Hydrologist

Role Purpose

The Hydrologist is responsible for providing specialist hydrological expertise to support water resource management, environmental compliance, and strategic planning activities across the organisation's operating regions. The role leads hydrological assessments and investigations that underpin key statutory programmes, including the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP), Water Resource Management Plans (WRMP), and Drought Plans. Acting as the organisation's expert client for hydrology, the postholder will analyse, interpret and communicate hydrological data and modelling outputs to assess environmental impacts, support water resource decision‑making, and ensure compliance with environmental regulations and licence requirements.

The role supports operations across Bournemouth Water, Bristol Water, South West Water (including the Isles of Scilly), and SES Water.

• Provide technical hydrological leadership and advice for key statutory programmes including WINEP, WRMP and Drought Plan development.
• Act as the subject matter expert for hydrology and hydrometry across water resources activities.
• Support environmental and water resource planning decisions through robust hydrological analysis and interpretation.
• Ensure compliance with environmental legislation, abstraction licences, permits and industry best practice.

• Undertake hydrological assessments associated with new and varied abstraction licence applications.
• Analyse the impacts of licence conditions, hands‑off flows and abstraction regimes on water availability and environmental outcomes.
• Support drought permit applications and strategic drought planning activities.
• Deliver naturalised and de‑naturalised flow assessments to support hydro‑ecological modelling and environmental investigations.
• Undertake flow assessments to support fisheries and ecological studies.
• Support operational abstraction compliance monitoring and reporting.

• Manage, maintain and improve naturalised flow models and associated analytical tools.
• Analyse and interpret hydrometric and environmental datasets to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
• Apply rainfall‑runoff methodologies and hydrological modelling tools to support water resource assessments.
• Develop evidence‑based recommendations to support operational and strategic decision‑making.

• Support the design and delivery of hydrometric monitoring programmes and solutions.
• Review and develop stage‑discharge rating curves where required.
• Assess flow measurement techniques, hydrological monitoring systems and data quality standards.
• Ensure monitoring activities provide robust evidence for regulatory and operational purposes.

• Build effective working relationships with regulators, including Environment Agency hydrology teams.
• Discuss modelling methodologies, hydrological assessments and monitoring approaches with external stakeholders.
• Specify, manage and review work undertaken by external hydrological consultants.
• Prepare scopes of work and evaluate consultant proposals and tenders.

• Strong understanding of catchment hydrology and water resources management.
• Experience undertaking hydrological assessments, analysis and technical reviews.
• Experience analysing and interpreting hydrometric datasets.
• Ability to produce high‑quality technical reports and present complex information clearly.
• Experience supporting low flow studies, drought assessments and water resource investigations.

• Hydrological assessment and catchment analysis.
• Hydrometric monitoring and flow measurement.
• Stage‑discharge rating curve development and review.
• Rainfall‑runoff modelling and hydrological forecasting.
• Technical report writing and stakeholder communication.
• Data analysis and interpretation.
• Project management and prioritisation.
• Analytical problem solving.

• Use of hydrological modelling packages such as GR6J and Qube.
• Programming and analytical tool development using R or Python.
• Experience with…