Capital Projects Customer Engagement Lead

Closing Date

Job Title: Customer Engagement Lead (Capital Projects)

Location: 1 position in West Sussex (2-3 days onsite visiting customers onsite or in the office)

Contract Type: Perm

Hours: 37

Salary: £35,000 - £40,000 per annum DOE

UK Driving license required and access to own vehicle

Are you passionate about building strong relationships with communities and ensuring successful project delivery in the water industry?

Job Overview

Are you ready to make a real impact in your community while shaping the future of water infrastructure? Southern Water is looking for a tenacious, empathetic, and confident communicator to join our Capital Projects team as a Customer Engagement Lead.

In this dynamic role, you'll be the face of our investment programme across Hampshire - planning, coordinating, and delivering strategic customer engagement activities that protect and enhance our reputation. You'll work independently, building relationships with local communities, stakeholders, and delivery partners to ensure our projects run smoothly and transparently.

From water to wastewater, no two days are the same. You'll be out on site, solving problems, reducing complaints, and making sure our customers feel heard and supported. If you thrive on variety, autonomy, and meaningful work, this is the role for you.

What You'll Be Doing:

-  Leading the development and execution of project-specific communication plans

-  Acting as the named contact for customers, ensuring open and proactive communication

-  Visiting sites regularly to build trust and local knowledge

-  Managing community-related queries and providing expert guidance on engagement

-  Ensuring compliance with regulatory reporting, branding, and customer excellence standards

-  Collaborating with internal teams and delivery partners to reduce complaints and improve customer experience
 

About You

You're a self-starter who enjoys a challenge and thrives when working independently. You've got thick skin, a huge dose of common sense, and a natural ability to connect with people, even in tough situations. You're not just good at customer service - you're great at it

You'll bring:

-  Proven experience in customer management and communications

-  Strategic thinking and the ability to drive forward your own workplan

-  Excellent written and verbal communication skills

-  A flexible mindset and the ability to work across functions

- Resilience under pressure and confidence in handling sensitive issues

-  High integrity and discretion with commercially sensitive information

-  Willingness to work irregular hours when needed

Why Join Us?

- A supportive, collaborative team that values your independence

- A varied workload across water and wastewater projects

- The chance to run Hampshire as your own patch - no micromanagement

- A role that blends strategy, community engagement, and real-world impact

Ready to take the lead in shaping how our communities experience capital projects? Apply now and help us build trust, transparency, and better infrastructure - one conversation at a time.

Package

This role will be full time Monday to Friday with a hybrid approach to visiting customers or project sites in West Sussex 2-3 days a week and home.

We are offering a salary of up to £40,000 per annum as well as other benefits including:

• Generous pension up to 11% company contribution

• 25 days annual leave

• Life assurance equal to 4x salary

• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme (after 6 months service)

• Health Cash Plan

• Full funded eye tests

• Two paid volunteering days a year

• Occupational health service

• Discounts with over 800 popular retailers

• Digital GP service

• Study support may be available for job-related qualifications

• Competitive maternity leave and flexible return to work options

• Cycle to work scheme

Join our Capital Projects Customer Team and see how far your career could progress with a company committed to career progression, training and development opportunities, our customers, and the environment.

Does this opportunity excite you but you're not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that 'normal' office hours aren't possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can't accommodate every flexible working request, we'll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?

If this role isn't quite what you're looking for but are keen to be contacted about opportunities at Southern Water, you can register your details here: Introduce Yourself )

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support – because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That's why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. Joining the Southern Water family means you'll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.

Privacy Statement:

Please note: If you are an existing Southern Water employee, you will need to confirm within your application that your Manager is aware of your application.

All applicants must be eligible to live and work in the UK. You will need to provide evidence of eligibility (e.g. a passport or long birth certificate and proof of NI) and current proof of address (dated within the last 3 months), will be required as part of the recruitment process. If you do not meet these criteria, your application will not be considered.

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