Ofwat |

Ofwat (the Water Services Regulation Authority) is the economic regulator of the water and wastewater sectors in England and Wales.

Safe, reliable and sustainable water and wastewater services are essential for our day-to-day lives, our wellbeing, and our natural world.

The water sector faces significant challenges including population growth, changing customer expectations and climate change. Customers are increasingly concerned about environmental harm, including carbon emissions, pollution, and the need to use water wisely. At the same time, the impact of Covid-19 has amplified concerns about affordability, with one-third of households in England and Wales sometimes struggling to pay household bills.

Our role is to enable, incentivise and hold water companies to account for providing the very best for customers, society, and the environment, both now and into the future. We also oversee the markets that exist in the water sector to make sure they are working for customers. Our ambition is for water companies to provide outstanding customer service; to improve the environment and to enhance life through water, both now and into the future. We use all our existing regulatory tools, and develop new ones, including building our influence, data and insight to achieve these goals.

Our vision is to improve life through water. We plan to deliver this throughensuring that the sector delivers everyday excellence in providing water and wastewater services to customers, responding to their changing demand.
ensuring that companies take long-term stewardship of the environment, their assets, and their customer relations. Ensuring that the industry adds value, whether through value for money for customers or adding to the quality of life or the state of the environment.

Our strategic goals, Time to act, together, focuses on bringing our vision to life.

Our people are the heart and soul of Ofwat, and our People Strategy is ambitious and well-embedded. In our annual People Survey 2023, we outperformed the Civil Service (CS) People Survey benchmarks in all 10 areas.

An impressive 94% of our people would recommend Ofwat as a great place to work. Our PERMA Index score is 75 %. (The PERMA Index – based around the five dimensions: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment – measures how people are flourishing at work.)

Our score for inclusion and fair treatment is 86% which is above the CS average, and our overall engagement score is 67%. Being accountable and empowered is part of our way of working and 89% of the people surveyed say they do interesting, engaging work, and 83% agree that they decide how they do their work. 92% of our people said they were treated with respect by the people they worked with and 91% agreed that
Ofwat respects our individual differences. Our latest external Investors in People silver re-accreditation was awarded in recognition of the positive environment for personal development and growth at Ofwat.

Our aim is to become more diverse and inclusive: reflective of the communities we serve. Our vision is to transform Ofwat from a great place to work to a great place to be. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far. Now we’re looking to build on our progress to make Ofwat an even better place to work where everyone can succeed.

To achieve this, our People Strategy is based around the below key themes:

• Thriving - Creating the conditions where our people can flourish at work, bring in and
  retain the best talent with appropriate skills, focus on self-development and personal
  growth, and demonstrate great leadership at every level.
• Enabling - We will equip our people with what they need to continue to work
  effectively, accessing the technology and tools to succeed and sustain high levels of
  performance.
• Belonging - We will nurture a workplace culture where our people feel engaged and
  comfortable to be who they are and be at their best.

Our framework for success

Our Framework for Success supplements our Values, setting out the attributes that lead to success at Ofwat. We use this framework in our interviews. For our people, it's a tool to help them assess their strengths, and areas for development, to support their career development. These attributes set out our expectations at different
grades for how we develop ourselves, others, and Ofwat.

Being Ourselves: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

There's a conscious effort to promote diversity not just in Ofwat but also in the water companies we regulate as well. Everybody has different views and life experiences – and we value that diversity of thought, proactively seeking to create an environment where people feel comfortable to be who they are at work. Information for applicants: Casework, Enforcement and Customers Graduate.

We’re not as diverse as we want to be yet, but we’re working hard – here are four things that we’re doing to make Ofwat a more diverse organisation:

• Our leaders ‘live the values’ by listening, learning, collecting and analysing data and sharing stories about what the values mean to them.
• We act upon feedback from our people and our communities to ensure we know where our challenges lie and create action plans to address them.
• We strive to build leadership teams that are more diverse and representative of our workforce and our communities.
• We're consciously shaping our recruitment practices for greater diversity. We select for interview via blind sifting - where all identifying information is removed from applications and we participate in the Disability Confident Employer scheme.
• We strive to eliminate biased language from our adverts and have adapted our practice to include transparent interviews.

As an equal opportunities employer, we make sure that there’s equality of opportunity and fair treatment for all irrespective of:

• age;
• disability;
• gender reassignment;
• marriage and civil partnership;
• pregnancy and maternity;
• race;
• religion or belief;
• sex;
• sexual orientation.

Disability Confident Scheme (DCS)

Ofwat runs a Disability Confident Scheme, offering an interview to a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum selection criteria for the job.

When applying for a role through Civil Service Jobs, applicants will be prompted to enter whether they are eligible for the DCS initiative. Ofwat guarantee to interview all candidates applying under the scheme who meet the minimum essential criteria for the role.

The Great Place to Work for Veterans (GPTW)

The Great Place to Work for Veterans scheme aims to encourage more veterans to join the Civil Service when they leave the armed forces. Ofwat guarantee to interview all candidates applying under the scheme who meet the minimum essential criteria for the role.

When applying for a role through Civil Service Jobs, applicants will be prompted to enter whether they are eligible for the Great Place to Work Initiative by confirming that they served in the armed forces.

We’re forward-thinking, creative, innovative, and ambitious. We constantly push the boundaries and embrace new ways of working.

With us, your work matters, your voice is heard, and your impact is felt. Ours is a culture of trust, flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, and innovation. We all want positive change for water customers, the environment, and the future of water.

But for us, change is more than what happens on the outside – we’ve always pushed boundaries internally, too. From becoming the first Civil Service organisation to achieve ‘Smarter Working’ status, to gaining our prestigious ‘Smarter Working Maturity’ award, we’ve consistently demonstrated our commitment to embracing innovative ways of working. Our people do their best work when given freedom over where, when, and how they work. Which is why we trust our teams to balance meaningful collaboration in the office with the flexibility of working from home.

You will also benefit from:

• Excellent employer pension contributions of 28.97% (around £8,980 for a graduate entrant salary)
• 27.5 days leave (25 days annual leave + 2.5 days privilege leave) increasing to max 32.5 days with each year of service, plus bank holidays
• Access to exclusive discounts on a variety of goods and services, including retail outlets,theatre tickets, holidays, insurance, and a gym membership
• Flexible working arrangements that suit your lifestyle
• Fees paid for membership of relevant professional bodies
• Up to 3 volunteering days per year
• Recognition vouchers scheme
• Generous shared parental leave and pay
• Enhanced sick pay
• Regular development opportunities
• Health and wellbeing initiatives
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Season ticket loan for home-to-office travel
• Free eye tests and contribution to lenses/spectacles for VDU users

Apply through the Civil Service Jobs website where you’ll be asked to create an account and complete an application form. If you’re unable to make an electronic application, please contact earlycareers@ofwat.gov.uk and we will support you in completing your application.

Please ensure you have submitted your application in full ahead of the deadline listed below. Unfortunately, we won't be able to consider late applications.

2025 Selection timetable

• Programme Closing date: 23.55 on 02 March 2025
• Video Interviews Close: 09 March 2025
• Birmingham Assessment Centre: Week commencing 07 April 2025 (please note that assessment centre will be held in Birmingham for both London and Birmingham location preferences).
• Assessment process

The selection process includes;

• A candidate application form assessing the qualification requirements and some of our attributes and SAILOR values outlined in the table below.
• Video interview assessing SAILOR values and the attributes set out in the table below.
• Successful candidates will then be invited to an assessment centre, week commencing 7th April 2025. The in-person assessment centre will assess the criteria outlined in the table below.

The assessment centre includes;

• A group exercise
• An interview
• A Presentation (topic to be shared in advance)
• A written assessment

Please ensure that anything submitted as part of your application is factually accurate, and you are not presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by AI, as your own.

Please note that if a high volume of candidates meets the minimum pass mark at sift stage, we will only progress the highest scoring candidates to interview. Candidates not invited to interview, who have achieved the minimum pass mark, will be placed 'on hold' until the final stage of the assessment process is completed. Should the role/s remain unfilled, candidates placed 'on hold' may be invited to interview in merit order.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Interviews under the Disability Confident Scheme

We want to encourage disabled people to apply for jobs and give them an opportunity to show their skills, talent and abilities at the interview stage. The Civil Service runs a Disability Confident Scheme, offering an interview (opens in a new window) to a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum selection criteria for the job.

To be considered for an interview under this scheme you must have:

• a physical or mental impairment, or a long-term health condition which has a substantial and long term (over 12 months) adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities demonstrated in your application and testing stages that you meet the minimum job criteria as set out in the advert or person specification for the post

Reasonable adjustments

We want to support you if you need an adjustment in the recruitment process, even if you do not feel you qualify for the Disability Confident Scheme.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, diabetes, or schizophrenia.

Some of the adjustments we have offered are:

• application or interview help
• a time of day that works for you
• extra time
• sign language interpretation
• advice about assistive technology

Employeers

We want Ofwat to be a place where we can all thrive and be at our best, in an environment that feels safe, healthy and happy.

Sometimes we all need a little help with that or need to raise an issue and we're not sure how. Here we introduce our Mental Health First Aid and Dignity at Work Advisors so you can hopefully feel more comfortable in seeking that support.

We want Ofwat to be a place where we can all thrive and be at our best, in an environment that feels safe, healthy and happy. To achieve this, we are working hard to:

• Create the right environment - a culture that is welcoming, respectful and sees opportunity and strength in individuality and diversity.
• Empower our people to talk about their preferences, needs and wants when it comes to feeling healthy and happy.
• Provide signposting and support to those who need it via a variety of channels such as Dignity at Work Advisors (DAWAs) and Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs) as well as a range of external sources.

Our graduate opportunities offer the perfect blend of personal and professional development, including Ofwat Essentials, a learning programme delivered by dedicated in house experts. Right from the start you’ll have opportunities to lead and support interesting internal and external projects.

To support you during the programme your People leader (Line Manager) will help you settle in. Your department will support you in gaining the knowledge and expertise to perform effectively in your business function and role. Your graduate programme will give you an insight into our business and inspire your creativity, leadership and strategic thinking - enabling you to achieve your aspirations and be prepared for your career after the programme ends.

As well as on the job learning, you will have access to technical training to meet your specific learning needs and to help you fulfil your potential. You'll be provided with all the tools and support to help you flourish in your profession, supported by central events such as conferences, and site visits to water companies' operational sites, so
that you can develop your understanding of the water industry.

You’ll be working with other graduates and colleagues and early career professionals across the regulatory
industry. This is an exciting time to join our programme.