Local recruitment: Integrated Water Management Internship

United Utilities

Warrington, UK 🇬🇧

  • Job Number: UU00483
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Region: Warrington
  • Location Name: Lingley Mere (UU), Lingley Green Avenue, Great Sankey, Warrington, WA5 3LP
  • Posting End Date: 19/05/2024
  • Band: GRADX
  • Role Type: Fixed Term Contract
  • Work Hours: 37 Hours per Week
  • Salary: 23,152

Introduction

Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP) 12 month Internships 2024 

Job ID: UU00483

Location: Lingley Mere Headquarters, Warrington, UK. Possibility for some hybrid working as well as office-based working, to be agreed with line manager during on boarding process. The candidate will need to ensure that they can travel to Lingley Mere Headquarters in Warrington on a regular basis and when required.) 

Duration: 12 months

Salary: £23,152 per annum 

Working Hours: 37.00 per week 

United Utilities provides water and sewage services to seven million people across the North West of England. It’s a big job and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly for our customers. From operating our pipes and improving water quality, to embracing new technologies and safeguarding the local environment – whether you’re in our head office or out on site, there’s always plenty going on.  Our internship programmes will give you the opportunity to learn first-hand how we make this happen.

Role Overview

United Utilities is committed to achieving integrated water management within the five counties of the North West of England, to benefit customers, society and the environment. This commitment has brought an exciting opportunity for a Place Based Planning Analyst to work across United Utilities and with partner organisations to support the scaling up of this approach.  

The successful Place Based Planning Analyst will work directly with the Place Based Planning Manager in the Catchment Planning, Conservation and Partnership team. See key responsibilities for more information.  

The Catchment Planning, Conservation and Partnership (CaPCoP) team is newly formed and responsible for providing environmental leadership through developing and embedding robust plans which promote nature-based interventions and protect the natural ecosystems our services rely on. The team work in an integrated and collaborative manner with other teams in United Utilities, as well as with partner organisations to drive our Catchment Systems Thinking (CaST) approach.  

This is an exciting opportunity to gain more experience and understanding of how United Utilities is building capability to integrate the management of water at a sub-regional level. The business will need new processes, systems, and ways of working to adopt a more integrated approach, which will require individuals who have the right interpersonal skills to support this change. Ultimately, we want to be sector leading and demonstrate this to our regulators at PR29.  

It is an excellent time to join the team as key deliverables such as the Greater Manchester Integrated Water Management Plan and Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) are high profile within the business. It is also a fantastic platform to gain exposure to lots of teams within the Asset Management directorate and around the business as a lot of the team’s interactions is outward facing.  

The CaPCoP team are a diverse group of people who have a lot of industry knowledge and expertise and have experience of supporting those in their early careers to get the best out of their placement.  

This is a great opportunity to get exposure to the environmental sector, notably environmental work conducted within the water industry. Skills you will develop include data analysis, interpreting data, report writing and internal and external communications. As your internship progress there will be substantial scope to take on additional responsibilities as you gain more experience and gain exposure to other areas of the team.  

Don’t worry, we won’t throw you in at the deep end. You’ll have mentors and managers with you as you progress through your placement and support you as you work towards your personal development goals. 

You’ll be joining a team based at the United Utilities head office in Warrington and an organisation just voted the 19th best place to work in the UK as voted for by users of Glassdoor. You’ll enjoy life on our leafy campus surrounded by over 2,000 colleagues who all help to provide great service for our 7 million customers.

What we are looking for

You will be aiming for/ achieved a minimum of a 2:1 in an environmentally focussed degree such as Geography, Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, or Natural Science. This opportunity is aimed at someone who has graduated in the past year,  but providing you can demonstrate the required skills we will consider applicants who are still at university.  

You must have a researched knowledge of the water industry and United Utilities. You must have a strong and well-developed analytical skills, with an attention to detail, ability to interpret and analyse data and contribute towards recommendations that consider the needs of the environment, customers and businesses. Ability to use GIS is strongly desirable.  

You should possess excellent written and interpersonal skills and have the ability to communicate and influence across multiple stakeholder groups, including being able to creatively use a range of media and presentation skills for qualitative and quantitative information in a means that can be understood by all. 

You must be highly computer literate (in particular word processing, spread sheets, presentations and GIS). You must demonstrate a willingness to learn and genuine interest in/curiosity about Catchment management. You must be motivated and enthusiastic, understand the importance of team work and possess ambition and drive to succeed and make the most out of your internship. You should be able to be comfortable working flexibly across a range of tasks and activities to deadlines and be able to prioritise your time. 

Key Responsibilities

In line with the published Greater Manchester Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP), there is a commitment that the trilateral partners (Environment Agency, United Utilities and Greater Manchester Combined Authority) develop and implement a new way of working, that will enable systematic collaboration and integration across multiple partners and sectors. The IWMP team has a requirement for a competent data analyst to enable integrated opportunities to be identified and progressed in line with the Living Integrated Opportunity Programme process.  

Key responsibilities for this role are:  

  • Analysis of spatial data through the appropriate mapping software and determining the best way to represent it visually to the Integrated Water Management (IWM) team and stakeholders;  
  • Identify and obtain additional (or new) datasets that could be used to support analysis and keep the data catalogue up to date;   
  • Quality assurance and process documentation of the data sources;   
  • Managing a digital library of geographic programme data in various file types;   
  • Create new spatial data sets by geographically representing data, as well as through digitising spatial information for use in geo-spatial analyses;    
  • Prioritise the data and develop routines to create integrated opportunities against pre-defined objectives;   
  • Produce maps that will inform the IWM team and stakeholders by overlapping various datasets;   
  • Run queries, produce reports/ slide pack visuals in line with IWMP governance and stakeholder meetings;  
  • Create and maintain cluster trackers and work alongside the Business Change Managers to ensure the trackers are as complete as possible to enable cluster screening; 
  • Support the IWMP team with the Ofwat Innovation Fund: Digital Platform if successful (from April 2024).

The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring that the activities listed above are delivered on time and to a high quality. This internship will require working with partners in the IWMP team and wider within the partner organisation, so there will be opportunities interact and shadow other roles outside of the main responsibilities listed above. The Greater Manchester IWMP is high profile within United Utilities; therefore the successful candidate should be adaptable and able to flex their workload if the IWMP team needs to re-prioritise.

Other responsibilities will be to:

  • Support the Place Based Planning Managers with other analytical tasks when the need arises;  
  • Support the CaPCoP team co-ordinate performance reporting.

The role holder will also have access to other focal groups within the wider directorate which they may choose to get involved with, such as:

  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Health, Safety and Wellbeing
  • Engagement

Benefits

Don’t worry, you won’t be going it alone. Your mentor and manager will work with you as you progress through your placement and support you as you work towards your personal development goals.

When you join our Intern Scheme you’ll receive a good salary, and you’ll also be eligible for a bonus of up to 7.5%.

You get 26 days holiday to take during your placement, and at our fantastic Lingley Mere site we have an onsite gym, coffee shops and other great facilities. And while access to an award-winning pension scheme might not be top of your priorities right now, responsible employers like us make sure you get one anyway – you’ll pay 5% in to your pot and you’ll get an extra 10% from the company. And that’s not the only way to save, as you’ll be able to buy company shares as part of the employee share buy scheme.

Internship Duration

12 months

We need fantastic people to enable us to deliver a great service to the public. We are committed to reaching and recruiting from every community and then supporting employees to achieve their full potential ensuring they feel valued and included, regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, sexual orientation or social background.

If you are offered a job with us, a number of pre-employment checks need to be carried out before your appointment can be confirmed. Any offer of employment with United Utilities will be subject to a satisfactory checking report from the Disclosure Scotland / the Disclosure and Barring Service.


POSITION TYPE

EXPERIENCE-LEVEL

IHE Delft - MSc in Water and Sustainable Development