The future utility workforce - the water sector's elephant in the room
12/6/2026
Picture take from LinkedIn
The fundamental challenges relating to the utility workforce will continue to hold back progress on national and global water targets – and it is a problem that continues to be ignored.
Water is not just competing for talent in a tight market. It is competing in a tight market while being structurally disadvantaged on pay, on reputation, and on the political visibility that drives investment into other sectors.
Huge infrastructure investment outside of water is pulling engineers toward sectors that pay more, and water simply can’t compete on that basis.
And what is common across the world is a lack of strategic focus from utility managers on the future workforce. This involves understanding the time it takes for people to train and be ready for work and putting the necessary systems in place, eg partnerships with colleges, training providers and indeed supply chain companies.
These challenges were among the points raised recently by Adam Cave, Founder of Murray McIntosh – a leading utility recruitment firm in the UK and a member of AquaFed. Adam’s comments were in a response by Murray McIntosh to the Workforce Challenge panel at the Infrastructure Summit held by Indepen and the UK Water Report.
A copy of the Murray McIntosh response, with much more detail and a comprehensive breakdown of utility workforce challenges, is also available here.
Whilst Adam’s comments were primarily about the English water sector, the issues he raised are common to utilities all over the world. And unfortunately, we see no major international efforts to address the enormous workforce challenges all water utilities are already experiencing. For example, the utility and water sector workforce overall, does not even seem to have a home in any of the ministerial dialogues at the UN Water Conference later this year.
Recently, Adam also presented to UNESCO solutions to overcome some of the workforce challenges, through greater agility in recruitment practises.