Water & Waste Infrastructure Oversight Lead

Job title: Large Water & Waste Infrastructure Oversight Lead

Position type: Fixed-Term

Job reference: 488388

Location: Birmingham (B5 4UA
) or London (E14 4HD
) based with hybrid working

Salary: £59,660 - £70,000

Closing date: Sunday 15th November 2026

Join Ofwat’s Water Supply Team as a Principal Large Water & Waste Infrastructure Oversight Lead

* Office

Location:

Birmingham (B5 4UA
) or London (E14 4HD
) with hybrid working*

We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non- ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales.

The water sector is entering a new chapter. The government has set out a bold new direction, bringing together expertise from across the sector to deliver better outcomes for customers and the environment. We are collaborating with fellow regulators to respond to recommendations in The Independent Water Commission Report, the Welsh Government’s response to the Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Water Governance in Wales, and the Government’s White Paper, A new vision for water.

Ofwat is working with the government and other regulators to help create a new body for England, bringing together our strengths with those of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England. We are also continuing to work with the Welsh Government to support decisions on the future arrangements for Wales.

While these changes take shape, our mission remains the same: to hold water companies to account, drive performance, and ensure the sector delivers real value for customers, communities, and the environment. If you’re passionate about making a difference, this is a unique moment to join us and help shape the future of water, and together we can continue to make a positive impact.

We're looking for a Large Water & Waste Infrastructure Oversight Lead to join our Water Supply team within the RAPID and Environmental Planning directorate at Principal level. The sector is facing unprecedented challenges, and we want someone who relishes the opportunity to apply their skills and experience to improve our water environment. Whilst there are specific policy areas you will lead on, you will also play an important role in driving the collaborative work programme across Governments and with other regulators to improve future water resources management.

The Large Water & Waste Infrastructure Oversight Lead role has an important and valuable contribution to enable us to deliver on our goals and regulatory commitments. Primarily, you will lead the large scheme gated process and our oversight of development of large water and wastewater schemes within it. These complex schemes received funding at the 2024 price review and are required to address the growing challenges the industry faces.

The gated process you will lead ensures their timely development continues to demonstrate technical feasibility and cost efficiency for customers and the environment. To achieve this, you will lead our strategy for engaging and building relationships with water companies and their programme delivery and technical teams, wider governments, regulators and a varied range of stakeholders. You will also lead on policy decisions within the process and develop policy to shape its ongoing evolution.

Your role may also cover areas such as the Asset Improvement Process - coordinating the process and bringing together engineering, asset management, economics, assurance and regulatory stakeholders to identify, develop and justify investment programmes for Ofwat funding. You will also work to align technical and programme insights across dependant regulatory processes and teams. This includes technical planning processes, such as water resources…