Water industry overview

Each day the UK water industry collects, treats and then supplies more than 17 billion litres of high quality water to domestic and commercial customers and then collects and treats over 16 billion litres of the resulting wastewaters, returning it safely to the environment.

The industry is made up of 12 water and sewerage service providers and 14 water suppliers. Bristol Water is one of these 14.

In England and Wales the companies are privately owned. Welsh Water, which supplies services in Wales, is a not-for-profit company.

The collection, treatment and distribution of our water all uses physical assets. Reservoirs, mains, sewers and treatment works are the most obvious and represent around three-quarters of all assets. However, companies also need pumps, vehicles, IT, remote monitoring, control systems and other equipment. For example, there are 1399 water treatment works country-wide and over 400,000 km of water pipes.

The water industry’s operations are underpinned by strong regulation that covers all aspects of the industry’s core business – drinking water quality, wastewater quality, environmental improvement and price control.

To find out more about the industry go to Water UK’s waterfacts page http://www.water.org.uk/home/resources-and-links/waterfacts

Water UK represents all UK water and wastewater service suppliers at national and European level.