Scottish Water has announced the preferred bidders for partner companies it will work with to transform the country’s public assets to keep taps flowing and protect the environment.

Firms were invited to bid to be involved in a ground-breaking enterprise-style approach to enhancing Scotland’s water and waste water infrastructure over the period 2027 to 2033, with a potential extension for another six years.

Following the largest procurement ever undertaken by Scottish Water, the publicly-owned utility has announced that the preferred bidders are:

• Stantec as a primary designer
• AECOM as a primary designer
• M Group Water as an asset delivery partner
• Mott MacDonald Bentley as an asset delivery partner
• Farrans as an asset delivery partner
• WGM Engineering as an asset delivery partner
• Ross-Shire Engineering as an asset delivery partner

Director of capital investment, Rob Mustard, said: “The enterprise is the most significant programme of investment and way of working we have ever implemented. It supports our goals of financial sustainability, customer and service excellence, and going beyond net zero, all while contributing to a flourishing Scotland.

“Primary designers will be accountable for design across the enterprise, ensuring that our designs deliver our outcomes, and asset delivery partners will drive programme and project delivery, ensuring successful execution of capital works in line with those outcomes.

“Once the legalities are completed, we see these organisations working with Scottish Water to form our eEnterprise, delivering a third of SR27 investments for our customers.”

AECOM has been named as one of two primary designers for the enterprise, accountable for design across the investment program and ensuring effective and efficient delivery outcomes. 

“Being selected as a preferred bidder for Scottish Water’s ambitious investment program builds on our long-standing partnership and reinforces AECOM’s role as a trusted advisor and delivery partner to the UK water sector,” said Richard Whitehead, chief executive of AECOM’s Europe and India region. “This innovative enterprise-style delivery model sets a new benchmark for the industry, fostering collaboration, delivering efficiencies, and bringing additional value through our deep technical expertise and engineering-led AI capabilities to increase certainty across complex capital programs.”

The procurement process started on November 25, 2024, and is expected to be fully completed by March 2026.