Water Industry Regulation Transformation Programme
We are changing the way we regulate the water industry, embedding a new approach that targets our resource and interventions to uncover non-compliance and drive better performance from the water industry. This programme has been set up to enable the Environment Agency to secure clean and plentiful water through a focus on our regulation of water companies.
Your team’s central purpose is to continuously improve all aspects of water company regulation. Water companies are a vital part of the water cycle, taking water out to meet our personal and business needs and then cleaning and returning the water to our rivers, coasts and groundwater. Water companies don’t always perform to their best abilities, and this harms the environment we are protecting and enhancing. Our current work areas include topics such as incidents, storm overflow and flow compliance, enforcement, inspections and audits.
We will support this work by recruiting new people to join us.
Current opportunities
Senior Regulatory Environment Officer
As a Senior Regulatory Environment Officer, you’ll be an experienced regulator who will lead and deliver our regulatory, compliance and technical work at a specialist level and support Environment Officers through mentoring and coaching. You will have gained relevant experience typically in an operational or regulatory role.
Based in one of our area offices you will join one of our new customer-facing frontline teams working directly to protect and improve the water quality of our rivers, coasts and groundwater through effective and efficient regulation of water companies. The team will face an individual water company and work alongside a network of colleagues in national and local teams.
You will be responsible for regulating a water company to ensure they are carried out without polluting the environment or causing harm to people. You will be expected to plan and deliver the necessary compliance activities against such permits. Where the operator fails to comply with the relevant legislation, this may require enforcement action, which for the most serious offences on occasion can require giving evidence in court.
This role offers continuous learning opportunities and the chance to further deepen your expertise in environmental regulation.
This position requires the ability to work effectively across the organisation, in an agile way to deliver outcomes.
Testimonial
Janine, Senior Regulatory Environment Officer
I’ve worked for the Environment Agency for 18 years. I was an Environment Officer (EO) before I became a Senior Regulatory Environment Officer for water industry. Working as a Senior Regulatory Environment Officer is challenging, varied, technical, and rewarding. You are constantly developing and learning, whether it be new legislation or implementing new processes from our national teams such as event duration monitoring and flow compliance.
I need to be flexible; days are varied and planned events can often change to respond to an urgent query or significant incident. I work closely with water industry EOs to provide technical advice, develop them and give them the tools they need to become fully competent water industry regulators. This is something I find really rewarding. I also work with the water company account manager and feed into the annual Environment Performance Assessment.
I have built up a good working relationship with my water company contacts and attend regular liaison meetings with them. I deal with water company challenges relating to incidents and sample failures and attend national groups with other Senior Regulatory Environment Officers to peer review, ensure consistency and share best practice.
I’m lucky enough to still get my boots on the ground both mentoring and training EOs at permitted site inspections, carrying out operator self monitoring audits and attending incidents. This is something I really enjoy and gives variety to a role that can be very technical.
It’s an exciting time in water industry regulation and I’m really proud to work in the sector and continue to drive change and improvement at an area level.