Steve Morris, Managing Director of HUBER Technology UK, takes a look at how the first year of AMP8 has panned out, some of the issues that are driving the water sector and where it might be heading for in 2026

Steve Morris: We’re now three quarters of the way through the first year of the AMP8 2025-30 investment programme, with what appears to be no let up in major changes which are driving the pace at which the water companies and the wider water sector operate.

First and foremost amongst these are the proposals put forward by the Independent Water Commission following the review of the water sector chaired by Sir John Cunliffe.

The IWC’s mammoth 464 page final report published in July contained a total of 88 recommendations, including:

• the creation of a new single integrated water sector regulator for England and a single water regulator for Wales. In England this would replace Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and water-environment related functions from the Environment Agency and Natural England. In Wales, a new economic regulator would be created, either embedded within the existing environmental regulator or established as a standalone independent body.

• the introduction of systems planners that will more effectively integrate planning across the whole water system – at a regional level in England and the national level in Wales.

• The existing nine different planning processes for the sector to be rationalised to two: one for water and the environment and one for water resources.

While the recommendations were perhaps light on measures to directly support the supply chain, the report acknowledged the risks from a weak, unsupported supply chain and set out a number of specific recommendations. These include a sector-wide risk assessment of critical supply chain dependencies in England and Wales to be conducted by the new regulator with reference to a proposed water industry national supply chain requirements dashboard. In addition, the report also recommended that the water companies, through Water UK, should share best practice on supplier contracts and procurement strategies to help improve water company relationships with the supply chain in England and Wales.

Overall, the recommendations set out in the report have been broadly welcomed by organisations across the wider water sector. While the Government has yet to publish its formal response to Sir John Cunliffe’s recommendations in a full White Paper, it has already signaled its intention to accept the recommendation to establish a “super regulator” for water to be created through new primary legislation – the Water Reform Bill – which the Government is aiming to introduce early in this Parliament. Whist this could be a game changer for the sector, the devil will be in the detail and inevitably as yet uncertainty still prevails, meaning it’s likely to be several years before it comes into being.

In the meantime the sector is charged with both delivering the massive £104 billion AMP8 investment programme and at the same time contemplating the workload beyond that for the next 10 or even 20 years.

The water companies are already planning for AMP9 and 10, including the major infrastructure projects in the RAPID programme for strategic water resources.

Longer term 25 year strategies for business plans

Longer term, there is talk about developing 25 year strategies for water companies’ business plans. Perhaps when the new regulator is in place there might also be a major overhaul of the AMP process itself. While it worked at the start of privatisation, regulatory, economic, climate and other pressures might necessitate a thorough review of whether it is still fit for purpose. Will the AMP cycles even still exist in their current form?

Underpinning all this is the government's landmark Planning and Infrastructure Act aimed at accelerating housebuilding and critical infrstructure delivery which became law following Royal Assent on 18 December 2025. This includes fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament. Hopefully this will tackle some of the well-known ongoing challenges the UK faces in terms of delivery – summed up as bottlenecks, overly complex and slow-moving planning processes, slow timescales and significantly higher construction costs.

Given the scale of water and wastewater infrastructure the UK now needs to progress at pace, the wider water sector will undoubtedly be assessing how the proposals will help to mitigate these risks.

Somewhat slow start to AMP8

In terms of AMP8, the view from the supply chain side is that there has been a somewhat slow start to AMP8, with projects in the pipeline but not yet coming to fruition. The issue was the topic of discussion at British Water’s recent annual conference. It seems clear that while some of the water companies are more advanced than others, have already hit the ground running and are moving ahead with a number of projects, others still seem much slower to mobilise and get started. .

Overall a positive first year of AMP8

On the whole, we feel we’ve had a good start at HUBER UK in this first year of AMP8 - we are working on complex projects and we’ve gone to considerable lengths to make sure we’ve got the right people for the job.

There are lots of things in prospect which will come out of the Independent Water Commission’s findings and recommendations. While at this stage many of them have yet to be crystallised, what is clear is the importance of having a long term strategy in place whether you’re a water company or a supplier as we progress through AMP8.

For us, that means having a strong team, a skilled workforce, great resources in terms of manpower and wastewater technologies and second to none aftersales and service, to mention just a few. With Gold accreditation from Investors in People, we’ve made a particular point of investing in our employees – from apprenticeships to graduate level opportunities, and opportunities for continuing development during the course of their career with us.

All of these are key to the role we can play in helping the water companies deliver on their demanding AMP8 commitments and targets, and of course preparing for the longer term. To take just one example, our standardisation on screen sizes and our packaged solutions are to helping our customers to tackle the huge volume of work they face in addressing the thorny issue of storm overflows. We are working with a number of water companies helping them move their procurement programme forward through call -off agreements for pre-engineered standardised products and solutions. Likewise our plug and play technologies which are simple to mobilise, and reduce the need for ancillaries and lengthy installation work..

Asset health – cornerstone of operational resilience and a growing issue in 2026?

What we also know is that pressures on water companies and regulators alike will continue. In terms of crystal ballgazing, in my view addressing the growing skills gap is definitely high on the cards,and remains one of the biggest challenges..

So what else can we expect to see next year and beyond? A growing emphasis on asset health is rising up the agenda.The requirement to evidence good asset health will be far more prominent and likely have its own KPI for water companies – in contrast, in the past where capital delivery programmes of work and maintenance often appeared to be addressed fairly separately in an almost siloed approach.

Ofwat is continuing to develop its thinking on asset health, saying it forms the cornerstone of operational resilience in the water sector. The regulator’s dedicated workstream is focussing in the short-term on a shortlist of priority assets for 2025-27 including:

• Water network storage (service reservoirs, water towers and contact tanks)
• Civil structures at water treatment works (rapid gravity filters)
• Water boreholes
• Civils at wastewater treatment works (settlement tanks, activated sludge treatment plants and trickling filters)
• Gravity sewers

The workstream is focused on gathering robust, comparable data on priority assets that meet specific criteria:

• critical asset classes that have a direct impact on performance​;
• asset classes with known/indicated challenges relating to current performance​;
• asset classes where the visible condition of the asset is one of the indicators of an assets overall health;
• asset classes where there is a sufficient range of assets for this to be significant to the sector​;
• asset classes where robust and comparable asset condition and workload data can be collected by May 2026; and
• asset classes that contain long-life assets.

We have a particular interest in these issues – this is a key area where we expect to see increased demand for our maintenance, after sales and equipment hire services as this information is used to turn data collected into tangible targets during AMP8.

To make a simple comparison, you don’t buy a car and expect it to run well without regular maintenance and the same is true of infrastructure, assets and equipment in the water sector. We are well positioned to help with regular after-sales support and service and maintenance agreements. On the hire side – we continuing to invest in growing our fleet so that we’re ready to step in for assets that go down unexpectedly, or are taken offline for maintenance, and where water companies need to maintain continuity of service during site upgrades and capital investment programmes.

Streamlined procurement processes could help speed up delivery

It’s also interesting to see how changes in procurement processes are starting to work to the benefit of both the water companies and the supply chain. While some procurements are still being launched in quite tight timescales, other types of procurement – for example, call-offs, mini-competitions – are helping to circumvent the bottlenecks by moving things along at key points in the process.

Taking a sideways look at legislation beyond the UK, the newly updated EU Wastewater Treatment Directive is targetting advanced treatment for micropollutants like pharmaceuticals and cosmetics via the polluter pays principle and strengthening regulations on sludge management and resource recovery.

Both are areas where the UK is not keeping pace and which could yet again see the water sector come under pressure from the public, environmental organisation and mainstream press and media to raise their game.

This is undoubtedly an area which is set to see change in 2026. The Government's revised Environmental  Improvement Plan (EIP) published in December 2025 includes the intention to reduce risks from Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)– also known as ‘forever chemicals’ The EIP includes a specific commitment to take action and publish a PFAS Plan in 2026 setting out a range of regulatory and non-regulatory interventions, measures and initiatives with specific actions and delivery milestones. The plan will set out a coordinated response, extending across government and industry.

We’re already strong in that area via our german parent company’s capability in quaternary treatment technologies so we’ll be ready if the water companies have to make similar moves.

So what’s on our wish list for 2026? Certainty, timescales and visibility in terms of projects coming down the line are always a priority. We understand that it can take time to move from design to execution and implementation – a process of months which sometimes run into years. This is helpful for our own planning purposes and of course streamlining processes wherever possible benefits all stakeholders.

And the water companies’wish list for 2026 is? …. Answers on a postcard please!