Who are we?
Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and wastewater company. We make a daily difference to our 15 million customers by supplying 2.6 billion litres of water through 32,000 km’s of pipes, to keep taps flowing and toilets flushing. We are an essential service and have operated throughout the Covid19 pandemic.
At Thames Water, every one of our actions, big and small, matters every day. Water is essential to daily life, and that means our business is always open.
What you will be doing
We are seeking Environmental Permitting Specialists to join a small team of subject matter experts on a secondment/fixed term/permanent contract basis.
Emissions to land, air & water are regulated by the Environment Agency through the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR). The team’s role is to ensure that Thames Water has all the necessary Environmental Permits required to carry out its statutory functions in regard to water discharge activities and to offer specialist technical permitting advice to the business and work closely with the Environment Agency on all permitting matters.
This role is suited to an experienced technical expert in the field of wastewater environmental permitting or someone with environmental permitting or wastewater process knowledge who has the enthusiasm and ability to learn and develop their skills quickly into being a subject matter expert.
Some of the key requirements are to:
- Be the technical lead for the team on all AMP7 scoping requirements associated with our environmental permits
- Advise our engineering partners on regulatory outputs to facilitate the roll-out of the agreed business plan
- Negotiate with the Environment Agency for new permits and changes to existing permits, submitting applications where necessary
- Ensure that Environment Agency led permit reviews and associated regulatory requests for permitting information are completed to agreed timescales
- Assess and make judgments within statutory timescales on the 'reasonableness' of environmental permits
- Provide technical advice and support to the business about discharges made under the Water Industry Act 1991
- Contribute to improving compliance with all conditions of environmental permits by supporting other teams within the Environmental Regulation & Quality and the wider business
We’re looking for you to:
- Have excellent communication and developed relationship skills, to clearly engage with internal and external stakeholders such as the Environment Agency
- Be a confident self-motivated individual who demonstrates excellent organisation and prioritisation skills to balance a varied workload and achieve the set deadlines
- Use your influencing and negotiation skills to obtain water discharge activity environmental permits and conditions of permits with the Environment Agency
- Have a good understanding of regulatory and environmental legislation including Water Discharge Activity Environmental Permitting and demonstrable experience of the provision to make discharges under the Water Industry Act 1991
- Be a subject matter expert in Water Discharge Activity Environmental Permitting or be well on the way to developing into a subject matter, with a willingness and enthusiasm to learn
- Be educated to degree level in a scientific or environmental discipline or have outstanding role-specific knowledge
- Be proficient in MS Office and SharePoint and have strong IT skills
- Be a great team player through a passionate and positive approach and working collaboratively with colleagues across the business
What’s in it for you?
Environmental Permitting is core to the business; permits are a necessity for the activities and functions of a Water & Sewerage Utility. You will be interacting with key stakeholders and gaining exposure to various parts of the business at all levels, including Water Production, Wastewater Treatment, Network & Pumping, and other key business units.
You will have the chance to utilise your interest in environmental issues whilst providing practical guidance to operations and the rest of the business. The variety of activities and people you will be dealing with provides a very interesting and challenging working atmosphere.
Our competitive salary package includes an excellent contributory pension, 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service, and a wider benefits scheme.
We’re proud of the positive ways of working we have adopted during the pandemic. We want to create a more flexible and dynamic environment so all our colleagues can thrive. For our office-based roles, we are moving to a hybrid approach where we will provide options around working from our offices, our operational sites, and home dependent on role/team/individual. This will be discussed during the assessment process.
Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work. If you join our team, you’ll enjoy fast-tracked career opportunities, flexible working arrangements, and unparalleled benefits. We’re also proud to be an equal opportunity employer, Stonewall Diversity Champion, and Disability Confident Leader and we are a Times Top 50 Employer for Women.
You can find out more in our working for us section of our website.