Supply chain rates Scottish Water as the best company to work with

Scottish Water came top and South West Water bottom of 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.

There was quite a lot of movement in the rankings from last year (see table). Scottish Water was way out in front with an overall score of 8.1 out of ten, which was at least 0.5 points clear of the next highest performing cluster of Northumbrian, Anglian, United Utilities and Severn Trent. South West scored 5.5 out of 10, 0.4 points below second-from-bottom Southern Water. United Utilities, Yorkshire and Thames all made significant improvements on their 2024 scores.

The highest scoring area overall was success in following external government and regulatory policy, such as on health and safety, quality assurance and environment, where the average score was 8 out of 10.

For the fifth year running, innovation is the lowest scoring area at 6.3 out of ten, unchanged from 2024. This was followed by working digitally, which scored 6.4 out of ten – an improvement of only 0.1 from 2024 – and then AMP transition at 6.7 out of ten.  This relates to effort and commitment to reducing disruption, handling tender processes for establishing framework agreements, and coordination to ensure access to sites.

Lila Thompson, chief executive of British Water, said: “In today’s resource-constrained market, the supply chain plays a vital role in helping utilities meet customers’ expectations, and failure to engage could result in water companies underdelivering the vast programme of works in the AMP8 investment period for England and Wales, and other significant investment programmes across the UK.”

She added: “The fact we are continuing to see low scores for innovation, digital working and AMP transition is a clear indication that work still needs to be done as we start AMP8, especially if we are to improve the landscape in AMP9 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 on this occasion the majority of responses related to the water and wastewater companies, rather than water-only companies.