By Shelley Copsey, CEO, FYLD
As Britain braces for another summer of hosepipe bans, the real challenge facing our industry is not public compliance but operational resilience. Every day, nearly 3 billion litres of clean, treated water escape through leaks in our networks. That’s more than the daily consumption of the very households now being asked to cut back. This isn’t just a matter of headlines – it’s a strategic opportunity to lead on sustainability, efficiency, and trust.
A turning point in an evolving landscape
The pressures on water utilities are immense: climate change, rising demand, and heightened customer expectations. We all know the age of the UK’s infrastructure. CEOs of water companies are navigating one of the toughest leadership challenges in infrastructure today. Yet, leakage remains a stubborn drag on performance – often managed with outdated, reactive approaches that no longer match the urgency of the moment.
Crews are still deployed after delays. Data too often lags weeks behind events. Coordination is patchy, making fast, efficient responses difficult. None of this is due to lack of effort; rather, it’s the weight of legacy processes in a world that now demands real-time intelligence.
The result is costly, both in lost water and in public trust. Fewer than 1 in 4 people in the UK believe their water company acts in the environment’s best interest. This trust gap is not insurmountable and often unfair, but it will take visible progress to close it.
Leakage as a signal of wider risk
Leakage is not just about water loss. It’s a proxy for operational risk: fragmented field processes, delayed decision-making, and limited visibility into high-risk infrastructure.
The truth is, leak repairs are complex. Crews often work in remote or low-connectivity areas, under tough conditions and tight timelines. Site surveys often miss key challenges field workers will find on site. Managers, meanwhile, need faster situational awareness to guide decisions before small issues escalate into costly interventions.
This isn’t failure, it’s a call to modernise. And the companies that rise to the challenge will strengthen their resilience, reduce risk, and rebuild confidence with regulators and the communities they serve.
Leading with field intelligence
Encouragingly, many utilities are already showing the way forward. By embedding real-time visibility, adaptive workflows, and predictive risk detection, they are proving that leakage can be reduced quickly and measurably.
The results speak volumes, and I congratulate some of the utilities FYLD has partnered with to solve these challenges, including Southern Water, Yorkshire Water, and Wessex Water, along with key supply chain partners such as M Group. The outcomes FYLD’s market-leading frontline intelligence platform has enabled include:
- 1.4-day reduction in average leak runtime, a 35% improvement over industry norms.
- 730 million litres of water saved in a year thanks to faster interventions and fewer aborted jobs.
- 34% fewer pollution incidents through better coordination and quicker action.
These are not marginal wins. They demonstrate what happens when leadership embraces intelligence over assumption. When pilotitis is parked, and real transformation takes place.
A strategic reset, not a tech quick fix
Addressing leakage isn’t about bolting on new hardware. It’s about shifting to a connected, intelligent operating model where data flows seamlessly, decisions happen with full context, and risks are surfaced before they snowball.
This is the path from firefighting to foresight. From defensive explanations to proactive delivery. From strained public trust to renewed confidence in a sector that is, ultimately, essential to our communities and our future.
Water companies are operating under extraordinary pressure. But within that pressure lies the opportunity to set a new standard – one that proves the sector is serious about performance, the environment, and the public it serves.
