Pennon Group
Operational Resilience Manager
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Powered by Water, Driven by Purpose
South West Water keeps the South West flowing with safe, reliable drinking water and wastewater services across some of the UK’s most stunning landscapes.
We’re proud to be part of Pennon Group, a leader in the UK water sector, working towards a greener future. Our goals? As well as lowering our carbon footprint, we’re working with partners to plant 300,000 trees, restore peatlands and supporting farmers and landowners to improve water quality and wildlife.
Whether you’re starting out or seeking a new challenge, our scale and ambition create opportunities for you to shape your own career.
Ready to make a splash? Join our team today.
South West Water | Cornwall | £55,000 - £65,000
Are you passionate about protecting the environment, driving operational excellence, and ensuring the resilience of critical services? We’re looking for an experienced Operational Resilience Manager to join our Wastewater Operations team and play a vital role in safeguarding the performance, compliance, and future readiness of our networks and assets.
About the role:
As the Operational Resilience Manager, you will lead the response to serious pollution incidents and compliance failures, working closely with operational teams to drive improvements, prevent reoccurrence, and strengthen resilience across our wastewater function.
You’ll support frontline leaders during critical and emergency situations, contribute to key capital projects, and ensure that quality, safety, and regulatory standards remain at the heart of everything we do.
This is a pivotal position that blends technical expertise, leadership, problem-solving and a strong commitment to environmental stewardship.
What you'll be doing:
- Lead investigations into serious pollution events and compliance failures, ensuring robust analysis, documentation, and learning.
- Support operational teams with lower-level incidents, identifying trends and creating clear, actionable improvement plans.
- Own and manage action logs, tracking progress, reporting status, and ensuring accountability across teams.
- Provide leadership support as deputy to the Director of Operations and Area Operations Managers when required.
- Participate in Gold-level standby, contributing to emergency response during critical incidents.
- Act as operational lead for capital schemes, ensuring projects meet operational needs, technical standards and regulatory expectations.
- Conduct quality assurance checks on project sign-offs and monitor compliance with operational and environmental regulations.
- Maintain and enhance quality management systems to support consistent, high‑quality operations.
- Lead on second‑line assurance for Environment Agency inspections and compliance metrics.
- Champion our Homesafe culture, ensuring colleagues go home safe every day and fostering a zero‑injury mindset.
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What we're looking for:
Experience
- Strong background in environmental compliance or pollution incident investigation.
- Proven experience supporting operational or emergency response teams.
- Knowledge of capital project processes and technical or operational standards.
- Experience with quality management systems and regulatory compliance.
- Confident stakeholder management and reporting capabilities.
- Experience contributing to crisis or major incident management.
Qualifications
Required:
- Degree in Environmental Science, Engineering or a related discipline.
- Minimum 5 years’ experience in environmental investigations, compliance or the water industry.
- Strong analytical and communication skills.
- Demonstrated leadership capabilities.
- Solid understanding of environmental regulations.
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Desirable:
- Project management experience, including progress tracking and action management.
- Professional certification such as Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) or equivalent.
Why join us?
We know our people drive our success — so we’re committed to offering an excellent range of benefits, including:
- Generous holiday allowance + bank holidays
- Company car or cash for car allowance
- Private Healthcare Package
- Discretionary bonus
- Competitive contributory pension
- Share-save scheme
- Health benefits & wellbeing support programmes
- Group discounts
- Cycle to Work scheme
- Financial support services
- Development and training opportunities
… and much more!
Closing Date: 12th October 2026
We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
Please note that the successful candidate will be subject to a mandatory DBS check as part of the onboarding process.
Be yourself, we like it that way. Together, we will build a culture of belonging, where inclusion is instinctive. Diversity is our strength and a reflection of our communities. We care, we value everyone, we celebrate uniqueness.
Our core values, which are essential to our success, are:
- Be Rock Solid - Build trust and be trusted. Be the one we all look to and can depend on.
- Be You - We want you to bring your best everyday. Be yourself and make your mark in your individual way.
- Be the Future - Embrace change. Drive Progress. Own the challenge.
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