Principal Drinking Water Scientist

Anglian Water Services; Huntingdon; Hybrid; GBP 72,000 - 82,000; Full time

Job summary

Anglian Water Services is seeking a Principal Drinking Water Scientist to lead a technical team ensuring the safety and quality of drinking water. This pivotal leadership role involves strategic partner engagement, team development, and innovation to provide high-quality water services across the region. The successful candidate will have a degree in a scientific discipline and experience in operational environments, alongside excellent leadership and stakeholder engagement skills.

Benefits

26 days holiday plus bank holidays

Personal private health care

Life cover – 8x annual salary

Competitive pension scheme

Annual bonus scheme

Lifestyle benefits

Qualifications

• Degree in a scientific or environmental discipline.
• Background in operational and environmental science.
• Understanding of health, safety, and well-being systems.

Responsibilities

• Enable the team to effectively lead investigations into water quality incidents, providing root cause analysis.
• Drive safety at the heart of operations.
• Develop a team that provides scientific input across Capital Delivery and Innovation teams.
• Build trusted relationships with stakeholders including DWI and public health agencies.
• Own and audit technical procedures to ensure regulatory compliance.
• Champion training and development across scientific and operational teams.

Skills

Inspirational leadership

Team development experience

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder engagement

Excellent communication

Proficiency in Microsoft 365 tools

Customer-focused mindset

Adaptability

Education

Degree in a scientific or environmental discipline

Tools

Microsoft 365 (Excel, PowerBI, Teams)

Job description

Salary: £72,000 - £82,000 per annum dependent on skills and experience

Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract: Permanent

Location: Across the Anglian Water Region, covering areas such as Ipswich, Norwich, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Grantham, Lincoln.

Are you ready to lead scientific excellence in drinking water quality and make a real impact on public health and environmental compliance for our customers?

We are looking for a Principal Drinking Water Scientist to lead a technical team that ensures the safety and quality of our drinking water, drives innovation, and enables our operational colleagues to deliver safe, wholesome water to our customers. This is a pivotal leadership role within our Quality, Environment and Assurance business unit, reporting directly to the Head of Science.

Following our business reshape, the Scientific Departments at Anglian Water have combined to create a centre of Scientific Excellence. This exciting time brings our laboratory function, strategic science, and operational scientists together. You will guide the team through this change, focusing resources on value-adding and risk mitigation. Collaboration with the Science Leadership team and wider leadership teams, as well as external engagement, will be essential to ensure learning and actions benefit both our customers and the business.

You will lead the team in maintaining scientific rigor, assurance, and innovation to provide wholesome water to our customers 24/7 efficiently. The development, engagement, safety, and well-being of your team are crucial to making Science a fantastic place to work and progress. This role will require significant travel leading a field team based across the Anglian Water region.

In this role, you will:

• Enable the team to effectively lead investigations into water quality incidents, providing root cause analysis and implementing learning to ensure future mitigation
• Drive the safety of the team forwards, putting safety at the heart of what we do
• Drive proactive intervention strategies across the team, enabling team members to focus on value-add activities driven by data
• Develop a team that provides scientific input across Capital Delivery, Procurement, and Innovation teams
• Collaborate and positively challenge to deliver desired business outcomes and meet customer demands now and in the future
• Build trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including the DWI and public health agencies
• Own and audit technical procedures to ensure regulatory alignment
• Champion training, development, and competency across scientific and operational teams

We’re looking for someone with:

• Inspirational leadership and team development experience
• Strategic thinking and stakeholder engagement
• Excellent communication and reporting
• Proficiency in Microsoft 365 tools (Excel, PowerBI, Teams)
• Customer-focused mindset and adaptability
• Degree in a scientific or environmental discipline
• A background in operational and environmental science
• Understanding of health, safety, and wellbeing systems

As a valued employee, you’ll be entitled to:

• 26 days holiday plus bank holidays (with flexibility for religious holidays)
• Personal private health care
• Life cover – 8x annual salary
• Competitive pension scheme – we double-match your contributions up to 6%
• Annual bonus scheme and lifestyle benefits

Inclusion at Anglian Water

At Anglian Water, we are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive environment where everyone feels they belong. We proudly hold the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award, are a Disability Confident employer, and champion initiatives to support diversity, equity and inclusion.

Why join us?

You’ll be joining a team where leadership, collaboration, and service excellence are at the heart of everything we do. We’re passionate about developing our people and helping them thrive. If you're looking for a role where your leadership can make a real impact—on our teams and every new joiner—this could be your next move.

Closing date: 3 August 2025