Trainee Water Treatment Engineer

Location

Based at Allerton Bywater, on customer sites across the UK

Hours

Full time and permanent, 37.5 hours a week

Salary

From £22,000 a year to start, plus overtime

Suits

A qualified or nearly qualified plumber

• Full training given
• Some nights away
• Driving licence needed

You take the plumbing skills you already have and build them into a career in industrial water treatment, learning on the job alongside our experienced engineers.

This is a hands-on job, mostly on customer sites across the UK, including some nights away. You will be working in plant rooms and on factory floors rather than in people’s kitchens. If you enjoy working with your hands and like understanding how things work, read on.

About Excel Water

Excel Water designs, builds, installs and services water treatment systems for industry. If a factory needs its water softened, purified or recycled before it can make food, medicine, beer or aircraft parts, that is us.

We have been doing it for over 30 years. Our customers are chemical plants, food and drink manufacturers, pharmaceutical sites, engineering firms and heavy industry across the UK. We are a small team, we are growing, and everybody here can see the difference their own work makes.

We want to grow our engineering team by training somebody our way. We are looking for a plumber who wants to become an engineer.

What you will actually be doing

Most of your time: on site with our engineers

• Installing and modifying industrial pipework.
• Installing water treatment equipment, then commissioning it so it runs as it should.
• Servicing and maintaining equipment on a planned schedule, so problems are caught before they stop a customer’s production.
• Working with the pumps, valves and controls that keep it all running.
• Taking water samples and testing them.
• Finding faults and working out how to fix them.
• Completing a service report for every visit, so the customer and our office know exactly what was done.

The equipment you will work on

• Reverse osmosis systems
• Water softeners
• Filtration and UV systems
• Demineralisation equipment
• Pumps, booster sets, valves and controls

Most of it you will not have come across in a standard plumbing job.

How you will learn

• You start by working alongside our experienced engineers, learning the fundamentals on real jobs.
• You get practical training on every system we install, plus water-quality testing, fault finding, installation, commissioning and industrial pipework.
• You take on more responsibility, and jobs on your own, as your skills and confidence grow.

The aim is to turn you from a trainee into an engineer who can confidently install, service, commission and fault-find water treatment equipment. Your salary and responsibilities grow alongside your skills.

What we are looking for

The things that matter

• You have completed, or are close to completing, a plumbing course or apprenticeship.
• You have some practical plumbing experience, and you know your way around pipework, fittings and valves.
• You enjoy working with your hands, and you take pride in doing a job properly.
• You have a good eye for detail. On an industrial site, small mistakes get expensive.
• You want to learn, and you ask when you do not know something.
• You can talk to customers clearly and politely, and you work well as part of a team.
• You are happy to spend some nights away from home when a job needs it.
• You are reliable and you turn up.
• You have a full UK driving licence, or you are working towards one.

The things that do not matter

• Experience in water treatment. Almost nobody has it. We will teach you.
• Years on the tools. Recently qualified is fine.
• Knowing the jargon. Reverse osmosis and demineralisation sound complicated, but they make sense quickly once you see them working.

If your plumbing so far has been domestic, heating or bathroom work, that is exactly the grounding we want to build on, and we would like to hear from you.

What you get

• From £22,000 a year to start, rising as your skills and responsibilities grow.
• Overtime when it is available.
• 20 days holiday plus bank holidays.
• Pension, death in service cover and private medical cover after probation.
• A training budget of £750 a year for outside courses and qualifications, and the time to use it.
• Proper training from engineers who have been in this industry a long time, and who will actually answer your questions.
• Hands-on experience across a wide range of industries and specialist equipment.
• A permanent, full-time job that is meant to be the start of a career, not just another job.