It's a great time to build your career in Water

As Water Sector Lead at AtkinsRéalis, Mei leads projects focused on water resilience, environmental improvement and major water infrastructure programmes. Her work supports sustainable water management and long-term climate resilience.

I’m Mei, Water Sector Lead and Technical Director within the Design & Advanced Technology Practice. With AtkinsRéalis, I see an opportunity to make a bigger impact across the whole water system: for clients, customers, communities, nature and future generations.

Water has never been just infrastructure to me.

It is one of the few sectors where engineering, public health, environmental protection, climate resilience, economic growth and social value come together. That breadth has kept me passionate about water and wastewater engineering throughout my career. 

AtkinsRéalis is a place where I can work across that breadth — from environmental improvement to major infrastructure, and from strategy through to delivery. Alongside technical and project leadership, I have supported market engagement, helped win work, contributed to STEM outreach and helped build a collaborative team culture.

Why water resilience matters now

The UK water sector is at a defining point. Across AMP8, clients are being asked to deliver stronger environmental outcomes, more resilient supplies, better long‑term planning and clearer public benefit.

For me, this is why water resilience must be seen as a whole‑system challenge.

The sector’s biggest challenges do not sit neatly in silos. If we want better outcomes for rivers, coasts, communities and customers, we need to think at system scale.

Resilience is not only about building bigger assets. It is about understanding how catchments, rivers, coasts, treatment works, water resources, drainage networks and customer needs interact — then choosing the right combination of interventions. Sometimes that means major infrastructure. Sometimes it means catchment‑based planning, nature‑based solutions, better data, digital tools or stronger collaboration. Most often, it means all of these working together.

Bathing water quality is a powerful example. It is where environmental performance becomes highly visible to the public, connecting infrastructure, regulation, catchment pressures and community confidence. Inland and coastal sites can be especially complex because rivers and catchments are influenced by storm overflows, agricultural runoff, urban drainage, misconnections, wildlife and groundwater.

That is why the future cannot be solved by asset upgrades alone. We need hybrid solutions that combine treatment optimisation and asset investment with a catchment‑based approach: reducing pollution at source, integrating environmental data, improving drainage performance and using nature‑based solutions where they deliver long‑term value.

The same is true for water resources. Climate change, population growth and environmental pressures are increasing demand on already stretched systems. Strategic investment in reservoirs, transfers, recycling and desalination is critical — but these programmes are about far more than increasing supply. They are about building a system that is more adaptive, robust and aligned with the environment.

How AtkinsRéalis is helping shape the future

AtkinsRéalis gives me the opportunity to work across the full breadth of the water sector — from local environmental improvement to nationally significant infrastructure, from digital innovation to multidisciplinary design delivery, and from strategy through to implementation.

We are working with clients including Thames Water, Anglian Water, United Utilities and others to define integrated solutions that respond to regulatory, environmental and customer priorities. We are also embedded in strategic reservoir programmes (Havant Thickett, Fens and Lincs and Broad Oak) that will help shape long‑term water resilience.

What does Design & Advanced Technology do? 

Within Design & Advanced Technology, our role is to help clients make better decisions earlier. That means improving design coordination, embedding safety through design, using digital tools to identify risk early, bringing carbon thinking into engineering choices at the right stage, and challenging conventional answers where catchment or nature‑based approaches could deliver better outcomes.

For me, digital is not an end in itself. It supports better engineering judgement, improves delivery confidence and helps create solutions that are technically robust, sustainable and easier to explain.

Just as importantly, the culture matters. We work across disciplines, sectors and practices to solve problems together. That matters in AMP8, where success depends on civil, mechanical, process, EICA, environmental, modelling and digital expertise.

Our values and one‑team ethos are real.

Why I joined AtkinsRealis, and why you should too

There has rarely been a more important time to work in water. AMP8 is accelerating delivery. Bathing water improvement is sharpening public and regulatory focus. Catchment and nature‑based thinking are becoming essential to long‑term environmental outcomes. Major infrastructure programmes are helping shape a more secure water future.

For engineers and specialists considering their next move, this means opportunities to work on projects with real purpose — projects that improve rivers and coasts, strengthen resilience, support communities and help create a better water future.

That is the kind of challenge I find exciting, and it’s strengthened because AtkinsRéalis is one of the few places where I can genuinely work across the business - there are no rigid boundaries around what you can contribute here. 

That breadth of opportunity matters. It keeps the work meaningful, and it is one of the reasons I believe AtkinsRéalis is such a great place to grow a career. 

AtkinsRéalis is one of the few places where I can genuinely work across the whole water system - from environmental improvement to major infrastructure, and from strategy to delivery.

Join us

We are particularly interested in talent across: 

• Civil engineering 
• Mechanical engineering 
• Electrical and ICA engineering 
• Process engineering 
• Hydraulic engineering 
• DSEAR 
• Design Management  

Whether your interest is in engineering/design of treatment or major infrastructure, environmental improvement, digital delivery, catchment thinking, we offer the chance to work on some of the most important water challenges of our time. 

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