Unplanned Outage (Water Planning and Performance team) - Summer Placement

United Utilities provides water and sewage services to seven million people across the North West of England. It's a big job and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly for our customers. From operating our pipes and improving water quality, to embracing new technologies and safeguarding the local environment – whether you're in our head office or out on site, there's always plenty going on. Our internship programmes will give you the opportunity to learn first-hand how we make this happen. 

We need fantastic people to enable us to deliver a great service to the public. We are committed to reaching and recruiting from every community and then supporting employees to achieve their full potential ensuring they feel valued and included, regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, sexual orientation or social background.

Role Overview

Unplanned Outage is a key performance indicator for United Utilities water. This performance indicator is a measure of how much of our water treatment works production capacity is unavailable, due to equipment failures. Our regulator Ofwat set challenging targets for levels of unplanned outage, and United Utilities will receive a financial penalty from the regulator if targets are not met.

The Ofwat methodology for the calculation of unplanned outage will change for the 2025 – 2030 period. The new methodology is likely to pose an even greater challenge for surface water fed companies such as United Utilities. It is vital that we have a deep understanding of our current performance, and options to improve future performance, before we enter the 2025 performance reporting period.

We have identified three key Unplanned Outage workstreams that will enable us to maximise our performance in the 2025 to 2030 period, these are:

• Methodology review
• Monitoring and Control policies and procedures
• Asset health management

The successful intern will work with the Water Planning and Performance Team, and will be directly involved in:

Review in the top 10/15 outages over the last 4 years (AMP7)

• Which asset types or classes are contributing to Unplanned Outage performance?
  
  • Are we doing the right checks at the right frequency on these assets?
  • Do we need to change the frequency or methodology of completing maintenance activity/checks?
• How many Unplanned Outages could have been avoided by maintenance activity?
• How many Unplanned Outages were prolonged due to lead times in getting spare parts?
• Is there a common theme in long lead time for specific parts that we don't hold in critical spares? Is there a reason we don't hold this item in critical spares?

Additional data analysis tasks may be required such as interpreting new targets or methodology changes set by Ofwat, exploring the work of other water companies in this area, and undertaking further ‘deep dives’ on trends revealed by the initial investigation.

Full support will be given by the Water Planning and Performance Team. You will also get the opportunity to mix with our current graduates who can share experiences, tips, and guidance with you for the next steps in your career.

To apply you need to:

• Recent graduate or Undergraduate with a science, technology, or IT background.
• Have a strong foundation of maths and science A-levels.
• Have good computer skills particularly in Microsoft Office.
• Be motivated and enthusiastic, an excellent team player, possessing ambition and drive.
• Possess good written and interpersonal skills and have the ability to communicate and influence across all levels.
• Be able to be comfortable working flexibly across a range of tasks and activities to deadlines as well as being able to prioritise your time.

Benefits

If you want to join an FTSE 100 company that wants to disrupt the water industry and you want to make a positive change in the world we would like to hear from you.

We celebrate and support diversity and are committed to ensuring equal opportunities for both employees and applicants. Due to the length of your programme you will be engaged via our resourcing partner Rullion.

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