We may have started the year with what felt like record numbers of rainy days, but don’t be fooled, water scarcity is a growing problem for British businesses.
Chris Deadman, managing director at Alpheus.
Research by Alpheus has revealed that access to new water supplies for UK businesses is being restricted by several water companies due to water scarcity, with some imposing a moratorium on non-household connections until the mid-2030s.
Responses to Environmental Information Requests submitted in 2025 have revealed that Essex and Suffolk Water are currently imposing a suspension on new or increased non-domestic connections in the Hartismere water resource zone until 2033. Similarly, Cambridge Water stated that it was unable to facilitate supply requests exceeding 20m3 a day for non-domestic purposes until 2032. Other water companies are imposing similar restrictions.
Additionally, research by Alpheus’s sister company, Wave, and Durham University has revealed that a lack of commercial water availability could stall decarbonisation efforts in the UK’s five largest industrial clusters by as soon as 2030.
The study revealed that in just four years’ time, some UK regions could already be in a water deficit.
The additional water requirements needed for decarbonisation projects in these clusters will be around 860M litres of water per day across the UK by 2050; with the UK already predicted to be in a water shortfall of five billion litres per day by 2055. Unaddressed, this situation could stall a range of key projects from blue and green hydrogen production to CO2 capture – all of which carry significant water demands.
Clearly, water scarcity of this scale poses a significant challenge for businesses, who risk seeing their growth plans curtailed, and for the UK’s net zero aspirations more widely through threats to decarbonisation projects.
However, while water restrictions represent a considerable challenge, they are not insurmountable.
Through adopting a strategic approach which embeds creative water resource solutions early in the infrastructure planning and design phase, businesses can find solutions which ease water scarcity issues. Here, civil engineers have a key role to play.
Tackling water scarcity
With water scarcity issues set to increase further, the importance of developing sophisticated water supply strategies which go beyond assessing pipe capacity will become ever more important.
Nigel Corfield, industrial and commercial customer director at Wave.
National SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) standards already push for surface water management to be considered at the earliest stage of site appraisal, planning and design, so that they can be integrated with a site’s water supply strategy.
This will form part of a larger trend for more work related to water demand to shift into front-end engineering and masterplanning.
This means civil engineers are more likely to be asked, at an earlier stage, to create water strategies which quantify water demand, storage, re-use potential, drainage interactions, resilience under drought and the wider environmental impacts of planned development.
The need for these robust water strategies at concept stage ahead of planning is likely to be most pronounced across industrial and logistics, data, life sciences, food manufacturing and decarbonisation schemes, where water demand is likely to be highest.
This represents an opportunity for civil engineers to grow their portfolio of advisory work, as clients seek creative solutions which support their growth plans without putting unsustainable pressure on water resources.
In particular, we are likely to see increasing demand for water strategy design which prioritises water re-use through rainwater harvesting, greywater use and treated recycled water strategies.
This will especially be the case at sites with high demand for non-potable water needed for irrigation, cooling and washdown processes.
By designing strategies and infrastructure which incorporate these more sustainable and less water resource intensive practices into coherent schemes, civil engineers can add significant value for clients looking to navigate water scarcity pressures and also reduce their environmental footprint more generally.
Reasons for optimism
As water scarcity becomes a more prominent constraint across parts of the UK, it is set to have a growing influence on the civil engineering sector. For developers and operators planning new facility expansions, water can no longer be treated as a downstream utilities issue; it is increasingly a strategic consideration at the design and planning stage.
This creates opportunities for civil engineers to add value earlier in the project lifecycle by helping clients assess water availability, future resilience, drainage interactions and the viability of alternative solutions such as rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse, on-site storage and non-potable water systems.
In this context, the UK’s water scarcity challenge presents the potential for civil engineers to expand their role from delivering infrastructure to shaping more resilient, efficient and future-ready developments.
By Chris Deadman, managing director at Alpheus, and Nigel Corfield, industrial and commercial customer director at Wave.
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