Southern Water
Instrumentation, Control and Automation Technician
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Closing Date 2026-07-30
Instrumentation, Control and Automation Technician
Location: Sussex - Geographically based within location area (negotiable), with travel to multiple sites.
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: 38 hours/week (Mon-Wed 08:00-16:30, Thurs-Fri 08:00-15:30), standby cover including weekends and evenings
Salary: Base salary from £38,564.10 - £55,703.70 per annum (depending on skills and experience) Overtime and on-call payments available.
Benefits:
- A company van (for business use only) which you can take home, and a fuel card
- All PPE and tools
- Health Care cash plan cover (with options to upgrade for family coverage)
- Competitive pension
- 25 days holiday allowance
For a full list of benefits, please visit our careers page or see below.
About the Role
Working in our Fresh Water Team, you will be responsible for maintaining and improving ICA systems across multiple sites. You will ensure compliance, reliability, and efficiency of control systems while supporting continuous improvement.
What You Will Be Responsible For:
- Planned, reactive & proactive maintenance including fault finding, calibration, testing, investigation, and programming on a variety of equipment sets including:
- Telemetry
- Analysers
- Dosing equipment
- Control (e.g. networks, MCC/LVA components, PID controllers)
- Instrumentation (e.g. flowmeters, level transmitters, pressure transducers, temperature probes)
- Implementing process improvements
- Diagnosing control system faults on PLC control systems such as:
- Rockwell
- Mitsubishi
- Allen Bradley
- A range of package plant PLC’s.
- HMI & SCADA system backups and modifications.
- Setup and maintenance of site control networks
- Undertaking planned maintenance and/or calibrating instrumentation
- Responding to faults/alarms
- Completing documentation accurately and in a timely manner
What You’ll Bring to the Role:
Essential:
- NVQ Level 3 in Electrical or Electronic Engineering OR time-served apprenticeship (or equivalent).
- Strong problem-solving and fault-finding skills.
- Full UK driving licence.
- Experience with PLC programming and SCADA systems.
- Live within 45 mins of our sites
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Desirable:
- Experience in process-oriented industries (water, petrochemical, manufacturing).
- ONC or HNC in Instrumentation, Electronics, or Control
Progression Opportunities
Southern Water offers monitored career paths, training, and development opportunities.
About Southern Water
Southern Water is at the forefront of transforming Britain’s water industry, investing significantly to enhance resilience, sustainability, and service excellence. With £7.8bn planned investment for 2025-30, this is an unparalleled opportunity to join a business committed to delivering a generational shift in the way water services are managed.
At Southern Water, we believe diverse perspectives drive innovation. If you’re passionate about making a positive impact and think you can bring value to our team, we’d love to hear from you—even if you don’t tick every box. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other protected characteristic. If you need reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
Your unique skills and experiences could be exactly what we need. If this role isn’t quite what you’re looking for but are keen to be contacted about opportunities at Southern Water, you can register your details here: [Introduce Yourself (myworkdaysite.com- Introduce Yourself)](https://myworkdaysite.com- Introduce Yourself)
Our Commitment to Diversity
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other protected characteristic. If you need reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
Additional Information
In line with Southern Water’s security requirements, successful candidates will be required to provide evidence of their identity, eligibility to work in the UK, criminal record check (DBS) and verification of their employment and/or education history for the past three years. Appointment to this role is subject to the successful completion of all pre-employment checks, including security vetting. Please note that if a candidate does not meet the required security standards or fails to pass the vetting process, Southern Water reserves the right to withdraw the offer of employment. Some positions may also require higher levels of security vetting, which may involve providing additional documentation.
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Our Purpose
Our purpose is big. Our impact is huge. And we know that every single one of us has the power, through our actions, to positively change society and the environment for good. It’s why careers with us have real meaning. Because, if you’re driven and ambitious, we can offer you huge opportunities for personal growth, professional development, and constant innovation.
Forever evolving. Forever focused on doing the right thing, we empower and encourage everyone to play to their strengths and to help us shape a fair and positive future for all. We believe in Water for Life. If you do too, Dive Right In.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support – because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That’s why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve.
Joining the Southern Water family means you’ll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.
Does this opportunity excite you but you’re not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that ‘normal’ office hours aren’t possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’ll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?
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