Relationships between UK water companies and their suppliers are improving, according to British Water’s latest industry survey, although progress on innovation remains slow despite the investment demands of AMP8.
The organisation’s 2026 Water & Wastewater Company Performance Survey, published on 22 October, found that the industry-wide score for innovation increased only marginally, from 6.3 to 6.4 out of 10, while collaboration achieved an average score of 7.0.
The annual survey gathers confidential feedback from organisations and individuals across the water and wastewater supply chain, asking respondents to assess companies they have worked with on aspects including procurement, communication, innovation, sustainability and collaboration.
Scottish Water retained first place overall among the 12 companies assessed, achieving the highest scores for both collaboration and innovation. Its collaboration score increased from 8.0 to 8.6.
United Utilities rose from joint third to second place overall, while Anglian Water retained third position. Southern Water recorded the largest improvement, climbing from 11th to seventh place as its overall score increased from 5.9 to 6.7.
The findings also suggest that suppliers are gaining better visibility of future work opportunities as the sector progresses through AMP8, the five-year investment period running from 2025 to 2030.
The industry-wide score for visibility of opportunities increased from 5.8 to 6.2, with particularly marked improvements at Southern Water, United Utilities and South West Water. The score for communication of future plans also rose, from 6.5 to 6.7, with nine of the 12 companies improving.
However, innovation remains one of the lowest-scoring areas. Although the survey recorded improvements or unchanged scores across measures including appetite for innovation, willingness to collaborate on research and testing, and speed of adoption, the overall increase was just 0.1 points.
Lila Thompson, chief executive of British Water, said: “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.”
She added that more work was needed to establish quicker routes for testing and adopting innovations, identifying the sector’s SPRING innovation platform as one means of accelerating deployment.
The findings reflect suppliers’ assessments of their working relationships with water companies, rather than direct measures of project delivery or environmental performance.
The full survey is available from British Water.
