Key worker FAQs

Keyworkers are public sector employees who provide a vital frontline service in areas of health, education and community safety.

Key worker employers include:

• London NHS
• London Local Authority Teachers
• London Fire Brigade
• London Ambulance Service
• Metropolitan and City Police
• Transport for London
• Houses of Parliament
• HM Prison and Probation Service.

To be eligible for the scheme, you must:

• Be a key worker employed by one of the organisations on this list. And be able to provide a letter on headed paper from your employer confirming your key worker status.
• Be on a permanent/fixed term contract of six months or more with the employer (i.e. not on a zero-hour contract or work for an agency).
• Be a Peabody tenant from a Regency Portfolio estate whose transfer request has been accepted.
• Have permanent leave to stay in the UK (a copy of your documents confirming this must be included with your application).
• Have a total household income of less than £71,000 per year if applying for a one or two-bedroom property and £85,000 for three-bedrooms or more.
• Be unable to purchase a suitable home to meet your housing needs on the open market.
• Not already own a home. If you do, you need to have sold it before you purchase or rent under the key worker scheme.
• Be able to independently afford the rent without the help of any benefits.

This will depend on the size of your household. You can only bid for properties suitable for the size of your household. Children included in your application must be living with you on a fulltime basis.

If you’re pregnant, you’ll need you to submit a Maternity Certificate (MAT B1 form) with your application so we can include your expected child in your household size.

You’ll need to add your colleague as an additional member of your household and both parties will need to email permission to Keyworkercbl@peabody.org.uk. We’ll select the earliest registration date when merging the two accounts.

Unfortunately, there’s no priority list for our key worker scheme. We allocate properties according to when applicants register. 

You can bid for vacant properties every fortnight. To do this, you’ll need to log onto www.peabody.housingjigsaw.co.uk where you’ll be able to see all vacant properties, as well as information about rent and location. Before placing an online bid for a property, you must see it. Viewings normally take place between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

When the cycle closes, the person who registered first will be offered the property as long as they meet the lettings criteria.

There’s no guaranteed timescale. How long it takes depends on things like the availability of properties and the number of people interested.

No, these properties were listed on previous cycles and are no longer available. If a property’s not let, it will be advertised on our Intermediate market rent scheme.

No. Some properties, such as those with gardens or in a popular location, get lots of bids.  Offers will be made based on the date of registration. So to be successful, you need to have the earliest registration date, meet the lettings criteria and be able to move within the required timeframe.

You’ll be able to see the result of the bidding in the next edition of Property Choice. We’ll include the registration date of the successful bid so you’ll be able see that the process has been fairly managed.

We expect anyone who bids for a property to accept the tenancy. If your bid is successful and you change your mind, your registration date will be amended to the date of the refusal. This will take away your advantage in future bidding rounds.

Your registration is valid for 12 months. You’ll be notified via email when it’s due to expire. When you get the email, you’ll need to confirm that you wish to remain on the waiting list by emailing Keyworkercbl@peabody.org.uk. You should also notify us if there are any changes to your personal details.

If your registration has expired for more than a month, your application will be cancelled and you’ll have to re-apply for inclusion onto the scheme.

It’s very important that you email us at Keyworkercbl@peabody.org.uk when any of your contact or personal details change. We can then amend our records to ensure that you can continue bidding for properties.

The majority of properties included in the keyworker scheme have between one and three bedrooms. Property prices vary across the different districts and rents are set in line with the London living rent.

An average summary of our prices pcm:
- Studio - £791
- 1 bed - £890
- 2 bed - £988
- 3 bed - £1,087 
To rent a one or two-bedroom property, tenants must have a household income of less than £71,000. For three-bedroom properties, the maximum earnings are £85,000

Properties within the scheme are for rental only.