Why Water? Inside the team engineering the future of the UK’s water infrastructure

The UK water industry is in the middle of something big. Not just the headlines - the actual work. New reservoirs are being designed for the first time in 30 years. Treatment works built in the Victorian era are being reimagined with digital twins. Flood management is being rethought from the catchment up. And the engineers, scientists and modellers doing that work need somewhere that gives them the tools, the variety and the people to do it well. 

That’s what the Water team at AtkinsRéalis does. Here’s what it actually looks like from the inside. 

The variety is real 

Ask anyone in the Water practice what keeps them here and the same word comes up: variety. Not as a vague promise, but as a daily reality. 

“Within three months, I’ve had opportunities to do a much wider variety of things than I had in five years at another big consultancy.” 

- Recent hire, Water market 

The range of work spans flood risk modelling, wastewater design, water resources planning, environmental science, river restoration and water quality research. In any given week, a team member might move between hydraulic modelling, site visits, coding, reporting and client workshops. That’s not unusual here - it’s the norm. 

And the projects reflect that breadth. The team is currently working on four to six of the ten new reservoirs in design nationally- the first to be built in the UK in over 30 years. They’re providing water services to Heathrow’s expansion, to Sizewell C and to Hinkley Point. They’re delivering catchment-level studies that connect water quality with land use across entire river systems. 

Tools that don’t exist anywhere else 

Two of the team’s proprietary tools stand out: NFM Studio, a decision-support tool for natural flood management, and River Studio, which models river restoration scenarios. Both are built in-house, based on open-source foundations, and neither has an equivalent at any other consultancy. 

“No other consultancy has these tools. They give us a unique and innovative approach to our work.” 

- Olivia, Junior Catchment Scientist 

Beyond the tools, the team leads on research that shapes national policy. Work with Defra on water quality assessment tools, UKWIR-funded research projects, and contributions to regulatory frameworks like AMP cycles mean the team isn’t just delivering solutions- it’s shaping the standards those solutions are measured against. The Water practice consistently tops the business for R&D tax reclaim, which says something about the volume of genuinely novel work happening here. 

A tapestry of expertise 

One of the things that comes through most strongly from people in the team is how working in water at AtkinsRéalis feels different from smaller consultancies or client-side roles. The scale of the organisation means that on a single project, you might be working alongside environmental chemists, sewer network engineers, mathematical modellers, ecologists and project managers- all under one roof. 

“It’s a tapestry of expertise. You have the benefits of a much bigger pool of people, but you don’t feel lost. You feel like you’re part of a smaller team, but with access to a much bigger pool of expertise across the world.” 

- Vera Jones, Technical Director for Water Quality 

That extends globally. The Water market works closely with AtkinsRéalis’s Global Technology Centre in India, where colleagues are embedded as part of project teams rather than working at arm’s length. On something like the Anglian Water Strategic Pipeline Alliance, that means engineers across multiple countries and disciplines delivering together as one team. 

Careers that grow as you grow 

Water’s project cycles are naturally shorter than other infrastructure sectors. The five-year AMP funding cycles mean you can see a project through from concept to construction and then move on to something different. Compare that to nuclear or rail, where a single project can span a decade or more. The result is that senior people in the Water team have worked across a wide range of projects and clients by the time they’re mentoring the next generation- and that breadth compounds. 

Career paths here aren’t always linear, and that’s part of the point. People have moved between offices, between disciplines and between countries. One team member joined as a graduate in the UK water team and is now a Practice Director in Canada, having taken several different roles along the way. 

The work matters 

Every water employer can claim purpose. The difference here is in the specifics. The team doesn’t just deliver infrastructure- it shapes the research and regulation that sits behind it. When you’re building the tools that Defra uses to assess water quality, or running the modelling that informs how a catchment is managed for the next 25 years, the impact is tangible and it’s yours. 

The water industry has had a difficult time in the public eye recently. But behind the headlines, there are engineers and scientists working on the solutions- and a lot of them are in this team. 

Explore water careers at AtkinsRéalis 

If you work in water engineering, environmental science, flood risk, wastewater or water resources- or if you’re thinking about moving into the sector - take a look at our current water roles or join our talent community to hear about opportunities as they come up. 

View jobs in water in the United Kingdom  

View jobs in water in Ireland