David Skelton

I started my career as an apprentice electrician in the mid-1980s and, over more than 30 years, worked my way up to senior manager in a large blue-chip FMCG company. Along the way I discovered a real passion for change and improvement. That was reinforced when I was invited to join a three-year manufacturing improvement programme with McKinsey, delivering significant, measurable benefits across multiple sites.

Since 2012 I have worked almost exclusively with the UK housing sector. I have supported housing associations of all sizes on organisational change, compliance and service improvement: from strategic change vision and governance, through to voids, income, repairs and maintenance, universal credit, and customer experience. My work has included G15 landlords, large HAs with more than 50,000 homes, and smaller HAs and ALMOs with around 4,000 homes.

From 2017 to now I have also held senior change and transformation roles inside a large G15 housing association, giving me a live, day-to-day understanding of what it really takes to deliver improvement from boardroom to frontline – not just advise on it from the outside.

All of this experience now sits behind the Social Housing Advisory Service, which I founded to give providers practical, honest support when they need it most. The aim is simple: help organisations tackle real problems, build internal capability and improve services for residents, without creating long-term dependency on external consultants.

I am also the author and creator of Impact 360, a practical framework for transformation in social housing, and I write regularly about leadership, culture and improvement in the sector.

My goal is to create sustainable culture change that customers and communities can feel long after I have gone – not to walk away leaving people with a glossy slide deck and no idea how to continue.