Area Operations Manager (Water)

We are looking for an Area Operations Manager to join Thames Water on a full-time, permanent basis. In this exciting and high-profile position, you will have the opportunity to play a key role in creating and delivering ‘life’s essential service’ of water supply for our millions of customers, and for the communities we serve, both today and in the future.

Your role is vital in ensuring that all operational activity is carried out by Thames Water and 3rd party contractors in a safe, timely and efficient manner with a zero-compromise approach to health, safety and public health. You will be responsible for the operational and financial performance, consisting of a budget of up to £5m and a customer base of around 1 million.

It is crucial that your leadership demonstrates behaviours fully aligned with Thames Water’s vision and values. It will be critical for the Area Manager to ensure that risk, both operational and financial, is proactively monitored and managed across the area whilst ensuring adherence to all health and safety and Streetworks legislations, with zero cost incurred due to failed operational process or policy management.

The services you will provide will ensure we reduce leakage throughout your area, ensuring we leave our environment in a better place, deliver a consistent service to reduce customers experiencing supply interruptions and respond to customers’ needs ensuring they get the service they are asking for, amongst many other things.

You will build relationships with our valuable people focused on improving engagement and providing futures for people who want to develop and put together plans to ensure their success. You will look to foster a culture of collaboration across the business, ensuring our alignment and success.

You will work in partnership with key stakeholders across varying levels within the business and contractors (where applicable), to ensure your area is not only thriving today, but that all risks and opportunities for the future are identified across, but not limited to, safety, public health, customer, people, finance and asset performance.

The decisions and inputs of this role will enable future planning, investment and risk mitigation; therefore, a significant part of this role will be working at a strategic level with our asset management teams to ensure we have seamless handovers and cross-company collaboration in place to manage asset risk and investment.

Your team will consist of up to 30‑40 people with 7‑10 direct reports spread across varying locations across London / Thames Valley.

What should you bring to the role?

• Have excellent operations site leadership experience in a performance-driven and constantly changing environment.
• Ability to think strategically with effective commercial acumen to deliver against stretching operational targets.
• Possess strong communication skills and be resilient and tenacious in a challenging environment.
• Significant experience in leading and developing teams over a large geographical region.
• Experience in managing contractor relationships.
• You have an uncompromising approach to Health, Safety and Wellbeing.
• Ability to promote customer service as the number one priority.
• Experience in developing and maintaining routine ‘operational grip’ and event response leadership.

What’s in it for you?

• Offering a salary up to £65,000 per annum, depending on skills and experience.
• 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service (plus bank holidays).
• Car Allowance.
• Annual Bonus.
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Private Medical Health Care.
• Generous Paternity Leave, including 4 weeks paid and an optional 2 weeks unpaid.
• Enhanced Maternity Leave, 26 weeks full pay and 13 weeks half pay.
• Access to a variety of benefits such as annual health MOTs, physiotherapy and counselling, Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else, just let us know. We’re here to help and support.

Disclaimer: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.