Recoveries Value Manager

Location: Upper Stratton

At Thames Water, we provide an essential service to 16 million customers every day, delivering water and wastewater services that help communities and the environment thrive. As the UK’s largest water company, we’re transforming how we operate to build a more resilient future.

We are seeking a Recoveries Value Manager to lead value delivery across our debt recovery operations. In this high-impact role, you’ll leverage data, insight, and strategic thinking to optimise recovery outcomes, support vulnerable customers, and ensure full compliance with regulatory requirements.

What you will doing as a Debt Recoveries Value Manager
As a Recoveries Value Manager in the Thames Water Recoveries team you will play a vital role in supporting our debt collection function and performance. You will be responsible for helping to drive performance through data insights that will allow us to make the right decisions around business priorities and strategies with our 3rd Party debt collection agencies and partners.  

You will contribute to the regular monitoring of 3rd party KPI’s ensuring a clear understanding of key performance drivers and proactively investigating any deviations from expected trends.

The role contributes to the overall performance of the Recoveries team – including all Active and Final debt placed with our DCA and Litigation partners to ensure we maximise collections through a data lead strategy. This is a business-critical role.
Base location:
Hybrid - Walnut Court, Swindon. We will be relocating to new office premises at Newbridge Square, Swindon during 2026.

Hours:

36, Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm

What you should bring to the role:

A strong track record of driving measurable performance improvements, using KPIs and insight to deliver value across debt recovery and collections activity
The ability to translate data into clear actions, identifying performance drivers, trends, and opportunities that improve customer and commercial outcomes
Experience in setting, monitoring, and challenging KPIs to optimise third-party partner performance and ensure delivery against agreed objectives
A clear understanding of governance, controls and regulatory expectations, with the confidence to embed compliance into day-to-day performance management
The capability to hold partners and stakeholders to account, using evidence-based insight to influence decisions and outcomes
A results-focused mindset, with experience tracking benefits and demonstrating value from operational and strategic changes
Strong communication skills, able to present performance insight clearly to senior stakeholders and drive informed decision-making

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you’ll need are:

Performance, Governance & Control:
Own the performance, governance, and control of recoveries systems and processes
Strategy Alignment:
Ensure recoveries processes align with strategy and drive continuous improvement in customer outcomes
Regulatory Compliance:
Maintain full regulatory adherence across recoveries activities
Data & Insight:
Provide data-led insights to support Debt Collection Agency performance, driving operational improvements, policy recommendations, and benefit tracking
Change & Transformation:
Contribute to the recoveries change roadmap, supporting an effective end-to-end customer journey for both customers and the business
Process Documentation:
Ensure all recoveries processes, controls, and governance are clearly documented and kept up to date
Customer Outcomes:
Review and assess customer outcomes across recoveries processes to ensure fairness and effectiveness
Operating Model:
Review and optimise the recoveries operating model to support strategic objectives
Reporting & MI:
Identify, develop, and address recoveries data and reporting requirements
Stakeholder Management:
Partner with senior internal stakeholders to deliver expertise, insight, and results against business commitments
External Engagement:
Manage relationships with external partners and stakeholders
Cross-Functional Working:
Collaborate closely with Finance, Customer Services, Digital, Suppliers, and other key teams

Risk Management:

Identify, document, and mitigate…