Chartered Institute of Housing · RQF Level 4
CIH Level 4 Diploma in Housing Practice (QCF)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 4
- Total credits72
- Guided learning196.5 hours
- Units in this qualification18
Awarded by Chartered Institute of Housing · on the Ofqual register
Start here
See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
These are the units Chartered Institute of Housing registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Buildings, communities and the environmentReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the key stages of the construction process for homes.
- Understand the impact on the environment of existing and new homes and strategies to minimise this impact.
- Understand the drivers to improve the environmental performance of buildings.
- Understand the relationship between people and places.
Customer care in a housing services contextReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the relationship between good customer service and effective service delivery and continuous improvement in a housing services context.
- Understand how to develop and deliver effective customer service in a housing services context.
- Understand how to use customer feedback to improve service design and delivery.
Customer involvement in local servicesReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the impact of a customer focused approach to providing local services.
- Understand the strategic partnership approach to local services.
- Understand the role of tenant, resident, and service user involvement in the design, delivery and scrutiny of local services and their capacity to deliver.
Equality and diversity in housingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of equality and diversity.
- Understand how housing organisations can support positive approaches to equality and diversity across their staff and customers.
- Understand how to promote equality and diversity in their own context / organisation.
Housing economics and housing financeReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the economic framework in which housing supply, management and maintenance operates.
- Know what funding and/or investment opportunities are available for housing supply, management and maintenance.
- Understand approaches to consumer subsidy for housing.
Housing lawReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the legislative framework for the country in which you live or work.
- Understand key legislation in relation to landlords and tenants for the country in which you live or work.
- Understand the application of the law to homelessness and housing practice for the country in which you live or work.
Housing management servicesReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand key housing management functions.
- Understand approaches to the provision of housing.
- Understand a range of housing and housing related advice services.
Housing need, demand and supplyReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the demographic profile of the UK and its impact on housing need and housing demand.
- Understand the relationship between the demand for and the supply of housing in the UK across all tenures.
- Understand the range of factors that influence local housing market strategies.
Housing policyReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how housing policy is made and implemented.
- Know the organisations and agencies that influence and shape housing policy.
- Understand the historical development of national housing policy.
- Understand how housing policy impacts on practice.
Housing support services for independent livingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the context in which support services operate in delivering independent living.
- Understand the role of service user involvement in the design and delivery of support services for independent living.
- Understand the legislative, funding and monitoring framework for support services for independent living.
Managing peopleReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand a range of human resource practices in housing organisations.
- Manage a team.
- Manage change.
- Understand their responsibilities for safe practice at work.
Partnership working in housingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the range of ways partnership working in housing can take place.
- Understand how to employ the skills necessary for successful partnership working.
- Understand why partnership working is important.
Professional practice skills for housingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the skills required for the housing professional.
- Assess own professional performance.
- Manage their own professional development.
Research skills for housingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand why research is important for planning housing and housing related services.
- Understand different research methods and research ethics.
- Undertake a research study.
Strategies for promoting independent livingReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand strategies for promoting independent living.
- Understand strategies for safeguarding individuals with support needs.
- Understand the technological and housing design tools available to assist the enabling of independent living.
The framework for planning and developmentReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the planning and development process and the key participants developing new homes and major refurbishment.
- Understand the funding and investment opportunities for the re / development of existing and new homes.
- Understand the regulatory, health and safety and quality frameworks for the re / development of existing and new homes.
The governance of housing businessesReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the financial framework for housing organisations.
- Understand the strategic business planning processes in a housing organisation.
- Understand the Board’s policy making activities.
- Understand the role of the Board in the performance management of a housing organisation.
The role of a housing boardReal unit · Chartered Institute of Housing
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the legal, regulatory and auditory framework governing social housing organisations.
- Understand the role of board members in the governance of social housing.
- Understand the role of the board in providing a customer focused housing service.
- Understand the Board’s role as an employer.
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 4 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Allocate accommodation to meet customer requirements
- Analyse and evaluate research data within a housing environment
- Assess housing need and demand of the local population across all tenures
- Contribute to housing reviews, strategies and plans
- Develop and manage partnership working arrangements
- Develop and sustain partnership or collaborative working arrangements
- Provide housing rent services
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your own work
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for CIH Level 4 Diploma in Housing Practice (QCF)
18 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Chartered Institute of Housing.
- Buildings, communities and the environment
- Customer care in a housing services context
- Customer involvement in local services
- Equality and diversity in housing
- Housing economics and housing finance
- Housing law
and 12 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.