About the Awards

The winners were announced at the Housing Technology Conference in March 2024. The purpose of our awards is twofold; the first is to celebrate the achievements of our sector’s most innovative and ambitious individuals, teams and organisations; the second is to share those achievements with the rest of the social housing sector so that everyone can benefit from their knowledge. Please see our interviews with the 2024 gold winners and the full winner list below.

Interested in taking part in 2025? Contact alastair@housing-technology.com

Interviews with our winners

Customer Service Award Winner: Raven Housing Trust

Raven Housing has worked with TechLabs London to deliver a pioneering digital transformation programme which has revolutionised the way it does business, improving customer experience, operational efficiency and cost effectiveness while reducing risk. It has developed simpler-to-use, more integrated systems by overhauling Raven’s IT infrastructure and moving to cloud-based solutions on the Dynamics platform.

Cyber Security Award Winner: West Kent Housing

In 2022, West Kent Housing was in the process of prioritising cyber security through the creation of a new infrastructure and security team when there were a series of cyber-attacks on housing associations nationwide alongside an internal penetration test, involving social engineering, highlighting several vulnerabilities. This led us to accelerate the raising of staff awareness through ‘security as a culture’ and investing in cyber-security systems and processes during 2023.

Innovation Award Winner: Platform Housing

Housing associations like Platform are in a fantastic position to make real use of the amount of data they hold on customers. With real innovative thinking and a positive, adoptive culture, there’s a real possibility of solving problems in a targeted and resource-conscious manner. Following the Peabody report, Platform successfully used machine learning to identify customers who were otherwise at risk of becoming ‘silent’ and performed hundreds of tenancy health-checks, stepping in and helping where, in some instances, serious self neglect and isolation could have resulted in life-threatening health issues.

IT Team of the Year Award Winner: L&Q

In late 2022, L&Q introduced a new technology operating model, which included the establishment of an internal application management, development and project management function called BizApps. Over the past year, BizApps has recruited over 100 people for new roles and implemented a fresh approach to IT project management. Additionally, a large-scale, multi-million-pound transformation programme was initiated to replace L&Q’s housing and finance management systems, which integrated with the majority of the application landscape.

Data Management Award Winner: L&Q

L&Q’s data vision is to achieve a seamless flow of trusted data across its entire data ecosystem. We aim to deliver this vision through a transformational programme centred on Semarchy’s master data management (MDM) services and an enterprise data platform (EDP). The EDP is an environment for building and running applications, systems and processes. A project was initiated in late 2022 which aimed to deliver on this vision and it went live in Autumn 2023, immediately providing a significant step-change in L&Q’s data capabilities.

Full winner list

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural Housing Technology Awards (2024) as well as the commended entries. The standard of entries was incredibly high; all of the housing providers and local authorities mentioned below submitted excellent examples and case studies of their IT-related projects and teams spanning the awards’ categories. The finalists’ entries were assessed and scored by our external panel of judges from UK housing providers.

Customer/Tenant Services finalists

  • Raven Housing Trust: An end-to-end ‘Better Connected’ programme; Gold Winner
  • Milton Keynes City Council: Transforming tenants’ financial health; Silver Winner
  • Poplar HARCA: A full-scale deployment of IoT sensors; Bronze Winner  
  • Kingston Council: A proactive approach to improving tenants’ wellbeing; Finalist
  • Platform Housing: Trying hard, failing fast, improving and delivering; Finalist
  • Commended: Beyond Housing and BPHA.

Cyber-Security finalists

  • West Kent Housing: Cyber-security as an organisational culture; Gold Winner
  • Kingdom Housing: Cyber-security using AI, automation and IT standards; Silver Winner
  • Southern Housing: Cyber-assurance during a high-speed merger; Bronze Winner
  • Adra (Tai) Cyf: Making cyber-security mainstream; Finalist
  • Link Group: A problem-solving approach to cyber-awareness; Finalist
  • Commended: Freebridge Community Housing, Newark & Sherwood District Council and Raven
Housing Trust.

Digital Transformation finalists

  • Magenta Living: Damp and mould case management; Gold Winner
  • Platform Housing: The future shape of finance; Silver Winner
  • Places for People: Delivering an effortless customer experience; Bronze Winner
  • Notting Hill Genesis: A proof-of-concept for uniting people and data; Finalist
  • Southwark Council: Digital improvements to KPIs for rent collection; Finalist
  • Commended: Beyond Housing, L&Q, Monmouthshire Housing, Newark & Sherwood District Council, Newport City Homes, Southwark Council, Stockport Homes, Tai Tarian and Wrekin Housing.

Innovation finalists

  • Platform Housing: Asking big questions of AI; Gold Winner
  • Thirteen Group: Innovating debt recovery; Silver Winner
  • North Star Housing: Using AI for automated compliance; Bronze Winner
  • L&Q: BizApps’ innovative technology portfolio management; Finalist
  • Notting Hill Genesis: Migration to Microsoft omni-channels; Finalist
  • Commended: Home Group, Housing Solutions, Lincolnshire Housing Partnership, Places for People, Raven Housing Trust, Southwark Council, Sovereign Network Group, Stockport Homes and Warwick
District Council.

IT Team of the Year finalists

  • L&Q: BizApps – Rebuilding IT’s relationship with the business; Gold Winner
  • Sovereign Network Group: Delivering excellence from SNG’s data & analytics team; Silver Winner
  • Southern Housing: Pure hard work – The engine
of a merger; Bronze Winner
  • Home Group: Implementing integration middleware without risking service delivery; Finalist
  • Lincolnshire Housing Partnership: A customer-first approach to all aspects of IT; Finalist
  • Commended: Beyond Housing, Link Group
and Newark & Sherwood District Council.

Data Management finalists

  • L&Q: BizApp's new master data management and enterprise data platform; Gold Winner
  • Notting Hill Genesis: Innovations in data governance; Silver Winner
  • Sovereign Network Group: An ambitious journey towards data observability. Bronze Winner

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