on individuals, organisations and communities, and the potential policy and practice responses.
The event will include a live audience Q&A and opportunities for discussion. The podcast will also be recorded and shared following the event, extending the conversation to a wider audience and helping raise awareness of the links between housing affordability, w
Who’s leading the event?
Dr Tom Simcock, Research Manager of the Healthy Housing Initiative and host of the Under One Roof podcast
Open to
The event will be of particular interest to emergency service and healthcare professionals, housing practitioners, local authority officers, policymakers, workforce and HR professionals, and people working in organisations concerned with recruitment, retention and employee wellbeing.
It will also be relevant to charities, community organisations and members of the public with an interest in housing affordability, essential public services and the future resilience of local communities.
Of particular interest to
The event will be of particular interest to emergency service and healthcare professionals, housing practitioners, local authority officers, policymakers, workforce and HR professionals, and people working in organisations concerned with recruitment, retention and employee wellbeing.
It will also be relevant to charities, community organisations and members of the public with an interest in housing affordability, essential public services and the future resilience of local communities.
Scheduling information
05/11/2026 11am – 12pm in OA6/09 – Queensgate Campus, Oastler Building, University of Huddersfield
his HHI Leadership Forum webinar will explore the growing interest in key worker housingand what it may mean for the health and care workforce. The session will bring together research and practice perspectives from the University of Huddersfield, University College London, and Shared Ventures, to consider how housing affordability, availability and suitability can shape workforce experiences, organisational capacity, and health and care service resilience. It will draw on previous research alongside practical reflections on the opportunities, challenges, and future directions for developing housing-related approaches to workforce support and service resilience.
Our speakers:
- Dr Tom Simcock, Research Fellow and Research Manager of the Healthy Housing Initiative at the University of Huddersfield. Tom will be the host of the live podcast.
- Dr Dillon Newton, Research Fellow, University of Huddersfield / Healthy Housing Initiative. Dillon will present University of Huddersfield research on key worker housing that includes previous work with BOB/Frimley and emerging IAA-funded work on key worker housing and the health and care workforce.
- Dr Iqbal Hamiduddin, Associate Professor in Transport Planning and Housing, University College London. Iqbal will contribute insights from his research on NHS worker housing including how housing can shape recruitment, wellbeing, productivity and wider workforce experience.
We look forward to welcoming participants to what promises to be a highly engaging and thought-provoking event.
