Digital Water: Where Investments Are Going

Why Talent Matters Amidst the Digital Water Transformation

Even with the promise of smarter, more efficient water systems, digital transformation in the water sector isn’t without significant challenges. Utilities and industrial operators are navigating tight budgets, ageing infrastructure, cybersecurity concerns, and a glaring skills gap in technology and operational know-how. Despite these headwinds, investments in digital water – from advanced metering to predictive analytics – continue to accelerate globally, driven by the need for operational resilience, sustainability, and improved service quality.

The good news? There’s a strategic path forward – one that combines advanced technology with people who can bridge operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), and deep process knowledge.

The Landscape of Digital Water Investment

Across the globe, water utilities are pouring resources into digital tools that help manage water more intelligently than ever before. According to Emergen Research, smart water infrastructure investment grew significantly in 2023, with smart metering installation increasing 16% year-on-year as utilities seek better real-time consumption insights and anomaly detection. These investments are part of a larger trend toward IoT, AI, cloud platforms, digital twins, and predictive maintenance solutions that promise data-driven decision making at scale.

Similarly, market forecasts indicate that the digital water market could exceed USD 16 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 12% as utilities and industries adopt smart technologies to improve water efficiency and reduce waste.

What Utilities and Industries Are Prioritising

Across water providers, the strategic investment focus is converging around a few key technologies:

• Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI): Smart meters are becoming the backbone of data collection, helping utilities understand consumption patterns, detect leaks, and provide customer insights.
• Predictive Maintenance: Powered by AI and machine learning analytics, predictive tools are enabling utilities to anticipate equipment failures before they occur, reducing downtime and costly reactive repairs.
• Digital Twins: Virtual models of physical assets allow organisations to simulate performance, optimise processes, and plan maintenance more intelligently.
• Cloud-Based SCADA Systems: Cloud-native supervisory control and data acquisition systems provide reliable remote monitoring, scalability, and improved uptime.

Other technologies, including IoT sensors for water quality and pressure monitoring, mobile workforce apps, and analytics platforms, round out this digital portfolio.

These priorities aren’t just futuristic jargon – adoption is happening now. For example, AMI represents over 65% of new meter shipments in Western Europe, and the IoT market for water quality sensors is growing at roughly 12% annually. Predictive maintenance tools are expanding utility asset lifespans by up to 15%, and cloud computing adoption in the water sector is projected to triple between 2020 and 2025.

Benefits and Barriers

The benefits of digital water investments are compelling:

• Operational Efficiency: Reduced manual processes and enhanced automation lead to significant cost savings and reduced downtime.
• Energy and Resource Savings: Analytics and digital control systems can cut energy usage and chemical inputs while tightening supply reliability.
• Improved Customer Service: Real-time data enables more accurate billing, quicker response to outages, and better communication.
• Environmental Gains: Lower water losses, better quality monitoring, and sustainability reporting help meet regulatory and community expectations.

However, barriers remain. A persistent skills gap – particularly in integrating OT and IT with process engineering – limits the value utilities can extract from these technologies. In fact, data shows that only about 20% of water utilities have fully integrated IT and OT data streams for AI use, and roughly 60% report a lack of skills as a central constraint in AI adoption and advanced analytics deployments.

The Human Factor: Why Skills Matter

Technology alone doesn’t solve operational challenges – people do. Without professionals who understand both the physical realities of water systems and the digital tools used to manage them, investments may underperform or fail to deliver expected returns. Translating sensor data into actionable insights requires cross-disciplinary fluency: understanding network hydraulics while managing cloud platforms and cybersecurity risks.

This is precisely where a specialist recruitment agency can play a pivotal role.

How Specialist Recruitment Fits into the Solution

1. Access to Hybrid Talent: Specialist agencies cultivate networks of professionals with blended OT, IT, and water process expertise – profiles that can be difficult to source via general hiring channels.
2. Faster Time to Value: By identifying candidates with the right mix of technical and domain knowledge, agencies help utilities and industrial operators minimise the learning curve and realise ROI sooner.
3. Culture and Change Management: Skilled professionals don’t just operate technology – they help embed digital practices into organisational workflows, accelerating adoption and driving innovation.
4. Future-Proofing Workforce Strategy: Agencies can forecast talent needs, support reskilling initiatives, and build teams capable of adapting as digital water technologies evolve.

Digital Water’s Future

Digital water is no longer a buzzword – it’s a strategic imperative for utilities and industrial players facing tighter regulations, ageing infrastructure, and rising customer expectations. Investments in AMI, predictive maintenance, digital twins, and cloud-based SCADA are reshaping how water is managed, conserved, and delivered.

Yet technology without talent is like a dam with no spillway: the potential is there, but the flow isn’t optimised. That’s why building teams with the right hybrid skill sets – and partnering with specialist recruitment agencies to find them – is an essential part of making digital water investments pay off.

In a sector where every drop counts, the right people make all the difference.

By Bradie Perkins, Principal Consultant, Skills Alliance