Water and wastewater executive search

Retained search across water and wastewater, from treatment and conveyance through utility operations and water resources. Operational, technical and commercial leadership, from vice president to C‑suite.

Key roles we place ↓

Overview

What we do in water and wastewater

Metric Geo places senior and executive leaders across water and wastewater, covering treatment plant design and construction, conveyance and collection systems, utility operations and water resources. The work covers contractors, consulting engineers and the utilities themselves. Searches are retained and run from vice president through C-suite.

Water hires move more slowly than the rest of infrastructure and that is worth knowing at the start. Technical leadership in this market tends to stay in one place for a long time, often a whole career, and the people worth approaching are rarely looking. What moves them is usually the scale of the program rather than the package.

Roles

The roles we place in water and wastewater

VP Water Market leadership across water and wastewater delivery.
Project Executive Accountability for treatment plant and conveyance programs.
Director of Process Engineering Treatment process design, startup and commissioning leadership.
Head of Utility Operations Plant, network and compliance leadership for a utility.
VP Sales Municipal and industrial sales leadership for water technology and equipment.
Chief Estimator Bid strategy and pricing across treatment and conveyance.
Director of Construction Field delivery across plant and pipeline programs.
Head of Water Resources Supply planning, modeling and resilience leadership.
Chief Operating Officer Operational leadership across a water business.

+ many others

Within this sector

What water and wastewater covers

Treatment Plants

Drinking water and wastewater treatment design, build and commissioning.

Conveyance & Collection

Pipelines, pump stations and collection systems.

Utility Operations

Plant operations, compliance and asset management for utilities.

Water Resources & Resilience

Supply planning, stormwater and climate resilience leadership.

Market

Hiring in water and wastewater right now

Aging assets and tightening regulation have put water back near the top of the infrastructure agenda, and the capital programs that follow run long. Utilities and contractors are hiring for work that lasts a decade, which changes what they look for. Stability counts here in a way it does not on a two year build.

Progressive design build and CMAR have spread quickly in this market, and the leaders who have delivered under those models are the ones being chased. Plenty of people have run hard bid treatment work. Far fewer have sat on the collaborative side of a contract and made it work.

The other constraint is simply age. A large part of the senior technical leadership in water is close to retirement and the succession behind it is thin. Companies that are not already developing or hiring the next layer will be doing it under pressure within a few years.

Common questions

Water hiring questions

The questions clients ask most often before briefing a water search.

How long does a water leadership search take?

We work to seven days to a shortlist on most briefs. How long the search takes after that depends on the role and on notice periods, so we set out a realistic timeline with you at the start.

Do you work retained or contingent?

Retained. Our water consultants have spent years building relationships in this market, so most shortlists start from people we already know, and talent mapping, backed by our marketing reach, covers the rest of the market so nobody credible gets missed. Retained is what lets us give that kind of time to one brief.

Do you place below vice president?

Our focus is vice president and above, but we do take on director and senior manager searches where the role is critical, such as a director of process engineering on a treatment build, or a head of plant operations at a utility. What matters is whether it is a hire you cannot afford to get wrong.

Do you work with utilities as well as contractors?

Yes, and the two hire very differently. A contractor is usually hiring against a live program and can move quickly. A utility is hiring into a structure, often with a public appointment process behind it, and that takes longer. We would set expectations differently from the start depending on which one you are.

Sector specialists

Water & wastewater team

Brett Sandler

Head of Water

Connor Jennings

Group Business Manager

Jade Trejo

Business Development Lead

Meet the team →

Let's build together

Ready to brief us on a water and wastewater search?

Tell us about the role and we'll give you a clear read on the market, the people worth speaking to and how quickly we can move.