Consideration of the environment and sustainability are uppermost in Affinity Water’s capital delivery ethos, according to Programme Delivery Manager, Michael Beresford.
He was commenting as part of Affinity Water’s ongoing National Careers Week series looking at career opportunities within the company.
As Affinity Water’s Programme Delivery Manager, he ensures the company’s above ground investment programme such as reservoirs and treatment plants is delivered on time and to budget.
He enjoys the technical challenge of abstracting, treating, and delivering water to the company’s 3.6 million customers across the South East of England in the most efficient ways, while also considering the full environmental aspects of this work.
His position involves managing a team of engineers and project managers delivering projects within the utility’s investment programme, liaising on a daily basis with the team, suppliers, contractors, and internal stakeholders to optimise delivery, and reporting on progress against targets. Many of the projects are linked to sustainable abstraction of water, or to provide supply resilience.
He explained:
“We aim to create a biodiversity net gain, so the environmental aspect has grown considerably in the last few years and is something we all have to focus on.”
Like other employees working for the UK’s largest water only company he enjoys the strong sense of teamwork within the company.
Michael Berefsford continued:
“The best stand-out moments are when we have all come together as a team. Last year working with our asset engineering team we managed to review the requirement for 3 new reservoirs, by analysing the network connectivity we managed to show that only 2 reservoirs were required and that by not building one we could make significant savings in terms of cost but also in terms of environmental impact”.
There are currently vacancies within The Capital Delivery Team as a Project Manager, and also for a Costing Engineer and Finance Business Partner (Capex) within the Asset Strategy directorate.
He concluded by recommending both working for the water sector and the company itself, saying:
“Working in the asset strategy team is a great opportunity to work from cradle to grave on a diverse range of projects and gain broad experience of water infrastructure and how it works and operates. You will also work with a wide range of people with a diverse range of skills and experiences.”
Affinity Water currently has a Project Manager vacancy within the Capital Delivery (Non-Infrastructure) team – the role offer s the opportunity to work on a high volume and hugely varied low cost portfolio ranging from £5k to £400k projects.
Ideally, applicants will have experience of managing projects within industries such as construction, utilities, civil engineering and regulation but it is not necessary to be an experienced Project Manager to be suitable for the role.
Closing date for all applications is 23:59 on Monday 14th March – click here for more information.
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