Affinity Water is looking for a visible and proactive Head of Health and Safety, who will take ownership and drive behavioural change, embedding a culture of health, safety, and wellbeing across all activities.

This senior leadership role provides a unique opportunity for an experienced health and safety professional to make a real impact within a leading utility organisation. Reporting directly to the Director of Health, Safety & Estates, you will be instrumental in the delivery of our H&S strategy and 5 year plan, while providing expert advice, direction, and assurance at the highest level. You will work closely with Directorate Leadership Teams and the Executive Leadership Team, helping to establish AWL as a benchmark for health and safety performance across the UK Water industry.

About the Role

As Head of Health and Safety, you will:

• Lead our Health & Safety Business Partners and Advisors, providing guidance, challenge, coaching, and oversight across operations and contractors.

• Drive the development and delivery of AWL’s Health, Safety & Wellbeing Strategy, going beyond compliance to embed best practice across the organisation.

• Be highly visible across strategic offices and operational sites, leading key inspections, investigations, and site visits to set the standard for health and safety excellence.

• Build and manage relationships with internal and external stakeholders, championing best practice and providing governance, assurance, and advice.

• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, zero harm, and innovative approaches to risk management.

• Work with risk, reporting, and audit teams to ensure business risks are managed ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable).

• Ensure incidents are thoroughly investigated, learning captured, and improvements implemented.

• Support and maintain AWL’s Health & Safety Management Systems, including ISO 45001 certification, ensuring knowledge and experiences from across the industry are applied.

Key Accountabilities

• Enhance the Health & Safety strategy beyond legal compliance, sharing knowledge and driving continuous improvement.

• Engage with function heads and supply chain partners, providing guidance and assurance on health, safety, and wellbeing.

• Support cultural change to embed health, safety, and wellbeing across all business activities and processes.

• Lead assurance activities including audits, inspections, and peer reviews.

• Identify trends and implement actions to address emerging issues.

• Champion innovation to support AWL’s Zero Harm vision.

• Manage budgets, as delegated, for Health & Safety initiatives.

Essential Criteria

• Proven experience (10+ years) in a senior H&S management role.

• Strong people management and stakeholder engagement skills, with a track record of influencing at all levels.

• NEBOSH Diploma and full Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH).

• Experience in preparing for regulatory audits, crisis management, and significant incident investigations.

• Self-motivated, committed, and highly visible in driving H&S standards.

Desirable Criteria

• Management qualification.

• Experience in high-hazard environments, ideally within the utility sector.

• Proven success in delivering sustainable safety performance improvements through behavioural change.

 Personal Skills and Competencies

• Excellent interpersonal, influencing, and people management skills.

• Ability to prioritise, motivate, delegate, and drive cross-functional initiatives.

• Strong personal integrity, sound judgement, and proactive approach.

• Committed to visibility, stakeholder engagement, and ownership of outcomes
  

Benefits:

• Salary: £80,000+ (dependant on skills and experience)

• Hours of work: Mon - Thursday (08.30am - 17.00pm and Friday (08.30am - 16.30pm)

• Car allowance

• Learning and development opportunities, including mentoring and a range of formal courses and open learning resources.

• Entry into the company annual bonus scheme.

• Annual leave from 26-30 rising with length of service, and the option to purchase up to 5 extra days.

• A ‘Celebration Day’ in addition to public holidays that people can use to celebrate a religious festival or other occasion that is important to them.

• A generous 'double match pension scheme' that doubles the contributions you make (company contribution capped at 12%)

• We offer a range of family benefits including enhanced Maternity, Adoption, Paternity, Shared Parental Leave, Fertility Support Leave and up to 5 full or 10 half days of paid Carers Leave.

• Menopause policy and Reasonable Adjustment policy to help everyone perform at their best.

• Access to our Wellbeing Centre with support for looking after your physical and mental health.

• Discounts at a Range of Retail Outlets and on Dental and Medical Insurance through our Tap4Perks scheme.

• Up to 4 Affinity days a year to volunteer in the community.

• Life Assurance.

Disability Confident

As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to offering interviews to disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria and opt in on the application form. Ask the Talent Acquisition lead for the full job description to see all the criteria. If we have a very high volume of applicants and we’re not able to offer interviews to all, we’ll take a fair and proportionate number of disabled candidates through.

Affinity Water recognises the benefits of greater diversity in our workforce to better reflect the communities we serve. We are committed to building a more inclusive culture where every member of our workforce can thrive.

You can find out what it’s like to work at Affinity Water through our career site https://www.affinitywatercareers.co.uk/ where our colleagues share their career development stories and you can get a feel for our company culture.