Change Lead

idibu; England; Hybrid; GBP 61,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading water company in the UK is seeking a Change Lead to drive transformation initiatives. The role involves developing change strategies, managing a team, and ensuring adoption of new systems. Candidates should have significant experience in planning change, excellent communication skills, and a strategic mindset. Offering a competitive salary and excellent benefits, this position is hybrid based in Reading with some travel required.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Annual Leave – 26 days holiday

Car Allowance

Annual Bonus

Generous Pension Scheme

Private Medical Health Care

Access to health and wellbeing benefits

Qualifications

• Significant experience in planning, development and implementation of change strategies.
• Ability to influence a wide range of stakeholders from senior management to end users.
• Management of suppliers across the entire delivery life cycle.

Responsibilities

• Shape and deliver change strategies for systems adoption.
• Develop change training and communication strategies.
• Manage a team of Change Analysts.

Skills

Planning and development of change strategies

Excellent communication

Line management experience

Budget management

Customer-centric delivery

Strategic thinking

Project improvement-related qualification

Education

Project/business improvement-related qualification

Job description

Are you passionate about driving real change and helping teams embrace new ways of working? Join Thames Water’s Strategic Operations and Transformation team as a Change Lead, where you’ll play a pivotal role in delivering critical transformation across our core operational divisions. As we embark on significant digitally enabled change, we’re looking for someone who can inspire buy‑in, adoption, and enthusiasm for new systems—making change stick for the long term.

What you’ll be doing as a Change Lead

As a Change Lead, you’ll be responsible for shaping and delivering change strategies that help our colleagues embrace, adopt, and use new systems and processes. You’ll:

• Develop change and readiness, training and communications strategies for projects and programmes under your remit (LEAN focused).
• Designing, developing, implementing, and managing key change deliverables to enable delivery of change and readiness, training, and communications strategies.
• Identify and collaborate with Business Change Analysts and Champions within each business area, building a strong internal network for change.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with external and internal teams to ensure alignment on goals.
• Work closely with the change areas to make sure we map out the change impact and dependencies.
• Manage a team of Change Analysts, providing coaching and development to ensure effective delivery.
• Manage change to scope, time and budget within agreed tolerances or elevate changes accordingly.

Base location

Hybrid/ Reading, with occasional travel across the Thames Water sites.

Working pattern

Monday to Friday, 36 hours per week.

What you should bring to the role

• Significant experience in planning, development and implementation of change strategies.
• Excellent communication with ability to influence a wide range of stakeholders from senior management to end users.
• Line management experience and management of teams.
• Experience in budget management and forecasting.
• Management of suppliers across the entire delivery life cycle.
• Customer‑centric delivery experience.
• Ability to work effectively with external and internal teams/projects, building strong relationships, and fostering teamwork are essential for successful change initiatives.
• Be a strategic thinker with the ability to see the big picture, anticipate challenges, and develop long‑term plans.
• Project/business improvement‑related qualification such as Prince2, Lean Competency System 1c or equivalent.
• Experience delivering change using a structured change delivery approach, e.g. Prosci’s ADKAR model.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary from £61,010 per annum, depending on experience.
• Annual Leave – 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with length of service (plus bank holidays).
• Car Allowance.
• Annual Bonus.
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Private Medical Health Care.
• Access to a wide range of benefits for your health, wellbeing, and finances—including annual health MOTs, physiotherapy, counselling, Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers, and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks.

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Learn more about our purpose and values.

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else – just let us know, we’re here to help and support.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.