Scottish Water has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Hydrologist to join the Water Resources Hydrology team and play a key role in delivering a consistently excellent water supply. Through Scottish Water’s Strategic Plan, managing our water resources is vital to ensure we safeguard the resilience of water supplies, protect the environment and adapt to climate change challenges. Our water sources are located across Scotland and range from large reservoir sources in the central belt to small lochs and river sources in the highlands and islands.
You would be joining a strong and friendly team of hydrologists and hydrogeologists who provide a centre of technical excellence in Scottish Water for all aspects of Water Resource Management. This includes Water Resource Planning, Drought Planning, Climate Change Assessment, Production Planning Development and support to Drought Incident Management, Abstraction Licensing and Capital Investment, whilst working closely with our Water Service Strategy and Customer Service Delivery colleagues.
Key Responsibilities of the Role:
- Provision of specialist hydrology advice for Scottish Water’s surface water sources to all relevant functions of SW.
- Development, maintenance and use of Hydrological and Water Resource System Models
- Responsibility for producing and maintaining SW’s Weekly Water Resource status report
- Hydrological support for long term strategic Water Resource Planning, including yield estimation, environmental impact and climate change assessment for Supply-Demand Balance and capital investment option appraisals
- Drought Planning Support, including development and maintenance of drought contingency curves for drought plans and provision of a hydrological support service during drought incidents
- Modelling of impact of change on both resilience and environment e.g. for Abstraction Licence applications, potential hydrogeneration, temporary reservoir safety requirements, capital investment projects, new sources or drought plan options
- Contribution to project scopes and reviewing and responding to external study reports
- Review of resilience impacts from external planned developments
What you will need
Essential skills required:
- Relevant degree and MSc in Hydrology or other relevant science discipline
- A minimum of 3 years’ experience in water resources hydrology
- Working experience of hydrological modelling packages such as HySIM–Aquator, Qube, or other rainfall-runoff models.
- Familiarity with methods of hydrometric data collection, interpretation and analysis.
- Sound data analysis ability. Strong analytical skills are essential to get beneath the data and numbers to undertake root cause analysis, identify trends etc.
- Strong IT skills with high proficiency in Excel and a good knowledge of other MS Office tools, including the ability to learn to use bespoke SW applications for data interrogation/analysis.
- Experience in use of G.I.S. is essential, but training can be provided for further development.
- Experience of interfacing with external Regulators and internal/external Stakeholders.
- Knowledge of environmental legislation, Water Resource Planning and River Basin Management
- Knowledge of Supply Demand Balance methodologies and related hydrology data requirements.
Desirable Skills:
- Experience with production planning models e.g. MISER is highly desirable
- Experience in R and/or Python coding
- Experience of working with plausible droughts
What You will Get
The salary range for this role is £35,384- £47,924. The team covers the whole of Scotland with the base location for the role being reasonably flexible, but Central Belt preferred. If you have any questions at all about the role or the team, please contact me at – Lindsay.MacMillan@scottishwater.co.uk
You can also expect:
- 38 days of holiday per year (including public holidays) with the option to buy 5 more
- Eligibility to join the defined benefit, contributory pension scheme
- Annual company bonus
- Life assurance scheme
- Paid time off for community volunteering
- Opportunities to be involved in sports, social and fundraising activities
- Access to “SW Splash”, saving you money on holidays, bills and shopping
- Excellent family friendly policies around Adoption, Maternity, Parental Leave, and Flexible Working
Closing Date: Midnight on Wednesday on 11th January 2023
Do you have any support needs?
Please let us know if there are any changes we can make to our application and selection process to make it easier and more comfortable for you. Email us here with the vacancy reference number in the subject line so we can work with you to support you throughout your application.
Working at Scottish Water
Scottish Water is one of the UK’s leading water companies, the quality of drinking water and satisfaction with the service we provide our customers has never been higher – but we want to be even better – and you could help play an important part!
We take employee engagement very seriously and have an inclusive and collaborative work environment where we respect people’s differences. We are committed to creating an engaging environment and a positive experience for our employees.
We were recently recognised as a Top 10 Flexible Employer in Scotland at the Flexibility Works Awards 2021 and by The Times as a Top 50 Employer for Women in 2019.
In 2019 we also won the Age Inclusive Award at The Herald and GenAnalytics Diversity Awards and were winners of the Best Public Sector Employer at the Family Friendly Working Scotland Awards 2020.
We have Carers Positive Exemplary Status and were Silver Award 2019 & Gold Award winners 2020 of the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (DERS).
We aim for work to be an energising and fulfilling experience and everyone plays their part to ensure that Scottish Water is trusted to serve our customers and communities.
We are passionate about creating opportunities for young people and are proud to have achieved the Gold standard in the Investors in Young People accreditation, demonstrating our commitment to creating rewarding opportunities for young people.
You will have access to a host of benefits which include 38 days holiday a year, a defined benefit pension scheme, a discounted medical cash plan and cycle to work, plus a variety of agile working arrangements and family-friendly policies designed to support your wellbeing.
Next Steps
Any offer of employment with Scottish Water will be subject to the successful completion of a mandatory pre-employment screening process, including Disclosure Scotland and eligibility to work in the UK. Details can be found on our website.
For more information about this role or if you require any additional support throughout the application process please contact the recruitment team: SWRecruitment@scottishwater.co.uk
As part of our commitment to developing a flourishing Scotland, it is important that Scottish Water employees are resident in Scotland and contribute to the Scottish economy by paying Scottish income tax on their earnings. As a result we ask all potential employees to confirm that they are resident in Scotland, or to confirm their intentions to move to Scotland within 6 months of their start date.
