Social housing plays a vital role in addressing South Africa’s housing needs. While project delivery is frequently hindered by persistent challenges including cost overruns, delays, and compromised quality. TQM has been found to as a QMS tool that can address these challenges. However, barriers exist to its adoption. This study aims to examine the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to improve social housing project delivery in South Africa by identifying prevalent project challenges, assessing relevant TQM concepts, and analyzing the effectiveness of various TQM concepts in social housing projects. The study adopted a quantitative research approach. The research targets construction professionals directly involved in social housing projects. The study focused on Johannesburg, the largest contributor to South Africa’s social housing stock. Due to difficulties in identifying participants, a snowball sampling approach was employed, resulting in 35 respondents and a response rate of 49%. Data was collected through semi-structured online surveys. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results showed poor contractor management (8.82%), inadequate planning (8.09%). and poor workmanship (7.35%) as the most frequent challenges in social housing projects. The application of TQM concepts in social housing projects reveals an emphasis on customer satisfaction and communication, each accounting for 14.59%. The findings suggest that the process approach was highly valued for improving project schedules (22.41%), factual approach to decision making was highly rated (26.0%) for its role in budget management, and for project quality, continuous improvement was identified as the most important concept (18.64%). While current TQM practices address some challenges in social housing projects, a more comprehensive adoption of underutilised concepts could drive significant improvements in social housing projects.