Matching capability and capacity to the water industry’s generational investment challenge

Accelerated investment and continued expansion 

Over four decades of combined water sector experience at Mott MacDonald means that Graham Mortimore and Oli Hawes fully understand the challenges the industry faces as it ramps up investment. They lead two teams – the long-established water consultancy and recently formed water utilities – who are dedicated to collaboration and innovation that provides the industry with essential support as it works to deliver record levels of investment.

The close working relationship between the teams becomes clear when asking Graham and Oli about the size of each and how they naturally talk about the combined headcount instead. Currently, that sits at around 750 people – and they are continuing to grow this to over 1000 in the next 18 months.

The need for the rapid growth, as well as the provision of two teams focusing on the sector, comes from Mott MacDonald already having secured 10 frameworks with English water companies for Asset Management Period 8 (AMP8) with bidding for others still underway. The firm has also gained long term work with Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water) plus the demand for both teams’ expertise extends to other infrastructure clients too.

According to Graham, the establishing two teams allow the business to focus on clients’ needs better than ever before. Nonetheless, Oli adds: “We think of the team as one cohort that we can strategically deploy depending on our client’s specific needs.”

Both Oli and Graham point out that their teams also draw on the skills and expertise from the wider Mott MacDonald group, including its water services contracting arm Mott MacDonald Bentley. “This allows us to cover the entire investment lifecycle, such as asset planning, environmental consenting and programme management, as well as design and build,” adds Graham.

Capability focus

Oli says: “The water consultancy team focuses on major projects, such as the strategic resource options (SROs) including large reservoirs and transfer pipelines, as well as supporting the wider Mott MacDonald business with water capabilities globally. When we talk about major projects, we mean schemes with a capital value of over £200M, but they might run into the billions. There will be around 30 of these projects in the UK alone over the next 10 to 15 years.”

“We know we need to be ready to deliver these industry critical programmes of work, as well as meeting demand from the Environment Agency and other major clients such as HS2 and Heathrow.”

The two biggest projects Oli’s team is currently working on are supporting Anglian Water to develop its proposed new Fens and Lincolnshire Reservoirs and Thames Water’s London Water Recycling SRO. “This scale of investment in water storage, transfer and resilience hasn’t happened in the UK for more than 30 years, so it is an incredibly exciting time to be leading the teams working on these schemes,” he says.

The focus of the water utilities team is also critical to ensuring water quality and security of supply.

Graham says: “We work from regional hubs to serve the water companies we have framework contracts with as our focus is their core programmes of work and the professional services needed to deliver them. That includes asset management, infrastructure planning, engineering services, water and wastewater treatment works, network modelling and pipelines.”

The work of the water utilities division isn’t just about hard engineering solutions though – Graham adds that his team’s default is to explore alternative solutions, such as nature-based solutions and optimisation.

“We offer services that cover the full project lifecycle,” he adds. “Our work is all about efficiency and delivery of quality. My team is tasked with challenging the norm to find quicker, safer, more reliable ways of creating and improving water infrastructure and making sure we’re not just doing what we’ve always done.”

Skills opportunities

Although Graham says he’s “super proud of Mott MacDonald’s ability to grow our own” and “bring on the next generation”, the scale of demand means external recruitment will be essential. However, he believes the developmental culture within Mott MacDonald will be an attraction to those joining the business from other organisations and adds that these are “careers, not just jobs”.

He says that both he and Oli are products of graduate development within the business, having each joined Mott MacDonald in permanent positions in graduate roles and then moving through the ranks.

Graham adds: “We’re very proud of our apprentices and our ability to train them up and give them the skills they need to tackle our clients’ challenges.”

While there is clearly a need for water specialists, Oli believes that the major projects work his team undertakes means many engineers with experience of different infrastructure projects will have transferrable and vital skills for water projects.

Not only is there work for these new recruits, both Graham and Oli believe now is an exciting time to join the water industry with AMP8, widely seen as the industry’s biggest infrastructure investment programme, just getting underway.

Oli adds that it is going to be a period of technological change for the sector too with new digital solutions being vital to meet the pace and deliver efficiently.

“The scale of investment and change to the way we deliver will span through AMP9 and beyond too,” says Graham. “We can already see that AMP9 is going to be bigger than AMP8 in terms of investment need. Clients will need skills, resources and new capabilities support to achieve this generational level of change. Anyone working in the water industry during this period will be able to leave a lasting positive legacy.”