Building Skills for Healthier Homes

Housing Needs Skills — PfP Thrive Delivers 

Host: Jenny Danson, CEO & Co-founder, Healthy Homes Hub 
Guest: Tom Arey, Director, PFP Thrive (Places for People) 

Episode overview 
Housing is facing a critical skills shortage, from damp and mould remediation to net-zero technologies. Jenny speaks with Tom Arey about PFP Thrive, a training provider designed to serve the whole sector. Thrive offers apprenticeships and short courses written through a housing lens—covering real housing sector tasks, customer contact, and compliance like Awaab’s Law. By demodularising courses, it helps organisations use their levy funds not just for new apprentices but to upskill existing staff quickly. 

What you’ll learn 

• Why mainstream training misses housing’s realities. 

• How Thrive front-loads apprenticeships with useful skills from day one. 

• The power of short, targeted CPD for immediate needs such as heat pumps or anti-social behaviour. 

Practical steps for housing providers 

1. Review your levy spend – don’t let it expire. Channel unspent funds into Thrive programmes that directly address sector challenges for your organisation. 

2. Upskill existing teams – use short, demodularised courses to raise baseline competence quickly. 

3. Plan for future-proofing – embed training on resident interaction, compliance and sustainability to prepare your workforce for new regulations. 

4. Collaborate across the sector – partner with PFP Thrive as a shared resource, ensuring training is tailored to housing, not generic provision. 

Find out more about PFP Thrive