Water Direct maps growing water resilience risk to business
- Feb 15
- 2 min read
(by Karma Loveday)
Business leaders should treat water continuity as a board-level operational risk, comparable to energy and IT.
That’s according to Water Direct’s State of UK water resilience 2025-26 report, which mapped indicators showing risk is increasing. These included:
Supply interruptions – Water supply interruptions are worsening year-on-year at the sector level, and are still materially above the five minute regulatory performance expectation.
Capacity loss – The average daily outage in England in 2024/25 was reported at ~518 million litres/day.
Drinking water quality events – notifications are trending up. The DWI recorded 556 events in 2024, compared to 533 in 2023.
Weather volatility – is translating into real-world disruption. Freeze/thaw events, storms and drought conditions are increasing operational strain and the likelihood of supply interruptions.
Asset failures – 45,383 mains repairs took place in England and Wales between April 2024 and March 2025 — with burst pipes the most common cause of loss of supply.
Leakage – around 19% of water entering distribution is still being lost to leakage before it reaches properties.
Long-term supply gap – England faces a potential ~5 billion litres/day public water supply shortfall by 2055 without urgent action.
Water Direct said research showed 46% of larger companies and 39% of small and medium sized enterprises faced a water disruption in the 12 month period, but many lack tested contingency arrangements.
For many sites, a single day of disruption can exceed the annual cost of preparedness. For example, data centres can reportedly lose between £5,000 and £7,000 a minute during an outage. Large scale manufacturers such as food, pharma and chemicals companies risk £100,000–£200,000 a day in lost output. Moreover, losses are not automatically recoverable as insurance may only respond where specific cover applies (and terms/ limits are met).
The report urged businesses to plan for a tighter operating environment — where continuity planning and assured contingency options become essential to protect operations and enable growth.
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