Water Scientist in Manchester

At AECOM, we’re at the forefront of innovation, delivering an exceptional portfolio of water programmes and projects through long-term partnerships with key clients. Our Water Environment team are multi-disciplinary with specialists in geomorphology, hydrology, hydro-ecology, water quality and hydrogeology, comprising 60 surface water specialists and a further 25 hydrogeologists.

We work for clients from across the public and private sectors, including the Environment Agency, Natural England, National Highways, Water Companies, NRW, River Trusts as well as developers and overseas clients. We are also involved in major ongoing projects, such as Lower Thames Crossing, and are responsible for water environment chapters in ES’s and WFD assessments.

A selection of our current and recent projects includes:

• Developing catchment wide river restoration plans for water companies.
• Delivering hydrological reviews and water balance studies for a range of purposes, such as determining supply sources and ensuring a canal remains sufficiently full despite its top up water supply failing.
• Design, modelling and installation of Natural Flood Management measures.
• Developing a modelling approach and running these to inform management decisions, such as water level dependent designated sites.
• Delivering improvements through working on water company’s Environmental Improvement Programme (WINEP).
• Designing and helping delivering awards fish passes and river restoration schemes.
• Deriving strategies to deliver catchment water quantity and quality improvements, driven by WFD and Local Nature Recovery requirements.

Here’s what you’ll do:

• Support the preparation of high quality and commercially astute bids and tenders for water science services, typically for Water Companies and Government bodies such as the Environment Agency.
• Co-ordinate multidisciplinary teams including water scientists, hydrogeologists, hydromorphologists, aquatic ecologists and flood risk specialists, ensuring necessary resources, budgets and controls are in place to meet both programme and budget requirements.
• Identify the need for, plan and implement complex monitoring and field work as maybe required (e.g. water quality monitoring, flow gauging, hydromorphological surveys, PWS investigations etc.).
• Support delivery of high-quality water science / hydrology consultancy and advisory services to both internal and external clients, including through our check and review processes.
• Use varied tools to deliver outcomes (software, models etc) plus be able to review data empirically (e.g. review flow data series and spot gauging to develop an understanding of low and typical flow hydrology).
• Have insight into how hydrological changes manifest in terms of water quality, geomorphology and hydroecology (e.g. changes to wetted widths and velocities and how these may affect fish passage).
• Support development of technically robust and pragmatic solutions to complex water science / hydrological issues.
• Communicate effectively and professionally with other members of the Water Environment Team, within projects and with clients.
• Engage proactively with statutory stakeholders to resolve matters and ensure agreement on scopes of work, mitigation etc.
• Author or technically check project deliverables to ensure high quality outputs.

As an experienced water scientist or hydrologist, you’ll provide support to colleagues and liaise closely with internal and external clients. All members of the Water Environment team take an active role in client contact and commercial aspects of our projects. Health, safety, and environmental considerations underpin all of our work.

Here's what we're looking for:

• Have a degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject such as: geography, physical sciences, chemistry, maths, engineering etc.
• Experienced in hydrology (low flows and flood risk), hydromorphology, water quality and / or hydroecology and a strong understanding of aquatic systems.
• Proficiency in the application of hydrological software and environmental modelling (hydrological/ hydraulic/ water quality/ water resources).
• Proficiency in GIS software.
• Report writing skills and ability to clearly present complex technical information visually and orally to a wide audience.
• Experienced in technical project delivery (from bid preparation, drafting technical proposals to project management).

We celebrate diversity, including neurodiversity, and believe it enriches our team. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and abilities.