Thames Water
Principal Process Specialist
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Do you want to play a leading role in shaping Thames Water’s environmental compliance under the new Industrial Emissions Directive (IED)?
We’re looking for a Principal Process Specialist to lead the way in sludge treatment, anaerobic digestion, and odour management — supporting our Operations teams to meet evolving regulatory requirements and deliver real environmental improvements.
This is a dynamic, hands-on role where you’ll combine technical expertise with innovation, using data analysis, fault finding, pollution mitigation, and process optimisation to drive compliance and operational excellence across a range of sites.
Working Hours
- Hybrid - 36 Hours per week (Mon – Fri)
This role covers the following locations (travel required as part of the role, Full UK driving licence is essential):
- Beckton (STW) - IG11 0AD
- Beddington (STW) - CR0 4TH
- Crossness (STW) - SE2 9AQ
- Deephams (STW) - N9 0BA
- Mogden (STW) - TW7 7LW
What’s in it for you?
- Offering a salary up to £60,000 per annum, depending on skills and experience, plus a car allowance on top.
- Annual Leave - 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service. (plus bank holidays)
- Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.
- Generous Paternity Leave, including 4 weeks paid and an optional 2 weeks unpaid.
- Enhanced Maternity Leave, 26 weeks full pay and 13 weeks half pay.
- Ongoing performance development reviews to help you be your best and identify growth opportunities.
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What will you be doing as a Principal Process Specialist IED?
Technical Expertise
- Being a subject matter expert for IED permits and sludge treatment processes, fault finding and optimising our processes.
- Utilise all tools and data available to investigate issues, recommend practical solutions and ensure permit compliance.
- Responding to technical design queries using expert site and regulatory knowledge.
- Liaise with our regulators, stakeholders and customers.
- Organising and supervising 3rd party contractors for servicing, surveying and remedial works related to our IED requirements.
Communication & Leadership
- Lead regular business reporting and meetings, being highly confident, engaging and effective in presenting and communicating to all audiences.
- Build rapport with internal teams and external stakeholders, improving technical understanding through mentoring & coaching.
- Produce root cause analysis of any permit breaches, sharing lessons learned to prevent repeats.
- Be prepared to participate in an out-of-hours call-out rota.
- Drive continuous improvement efforts, engaging with various teams to drive innovative, effective scopes forward.
Training
- Undertake technical training and hold key appointed process safety roles.
- Proactive in learning about new wastewater technologies and disseminating this knowledge to wider teams.
- Be a subject lead on IED requirements and sludge treatment processes, spearheading the development of learning materials, asset standards and project scopes.
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What should you bring to the role?
Essential:
- Proven track record in leading on fault finding, process improvements and delivering change.
- Comfortable holding in-depth, technical conversations, being a great communicator who can relay complex information to non-technical audiences.
- You will be strong with data handling, processing, and reporting, as well as adapting to IT systems.
- You must have experience working with contractors, including reviewing risk assessments, supervising work on site and organising service/surveying works.
- Demonstrable proof of coaching and mentoring others.
- Curious, self-driven and motivated to find, communicate and solve technical problems.
- Superb time management skills, able to self-organise many differing responsibilities and be a true self-starter.
- Travel to multiple sites across your assigned region will be required, so a full UK driving licence is essential, with access to your transport and business-use insurance. (A car allowance is provided.)
Desirable:
- A minimum of a BSc in a science or engineering discipline is highly advantageous.
- Significant experience working with wastewater sludge processes, including anaerobic digestion, biogas management, odour management and relevant regulations.
Find out more about our benefits and perks (Please note different T&Cs apply if on secondment)
Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
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