Senior Innovation Technical Expert in Coventry

We’re more than just a water company. We are dedicated to making a positive impact on the environment, sustainability, and the communities we serve. By joining us, you’ll work with the latest technologies, driving forward-thinking projects that enhance and protect national infrastructure, making a real difference to the communities we serve.

Our innovation strategy is simple - we want to solve the challenges we have today as well as find answers to some of our industry’s bigger long-term challenges. Whether it’s delivering water that is always good to drink, reducing waste in our processes with energy efficient technologies, working on developing our digital and artificial intelligence approach, or improving visibility of the network, our team of innovators are working day in day out to make it happen.

With nearly 10,000 colleagues, we’re looking for more brilliant people who are passionate about sustainability, eager to innovate, and ready to turn challenges into opportunities for a better future.

We’re looking for a Senior Innovation Technical Expert to lead on a range of projects from pilot to full scale. You will be working on investigating cutting edge technologies and approaches, and collaborating with a wide range of teams to support the delivery of these technologies from design, through commissioning to embedding and translating into practice. This is an exciting opportunity to help translate industry leading research into practical action at full scale.

As part of this role, you will be taking on projects that have been scoped in conjunction with our strategic colleagues and turning these outline scopes into a technical trial. Following this, you will need to ensure that the trial is effective at demonstrating innovative technology or a process that is feasible, viable, scalable, and most importantly effectively meets a business challenge. You will also need to develop a technical oversight of all the projects within your allocated work programme – and be able to support others working on them.

You will work with a wide range of other departmental teams to ensure the project is delivered to the right standard with all the necessary outcomes achieved, therefore having excellent communication and stakeholder skills are key. A critical part of this is understanding your stakeholders around the business and being skilful at presenting your findings to gain their buy-in, so that the insight you produce lands effectively and contributes to driving continuous improvement and becomes the technology or process of tomorrow. Operational and site experience is an important element of this role, as you will seek to embed innovative solutions into real site environments.

You will need to work independently on your own initiative and, importantly, as part of a high performing team, demonstrating Severn Trent’s values of Pride, Courage, Curiosity and Care at your core and uphold excellent safety behaviours. You will be empowered to take control of your personal development and constantly seek to improve your and the team’s skill set by sharing knowledge and learning.

The role is on a 6 month FTC and you will be based out of our office Head Office in Coventry. You’ll work within our Asset Intelligence and Innovation team. With this being such a critical role, we’re looking for someone who can join us 37 hours a week, but we will consider requests for considering a part time work pattern. WFH flexibility available and travel to other sites will be required at times so you’ll need to hold a full U.K driving licence.

What we’re looking for:

• Scientific and Technical Expertise: Recognised as an expert in your field with deep technical knowledge.
• Programme Leadership: Ability to own and drive the technical and scientific aspects of strategic programmes.
• Project Oversight: Strong understanding of multiple projects within a programme, including technical approvals and issue resolution.
• Problem-Solving: Skilled in delivering robust, viable solutions to complex challenges in a timely manner.
• Leadership & Mentorship: Proven ability to act as a role model, supporting the upskilling and development of technical colleagues.
• Communication: Clear and confident in conveying technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.

Skills and experience are important, but character, positivity, and a caring attitude matter too. We seek people who get involved, want to be part of something bigger, and make a difference because they care.

How we’ll reward and care for you:

Working here isn’t just a job. You can build a career at Severn Trent. We’ll reward you for it, too. We have a range of benefits that recognise great work, and award-winning training to help you reach your potential. And we’ll also help you play your part in looking after the environment and the communities where we live.

With that in mind, here are just some of our favourite perks that you’ll get being part of the Severn Trent family:

• Salary starting from £50,908
• 28 days holiday + bank holidays (and the ability to buy/sell up to 5 days per year)
• Annual bonus scheme (of up to £2,250 of base salary per annum based on company performance)
• Leading pension scheme – we will double your contribution (up to 15% when you contribute 7.5%)
• Sharesave – the chance to buy Severn Trent Plc shares at a discounted rate
• Dedicated training and development with our ‘Academy’
• Electric vehicle scheme and retail offers
• Family friendly policies
• Two volunteering days per year

We can’t wait to hear from you! Have an updated CV ready and spare five minutes to apply. We’ll let you know the outcome after the closing date, so keep an eye on your phone and emails.