Environmental Permitting Specialist

🌿 Exciting Opportunity: Environmental Permitting Specialist at Thames Water 🌊

Join us on our journey to build a better future for our environment, our communities, and our customers. Thames Water is looking for an Environmental Permitting Specialist to ensure our water discharge operations meet the highest environmental standards and comply with regulatory expectations.

This is your chance to contribute to vital work that protects our ecosystems, shapes sustainable infrastructure, and makes a daily difference to millions of people.

What you’ll be doing as an Environmental Permitting Specialist

• Managing environmental permits linked to our water discharge activities, ensuring we’re always operating with accurate, up-to-date regulatory information.
• Providing expert advice to internal teams on how environmental permitting affects operational and capital delivery projects.
• Negotiating with the Environment Agency on new permits or changes to existing ones, ensuring regulatory requirements are met while protecting Thames Water’s interests.
• Supporting AMP8 and WINEP programme delivery, helping projects achieve compliance through strong permitting foundations.
• Representing the business in discussions with regulators and across internal teams to ensure accurate, timely, and high-quality submissions.
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of permitting processes, internal reporting, and compliance tracking.

This position will be working in a Hybrid environment from any of our locations with travel to Clearwater Court in Reading once or twice a month. The salary for this position is up to £55,000, depending on experience.

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you’ll need are:

• Experience or interest in environmental permitting, regulation, or compliance.
• Excellent communication, organisation, and collaboration skills.
• A passion for sustainability and improving environmental outcomes.
• Strong technical writing skills and ability to write clear, structured technical documents and coordinate complex permit applications.

Additional skills and experiences would be great to have/bring: 

• Degree in Environmental Science, Environmental Management, Data Management, or similar.
• Experience working in regulated environments (water, wastewater, emissions, waste).
• Understanding of Environment Agency guidance and permitting frameworks.
• Experience in operational or project delivery teams within the utility or infrastructure sector.
• Strong IT skills including Microsoft Excel and data systems (Power BI experience a plus).

What’s in it for you? 

• Competitive salary up to £55,000 per annum.
• Annual Leave - 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service (plus bank holidays) 
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets.
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.
Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

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.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

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.