Principal Water Quality Modeller

Bristol, United Kingdom / Cambridge, United Kingdom / Leeds, United Kingdom / London, United Kingdom / Manchester, United Kingdom

Location/s: Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, London & Manchester UK (other office locations considered)
Relocation supported:Not supported
Recruiter contact: Laura Easdon

We’re a global engineering, management, and development consultancy. Our purpose is to improve society by considering social outcomes in everything we do, relentlessly focusing on excellence and digital innovation, transforming our clients’ businesses, our communities and employee opportunities.

A fundamental part of this is respecting each person’s differences and striving to meet their needs.

About the division

The Water Consultancy Division is the centre of excellence within Mott MacDonald for responding to water and wastewater challenges, providing support to colleagues across our global business, and offering fantastic opportunities to get involved in diverse and technically challenging work. Climate change, aging assets, and population growth place increasing pressure on our water and wastewater assets. Our highly successful water consultancy business is servicing ever-increasing demands from water sector clients to help deliver ambitious capital programmes. The work we do is at the forefront of ensuring safe water supplies for future generations and protecting our environment.

With sustainability, social impacts, digitalisation, and carbon reduction in mind, our diverse and multi-disciplinary teams work together to provide a variety of services throughout the full project life-cycle, from advisory services and feasibility studies, through outline and detailed design, to construction support and site supervision.

Job Description

Do you want to work for a company whose purpose is to improve society by considering social outcomes, and to transform businesses, communities, and opportunities for its employees? Mott MacDonald is a global consultancy whose people do exactly that.

As a Principal Integrated Catchment Water Quality Modeller, you will be part of a large team of specialists in wastewater networks, river impact assessments, water resources and flood risk, working closely with our teams of engineers and asset planners to deliver a wide range of services for UK and international clients. This will give you opportunities to work with both bespoke and industry standard hydrodynamic and water quality modelling packages and to innovate beyond the current standards. You will work with industry leading experts to develop integrated drainage and river network models, investigate the natural processes influencing the fate of contaminants, build ad-hoc assessment tools tailored to project specific needs and undertake statistical analyses. For those with related interests, there are many opportunities to get involved across our teams on activities such as hydrology, systems modelling, groundwater modelling, flood modelling and computational fluid dynamics. We therefore welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds and skillsets.

Your input will help our project teams and clients to deliver complex multidisciplinary projects, including addressing the impacts of storm overflows, resulting in strategic decisions, engineering solutions and the desirable social outcomes that you can be proud of. Whether it is ensuring future discharge compliance in light of climate change and population growth, preventing sewage from spilling to rivers, estuaries, lakes and reservoirs or exploring how wetlands can play a key role in reducing pollution, your work will bring lasting benefits to local communities and the environment around the world.

You will be responsible for:

• Delivering complex modelling projects – working with experts across a range of disciplines to apply your attention to detail and numerical skills to environmental engineering projects.
• Analysing large datasets to distil out patterns and relationships and provide insights and foresights to inform effective decisions and interventions to create positive social and environmental impacts.
• Managing projects and maintaining client relationships.
• Assisting with proposal writing, winning work and the development of new business by providing key technical inputs.
• Supporting and training to junior colleagues, where practicable, mentoring and developing early career professionals.
• Mott MacDonald is a unique company with a strong sense of purpose to improve society by considering social outcomes in everything we do, relentlessly focusing on excellence and digital innovation, transforming our clients’ business, our communities and employee opportunities.

You can look forward to many opportunities to do great things in Mott MacDonald. We combine heritage, vision and values into an ethos that encourages innovative thinking and career progression, whether technical, management or commercial/client-facing. Our employee-owned structure brings us the flexibility to pursue our values freely. With us, you will have control of your own career path and technical direction, which we will support by giving you the opportunities to face new challenges and take more responsibilities.

Candidate Specification

Required for the position of Principal Integrated Catchment Water Quality Modeller.

• Relevant degree-level qualifications (e.g. geography, mathematics, environmental sciences, civil engineering, or other related disciplines)
• Chartered with an appropriate professional body.
• Proven track record in successful delivery of SOAF and UPM projects (all levels) for UK water companies.
• Good understanding of hydrodynamics, sediments and water quality processes.
• Expertise in industry standard software such as InfoWorks ICM and/or MIKE11
• Coding skills and statistical foundations will be an advantage.
• Willingness to innovate.
• Able to guide and mentor junior staff.

With the ongoing and future impact of climate change and the increasing regulation to protect the ecology of our waterbodies, there is an increasing need for river and catchment modelling to assess water quality compliance and to advise on potential mitigation. We have an excellent track record in supporting UK water companies in SOAF and UPM studies and an industry leading position in developing innovative modelling approaches in InfoWorks ICM and FMP.

Our expertise expands to cover coastal water quality investigations, source apportionment assessments, catchment management modelling and the application of nature-based solutions to tackle pollution.

We have secured major AMP8 frameworks with UK water companies, and we have a global reach to support regulators, asset owners and investors worldwide. The current huge public and political pressure to resolve the issue of storm overflows which has resulted in massive demand for these services, and in response to this we are keen to engage talented catchment modellers to drive innovation, work across disciplines in complex modelling projects, support the development of our people and strengthen our offering. This position can be offered on a full-time or a part-time basis.

We are actively recruiting a diverse workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve. We recognise that differences in ability, skills and experience are a strength and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

UK Immigration

Mott MacDonald Ltd. are not currently offering sponsorship to candidates under the Skilled Worker visa route in the UK. This decision is as a consequence of the changes made to the Skilled Worker route by the UK Government in April 2024. We continue to welcome applications from candidates who are eligible for alternative immigration routes in the UK, that do not require sponsorship as a Skilled Worker now or in future.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility

We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

Happy to talk Flexible Working and how we can support your responsibilities beyond the workplace.

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

Health and wellbeing

• Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues.
• Health cash plan to support you with every day health costs and treatments.
• Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues.
• A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing program, including access for you and your family.
• Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.

Financial wellbeing

• We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%.
• Life assurance equal up to 4 x your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 x your salary.
• Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long-term illness or injury.
• Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll saving and will writing.
• As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.

Lifestyle

• A minimum of 33-35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme.
• Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service.
• Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high-street retailers.

Enhanced family and carers leave

• Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave.
• Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay.
• Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.

Learning and development

• Primary annual professional institution subscription.
• A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training, and self-development options.

Networks, communities, and social outcomes

• Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and parents/carers communities.

Apply now, or for more information about our application process, click here.