Project Design Lead - Water Non-Infra

This job is with Southern Water, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community.

Closing Date: 03/06/2025

Location: Falmer (Hybrid)

Salary: Starting from £47,092

Are you aspiring to step into a Project Design Lead role? This opportunity is part of a structured development plan designed to train and support you as you transition into a leadership position. We're looking for individuals with 3 years plus of experience in an engineering role who are eager to shift their career path toward project design and team leadership. We'd love to hear from you if you're ready to grow and be mentored into a lead role.

As a Project Design Lead, you will be at the forefront of driving technical excellence and delivering innovative, cost-effective solutions. You will have the opportunity to influence decisions that significantly impact engineering design activities and oversee the design process from start to finish, ensuring projects are completed safely, on time, and within budget.

Key Purpose of the Role:

• Safety & Environment: Support the team in ensuring that all designs comply with health, safety, and environmental standards. Help promote a strong safety culture within the project team.
• Design & Technical Support: Assist in the development of design solutions that are technically robust and cost-effective. Help coordinate design inputs and contribute to meeting Southern Water's technical standards.
• Team Collaboration: Work closely with a variety of in-house and external engineers and consultants. Help maintain strong communication across the team to support integrated and efficient project delivery.
• Innovation & Improvement: Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement by sharing ideas and supporting the use of new technologies and digital tools in design work.
• Learning & Development: Take an active role in learning from senior team members, while gradually building your technical and project delivery skills.
• Financial Awareness: Support the monitoring of design budgets and help prepare inputs for project cost tracking and reporting.
• Programme Awareness: Assist in tracking progress against design timelines and flag any potential issues early to help keep projects on schedule.
• Customer & Stakeholder Focus: Help ensure designs reflect customer needs and regulatory requirements. Contribute to preparing materials for stakeholder presentations or technical reviews when required.

Skills & Competencies:

• An engineering degree (MEng/BEng/BSc or HND/HNC) or equivalent in a relevant technical discipline.
• 3 years plus within a working environment - Engineering or Science-related industry.

This role will be full time Monday to Friday 37 hours a week. Southern Water operate a hybrid approach to working between our Falmer office and home. We are offering a salary starting from £47,092 per annum, depending on skills and experience as well as other benefits including:

• Company and performance-related bonus
• Generous pension up to 11% company contribution
• 25 days annual leave
• Life assurance equal to 4x salary
• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme (after 6 months service)
• Health Cash Plan
• Full funded eye tests
• Two paid volunteering days a year
• Occupational health service
• Discounts with over 800 popular retailers
• Digital GP service
• Study support may be available for job-related qualifications
• Competitive maternity leave and flexible return to work options
• Cycle to work scheme

Does this opportunity excite you but you're not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that 'normal' office hours aren't possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can't accommodate every flexible working request, we'll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support - because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That's why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. Joining the Southern Water family means you'll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.

Privacy Statement: Please note: If you are an existing Southern Water employee, you will need to confirm within your application that your Manager is aware of your application. All applicants must be eligible to live and work in the UK. You will need to provide evidence of eligibility (e.g. a passport or long birth certificate and proof of NI) and current proof of address (dated within the last 3 months), will be required as part of the recruitment process. If you do not meet these criteria, your application will not be considered.