Relationship Lead - Lincolnshire Reservoir, Peterborough

Salary: £47k - £52k, depending on skills and experience

Full time/37 hrs a week/permanent

Location: Worldwide House, Peterborough (a minimum of twice a week, with occasional travel to London)

Anglian Water offers a flexible approach. This role provides you the flexibility to work from home and from your base location which will be Worldwide House in Peterborough.

Anglian Water's Major Infrastructure Team helps to meet tomorrow's challenges today, by planning and delivering high-quality major infrastructure for the East of England. This new infrastructure will help address major future challenges such as securing water supply for future generations, reaching net zero, adapting to climate change and restoring the environment, while delivering new jobs, creating improved opportunities for people in communities across the region and boosting local economies.

Effective stakeholder engagement is critical to the development of the Fens and Lincolnshire Reservoirs Projects. The approach to stakeholder engagement has been defined within the Lincolnshire and Fens Reservoirs Stakeholder Engagement Framework. The Framework supports effective engagement and regulatory compliance, providing guidance to help deliver a successful pre-application process and DCO application that is accepted for Examination.

About the role:

• As Relationship Lead, you'll own and proactively manage a defined portfolio of stakeholder relationships for the Lincolnshire Reservoir Project.
• You will develop a strong understanding of stakeholders' interests, priorities and concerns, ensuring engagement is planned, coordinated and supports both stakeholder needs and the project's programme and consenting requirements.
• Working closely with technical and project teams, you will act as a key link between the project and its stakeholders, ensuring the right conversations take place at the right time, that stakeholder insight is understood within the project, and that actions, commitments, risks and issues are actively followed through.
• You will maintain forward-looking engagement plans for your stakeholders, represent the project at meetings and, where appropriate, chair discussions.
• You will also support the development of key DCO outputs and help identify emerging issues and opportunities early, escalating these where necessary.

What you'll be doing:

• Ensuring stakeholder engagement supports the requirements of the DCO process and is delivered in accordance with the Stakeholder Engagement Framework.
• Owning and proactively managing a defined portfolio of stakeholder relationships, understanding their priorities and concerns and escalating significant or strategic matters to the Senior Stakeholder Engagement Lead and wider project team.
• Planning and coordinating engagement with stakeholders in line with programme priorities.
• Working proactively with the Stakeholder Team and project workstreams to identify and plan short, medium and long-term stakeholder engagement needs.
• Working with technical leads to coordinate clear, audience-appropriate briefing materials and information for stakeholder engagement.
• Attending stakeholder meetings and, where appropriate, chairing discussions and representing the project team on project matters.
• Supporting the development of key DCO stakeholder outputs, including Statements of Common Ground and Preliminary Areas of Disagreement Summary Statements.
• Identifying and managing emerging stakeholder risks, issues and opportunities, escalating significant or strategic matters where appropriate.
• Ensuring stakeholder actions, commitments and follow-up issues are captured and actively driving their closure and resolution.
• Acting as the link between stakeholders and the project team, ensuring stakeholder insight informs project thinking and that agreed actions, commitments and issues are progressed by the appropriate teams.
• Constructively challenging and influencing colleagues where necessary to support effective stakeholder outcomes.
• Ensuring appropriate service level agreements (SLAs) are in place and monitoring associated budgets and stakeholder engagement spend.

What does it take to be successful?

• We're looking for a proactive and confident relationship professional who can build credibility with a wide range of stakeholders and work effectively across a complex project environment.
• Proven experience of successfully managing complex stakeholder relationships on major infrastructure or development projects progressing through a planning or consenting process, either in-house or within a consultancy environment.
• Experience of the DCO process would be highly desirable.
• Experience of building trusted relationships and managing challenging or sensitive stakeholder conversations.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, work effectively across multiple workstreams and remain organised in a complex and fast-moving project environment.
• Strong judgement and political awareness, with the ability to understand different stakeholder perspectives, navigate sensitive or challenging issues and adapt your approach accordingly.
• The role will involve travel to meet stakeholders, so a driving licence and access to a vehicle is essential.
• Water industry experience is desirable.

As a valued employee you'll be entitled to:

• Competitive pension scheme - Anglian Water double-matches your contributions up to 7%
• Personal private health care
• Annual bonus scheme
• 26 days leave, rising with service + Bank Holidays, with the option to swap Christmas and Easter holidays for those celebrated by your religion
• Life Cover at 8x your salary
• Personal accident cover at up to 5x your salary

Why Anglian Water?

Anglian Water is not your typical water company. What we do really matters. Water is the lifeblood of our world and we're proud of the difference we make. We put people at the heart of our business and we truly love what we do! If you're passionate about what you do and would like to make a difference then we'd love to hear from you.

Closing date: Monday 5th October