Smart Network Technology Partnership Lead in London

The Vacancy Smart Network Technology Partnerships Lead Client-facing / Technology Partnerships / Business Development

Location: UK (Flexible / Hybrid)

Team: Digital Products & Services (Binnies Digital)

Reporting to: Director of Digital Products & Services

Benefits:

• Competitive Salary.
• Part Time options available and encouraged.
• Flexible working, including, if desired, a mixture of office and remote working, nine-day fortnights arrangements.
• Pension.
• Private Medical Healthcare.
• Life Assurance.
• Group Income Protection.

Who This Role Is For:

This role is for someone who knows the UK water industry, understands the challenges facing clean and wastewater networks, and gets energy from using new technology to solve real operational problems. You will already have experience across clean and/or wastewater networks, with a strong understanding of areas such as pipeline condition assessment, leakage, infiltration, sewer inspection or network monitoring. Just as importantly, you will be comfortable with the commercial side of the role. You will enjoy talking to clients, opening new conversations, creating interest in the technologies and turning that interest into funded projects that deliver measurable value.

You will become the day-to-day lead for three technology partnerships within Binnies Digital:

• KenWave non-invasive pipeline condition assessment.
• VAPAR automated sewer CCTV inspection software.
• FiberSense network event detection using fibre optic cables running alongside pipelines.

There is already an active pipeline of opportunities to inherit. Your role is to convert those opportunities into successful deployments, while identifying where these technologies can create further value for water companies and building the relationships needed to scale their use across the sector. This role will suit someone who naturally takes ownership: someone who sees an opportunity, picks up the phone, creates momentum and gets things moving. You will work closely with the Director of Digital Products & Services and have direct support when you need it, but you will be expected to take the initiative rather than wait for direction.

Why this role exists:

Binnies Digital is growing across two areas. Our Digital Products team identifies important problems within the water industry, finds proven technologies that can help solve them and partners with those companies to bring their capabilities into the sector. Our Digital Services team works with water companies across the UK and South East Asia on their journey towards AI-enabled operations and Digital Twin transformation. As our technology portfolio grows, we are bringing our partnerships into one centrally managed team. KenWave, VAPAR and FiberSense are the next three, and we need someone to own their growth and day-to-day management.

What This Role Is About:

The role has two equally important responsibilities:

• Build, close and deliver opportunities. This is a commercially focused role, so you will need to be comfortable leading business development conversations, shaping opportunities and asking for the work. You will lead the commercial development of all three technologies across the UK water industry. That means identifying the right clients and stakeholders, starting conversations, understanding where the technology solves a genuine operational problem, and turning opportunities into projects. You will manage the full journey from: Opportunity identification - outreach - technical sales - proposal - deal closing - delivery - benefits tracking - customer success - wider deployment.
• Lead the technology partnerships. You will become the primary day-to-day relationship between Binnies and KenWave, VAPAR and FiberSense. You will understand each partner's technology and proposition, keep both organisations aligned, coordinate opportunities, support delivery and help each partnership grow. You will also act as the bridge between technology specialists and water-company clients, translating what the technology can do into the operational problem it solves and the value it can create.

A typical week might involve:

• Sitting down with water-company network, leakage or wastewater teams to understand the operational challenge they are trying to solve and where one of the technologies could make a measurable difference.
• Opening new conversations across existing and prospective Binnies clients, building interest and turning that interest into credible opportunities.
• Working with KenWave, VAPAR or FiberSense to shape the right technical and commercial response from an initial pilot through to a wider deployment.
• Presenting the technologies to operational, technical, innovation and senior leadership teams, translating capability into clear operational value.
• Managing live projects end-to-end, coordinating delivery with the client and technology partner, resolving issues, tracking benefits and making sure successful deployments build the case for wider adoption.
• Reviewing the pipeline with each partner, deciding where to focus next and driving the next wave of adoption across the sector.

What We're Looking For:

You will need enough water and/or wastewater network domain knowledge to understand the problems our clients are trying to solve, challenge technology providers intelligently and establish credibility quickly with technical and operational teams. Experience in some of the following would be particularly relevant:

• Clean and/or wastewater network operations (including maintenance, asset management and other related industry disciplines).
• Comfortable with business development and technical sales, including initiating conversations, progressing opportunities and closing work.
• Pipeline condition assessment.
• Leakage, infiltration or network monitoring.
• Sewer inspection and CCTV assessment.
• Technology deployment or innovation programmes within water companies.
• Business development, technical sales or proposal development.
• Managing technology suppliers or strategic partnerships.
• Delivering projects and demonstrating measurable benefits.

Existing relationships across UK water companies would be a significant advantage, particularly with teams responsible for networks, leakage, asset management, wastewater operations, innovation or technology. You do not need to arrive knowing KenWave, VAPAR or FiberSense in detail. You do need to understand the problems they are solving and have the curiosity and motivation to quickly become credible in how those technologies can help.

We're looking for someone who is commercially minded, confident with clients, self-motivated, organised and comfortable taking ownership. Someone with a bias towards action, who enjoys building relationships and turning opportunities into real-world outcomes.

What Success Looks Like:

Success means creating the confidence, evidence and momentum for these technologies to move from promising solutions to widely adopted tools across the UK water industry. That means turning the opportunities already in the pipeline into successful deployments, identifying where else the technologies can solve genuine operational challenges, and building the relationships needed to take them further. It also means making sure the value is proven in practice: managing projects well, capturing the benefits they deliver and using that evidence to give clients confidence to expand their use. Ultimately, success is seeing these technologies become trusted parts of how water companies understand, manage and improve their networks - because they have demonstrated that they deliver real operational value.

Why you'll enjoy this role:

You will have a high level of ownership and the opportunity to work directly with both innovative technology companies and some of the UK water sector's biggest operators. You will be able to take an opportunity from an initial conversation through to technology being deployed on real infrastructure and delivering measurable results. You will also be joining Binnies Digital at a point of strong growth. Our ambition is to build a portfolio of technology partnerships that brings the best innovations and capabilities from across the world into the water industry and helps our clients adopt them successfully. For the right person, this is an opportunity to play a central role in that growth and build a reputation around bringing valuable new technology into the sector at scale.

If that sounds like the kind of role you're looking for, we'd really like to hear from you.