Affordability and Vulnerability Manager

Do you believe great performance starts with putting people first? At Thames Water, compassion, fairness, and positive impact matter just as much as results. We’re looking for an Affordability and Vulnerability Manager to lead our Financial Customer Care team, someone who can inspire high performance while ensuring customers who need us most receive the support they deserve.

In this role, you’ll lead a large, diverse team across both onshore and offshore partners, creating an environment where colleagues feel valued, supported, and empowered. You’ll drive ambitious performance and service KPIs, always keeping customer outcomes, wellbeing, and a thriving team culture at the heart of your work.

What you’ll be doing as our Affordability and Vulnerability Manager:

• Leading and supporting a large multi‑site team, driving high performance, engagement, and exceptional customer experience.
• Owning and delivering Thames Water’s affordability strategy, ensuring it meets customer needs and business goals.
• Monitoring and improving end‑to‑end customer journeys to deliver better outcomes for vulnerable and financially challenged customers.
• Driving operational excellence through KPI oversight, governance, and effective utilisation of cross‑subsidy mechanisms.
• Building strong partnerships with senior stakeholders, cross‑functional teams, charities, community partners, housing associations, and other external groups.
• Identifying trends, gaps, and training needs across Extra Care and Collections teams, ensuring continuous improvement.
• Influencing and shaping the wider change roadmap to create seamless, future‑ready customer experiences.
• Ensuring documentation, governance, and regulatory requirements related to vulnerability services are fully met.
• Using data and insight to support decision‑making, reporting, and service development.
• Proactively identifying risks and putting robust controls and mitigations in place.

Location: Hybrid - Walnut Court - SN2 8BN (Two days in the office per week)

Hours: 36 hours per week

What you should bring to the role:

• Strong, confident leadership experience in a large, diverse operational environment.
• Ability to drive performance through inspirational leadership, coaching, and people development.
• Experience supporting financially vulnerable customers or delivering affordability/vulnerability programmes (desirable).
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and collaborate effectively across the business.
• Proven change leadership capability—comfortable navigating complexity and driving transformation.
• Strong data literacy and the ability to interpret insight, identify trends, and turn findings into action.
• A process‑driven, continuous improvement mindset.
• Understanding of regulatory expectations relating to vulnerability (or willingness to build expertise).
• Ability to build positive relationships with external partners and support agencies.
• Resilience, adaptability, and a genuine passion for delivering fair outcomes for customers.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary: £55,000–£65,000 per annum, depending on skills and experience.
• Car allowance.
• Annual bonus.
• 26 days of holiday, rising to 30 with service. (plus bank holidays)
• Private medical healthcare.
• Performance‑related pay plan linked to company targets.
• A wide range of benefits supporting your health, wellbeing, and finances including annual health MOTs, physiotherapy, counselling, Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers, and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else just let us know, we’re here to help and support.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

Disclaimer: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.