Graduate Leadership Programme 2025

Taking care of ‘one of life’s essentials’ – it’s our purpose and we want you to be part of it. Supplying wholesome drinking water, treating wastewater and recycling this back to the environment responsibly is no mean feat. We serve around 8 million people across the Midlands and Wales and unlike other businesses, our delivery is non-negotiable. It’s a matter of life.

Many of our employees are also our customers, so we truly take pride in what we do! Employing people from across our communities and beyond, Severn Trent is an exciting and inclusive place to work – a place where you can be curious, can be ‘Wonderfully You’ and where you can truly make an impact to our environment, now and for future generations.

Let’s tell you more

Our Graduate Leadership Programme offers the perfect blend of personal and professional development, exposing you to frontline operational and core business departments through 3 x unique 9-month placements. During this time, you’ll learn about the fundamentals of our business and how we work collaboratively to provide services across water and waste, taking responsibility for key business challenges and projects.

Your placements will provide further exposure across our 4 core business areas: Customer, People, Project and Commercial. In line with our company values you’ll embrace curiosity on this programme, venturing out into new business areas and taking on a wide variety of roles. You’ll have courage to challenge our current ways of working and will take ownership in making innovative ideas and improvements a reality!

Whilst developing your strategic and critical thinking, you’ll also learn how to showcase this, taking pride in the work you do and learning how to present this to all kinds of stakeholders across the business. You’ll have the opportunity to showcase your creativity and really add value in shaping our future direction.

How will the programme work?

• You’ll complete 3 x 9-month placements across the Business, gaining exposure to the 4 core business pillars during your 27-months on programme.
• Typically, at least 1 rotation will be in our Customer Operations directorate, working in front line operational teams to understand how we deliver our core services.
• This programme is designed to give you a broad range of experience across the business which means you could take on a role across any of our directorates! For example, you may find yourself working as part of our asset strategy or innovation teams in Chief Engineer, or you could be learning about our people strategy and how we plan our future workforce in Human Resources. You could be managing business critical projects across our Green Recovery department, supporting Strategic Business planning in our Strategy and Regulation teams, or even helping to deliver our Carbon and Sustainability ambitions in our Environmental teams.
• You will have the chance to discuss your development and career ambitions in your 1-1 meetings with line managers, mentors, and your New Talent Team, who will all support your development on programme.

What will you learn?

You will expand your knowledge of project and people management, including learning how to effectively manage and influence stakeholders. You’ll also gain a strong business and commercial acumen, developing your ability to plan strategically with time, cost, and quality in mind, and how to deliver this message successfully to a range of stakeholders.

You’ll gain a deeper understanding of why and how we make sure we deliver with our customers at the heart of what we do, and how we communicate this message across our communities.

Regardless of your placements, you will gain skills across the 4 core business pillars below, either directly through your placements or through supplementary training and project work.

People

• How to engage with and influence different stakeholders from our front-line teams and technical experts, through to senior leaders and our executive committee.
• How to present with impact to a range of audiences.

Customer

• How we measure customer experience and how we solve problems for our customers day-to-day. You may take on a role where you’ll deal directly with customers, helping solve issues and having a real impact at the front line.
• You may be involved in Business planning, focusing on our end customers.

Project

• Exposure to the project lifecycle and understanding how we measure the impact and benefits of our projects.
• How to use core project management tools and an understanding of what we need to consider for project success (Time, Cost, Quality and Benefits).

Commercial

• How to manage contractors and/or contracts, working closely with suppliers and contract partners to do so.
• Exposure to and appreciation of budget management and cost considerations in projects, teams, and the wider business.
• Further understanding of our business strategy and how we are regulated.

The graduate programme is designed to help you discover a career path that aligns with your passion while also preparing you to become a future leader.

Typical off-scheme role

The specific role will vary depending on your personal career ambitions and the business needs at the time. However, roles such as Water Treatment Process Scientist, Transformation Project Manager, Reactive Maintenance Team Manager, Waste Senior Technician and Human Resources Project Manager are examples of some of the roles our past graduates have landed after the scheme.

Roles include

• Resourcing Business Partner
• Category Manager
• Disposals Strategy Manager
• Security Specialist
• Performance Manager
• Project Manager
• Technical Support Manager
• Project Engineer
• Business Improvement Analyst

Our New Talent Team will guide you and support you every step of the way. Furthermore, your line manager, mentor and buddy will be there to help you in making sure you reach your full potential here at Severn Trent.

Entry criteria

• Any degree background

Travel is required, therefore a driving licence and access to your own vehicle is preferrable. However, the company Headquarters in Coventry and other main offices are accessible via public transport.

Typical contracted hours are 37 hours per week, however there may be flexibility around the structure of your working hours, depending on your role and team.

What we’re looking for

We want our employees to care and to have a genuine passion for what we do as a business. We need people who want to make a difference in providing a vital service to our customers, now and for the long-term.

We’d love you to be someone with

• A ‘can do’ attitude – willing to get stuck in, take accountability for decisions and actions and who takes pride in their work
• A love of variety in a role and ability to adapt to a dynamic, fast-paced working environment
• Ability to quickly prioritise tasks and the initiative to dive head-first into problem solving. No two days are the same on the front line and not every day goes to plan, so you’ll need to be quick on your feet to respond!
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills and enjoy working with multiple teams
• Ability to analyse and interpret information and effectively communicate this to different team members and audiences
• Ability to travel freely across our patch to visit different sites and travel to meetings and training days
• Curiosity to learn quickly in a reactive and dynamic working environment

Diversity and inclusion

At Severn Trent we are passionate about our people. We want to make sure that we continue to foster a more diverse, inclusive, and cohesive culture that represents the communities and customers we serve. We’re making sure we keep up the progress with our wonderful working groups – LGBTQ+, Women in Operations & STEM, Disability and Ethnicity, who help us with our commitments. Find out more about our commitments to Diversity and Inclusion at Severn Trent.

How we’ll reward and care for you in return

It’s not just a job you’ll get here, you’ll get a career too. We have a range of benefits that reward and recognise great work and award-winning training to ensure you reach your potential. And we’ll also help you play your part in looking after the environment and the community in which we live.

Here are some of our favourites

• 28 days holiday + bank holidays (and the ability to buy/ sell up to 5 days per year)
• Annual bonus scheme (of up to £2,225 which is subject to eligibility)
• Leading pension scheme – we will double your contribution (up to 15% when you contribute 7.5%)
• Sharesave – the chance to buy Severn Trent Plc shares at a discounted rate
• Dedicated training and development with our Academy
• Electric vehicle scheme and retail offers
• Family friendly policies
• Two paid volunteering days per year

As if that isn’t enough, you’ll receive an annual salary increase whilst you’re on programme and you’ll also get an increase when you move into your first job.