Scottish Water holds steady as the best-rated company by the supply chain

(by Karma Loveday)

Scottish Water retained the top spot it held last year in British Water’s 2025 Water Company Performance Survey, which asks contractors, consultants and suppliers to rate their clients’ performance in 12 areas over the last 12 months. The 12 areas are: contract approach, attitude, professional qualities, impact on supply chain, innovation, procurement, following policy, communication, partners/main contractors, AMP transition, working digitally and sustainability.

United Utilities took second place, and Anglian Water third.

Last year’s bottom placed company, South West Water, edged up from 12th to 11th, with Welsh Water dropping drastically from mid-table last year (6th) to 12th.

Southern Water made the greatest improvement year-on-year, moving four places from 11th to 7th, while Severn Trent and Yorkshire dropped four places each (5th to 9th, and 6th to 10th respectively).

The spread of scores was wide, from Scottish Water’s 8.1 out of ten, to Welsh Water’s 5.9 out of ten. The industry average overall score fell from 7.0 in 2025 to 6.8 in 2026.

However, British Water highlighted the positive improvements identified by the survey, including collaboration edging up from 6.9 to 7.0; visibility of opportunities rising from 5.8 to 6.2; and innovation, for the first time, not being the lowest-scoring area (6.4, with working digitally at 6.1).

Lila Thompson, chief executive of British Water, said: “This year’s survey results show marked improvements at a time when water companies and its supply chain are being asked to deliver at an unprecedented scale… The focus now needs to be on turning this positive direction of travel into a consistent experience across the supply chain – giving suppliers early and continuous visibility of future opportunities, engaging with them meaningfully. There is still work to do however to create quicker routes to test and adopt innovation. We see [innovation centre] Spring as playing a key role in this and hope to see wider scale cross-working to speed up the deployment of innovation. These factors will all help build the capacity and capability to continue delivering AMP8 and beyond.”

British Water’s annual survey was first undertaken in early 2003. It seeks views of individuals working in the industry rather than a corporate standpoint and takes in both British Water members and non-members.

Full results can be viewed at:  https://www.britishwater.co.uk/page/SupplyChainImpactSurveys