Lead Designer - Reading, Berkshire

Thames Water is seeking a Lead Designer for a permanent position in Reading, Berkshire. The role involves overseeing design quality, mentoring new designers, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, particularly in health and safety. The candidate should have strong IT skills and experience in the water industry. This is a hybrid role requiring 2 office days per week, with a salary starting from £41,000 per annum.
Lead Designer - Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8DB Contract: PermanentSalary: Offering an annual salary starting from £41,000 per annum depending on skills and experienceAs a Lead Designer, you’ll play a key role in shaping and assuring high-quality design across our projects. You’ll oversee and enhance technical assurance processes, ensuring all designs meet regulatory requirements, including CDM. Working closely with Senior Designers, you’ll support the development of robust, compliant design solutions while championing strong design principles throughout.
What you'll be doing as a Lead Designer
During this 12-month fixed-term contract, you’ll act as a mentor to new and developing designers, helping to build capability and confidence across the team. With a collaborative mindset, you’ll engage with internal stakeholders, sharing best practices and driving continuous improvement to elevate our design standards across the business.Strong understanding of statutory and regulatory obligations, with a focus on HSE requirements, including CDM, ensuring all designs are safe, compliant, and delivered to the highest standards. Lead and enhance technical assurance processes across projects, providing clear frameworks and guidance to Senior Designers while ensuring adherence to internal standards and wider regulatory obligations. Act as a key interface with internal stakeholders, including Major Projects and technical teams, supporting the delivery of high-quality design packages for customers and delivery partners. Champion best practice design principles across the team, holding designers to account while coaching and mentoring to develop capability and confidence. Support the training and ongoing development of new starters, building strong, collaborative relationships across teams and with field colleagues to drive continuous improvement and right-first-time delivery. Maintain a strong focus on health and safety, quality, cost, and delivery ability, ensuring smooth end-to-end delivery of projects, including effective management of jeopardy jobs through the assurance process.
Based in our Clearwater Court office in Reading
This is a Hybrid role with 2 office days per week
What you should bring to the role Strong IT skills (e.g. MS Office), with good literacy, analytical thinking, and problem-solving ability. Proven experience delivering results in a fast-paced environment, with the ability to prioritise and adapt to changing workloads Solid understanding of the water industry, design principles, and construction HSE requirements, including CDM. Highly organised and able to work independently, with a strong focus on compliance, quality, and deliverability. Confident working as part of a team, with the ability to coach, mentor, and support others. Proactive and driven, with strong planning skills and the ability to build positive relationships with a range of stakeholders.
What’s in it for you? Offering an annual salary from £41,000 per annum, depending on skills and experience 24 days holiday per year, increasing to 28 with the length of service (plus bank holidays) Generous Pension Scheme through AON Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.
Find out more about our benefits and perks (Please note different T&Cs apply if on secondment)
Who are we?
We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.
Learn more about our purpose and values
Working at Thames Wate r
Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.
If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world's water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.
Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.
We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else just let us know, we’re here to help and support.
When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.
Disclaimer: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.