We are delighted to announce the return of Thames Water to the Spring Innovation partner community. 

From April 2026 the UK’s largest water company will resume its participation in our essential work driving the delivery of the sector’s biggest challenges and the 2050 Water Innovation Strategy. 

Thames’ decision underscores its belief in the critical importance of industry-wide collaboration in addressing the sector’s most pressing issues. It also reflects recognition of Spring’s growing reputation as a centre of innovation excellence, and our strong momentum. 

As a vocal proponent of technology-led solutions, Thames will acquire valuable access to our rapidly growing catalogue of curated innovation and intelligence. It will also gain connection to an extensive network of peers and suppliers. In turn, we look forward to further enhancing our own understanding of the sector’s challenges and potential solutions, through Thames’ broad sector knowledge and insight. 

Resuming our partnership with Thames, which serves over 16 million customers, will extend tangible, innovation-led benefits to substantially more people. It will also illuminate the unique challenges faced by a provider operating at this scale. 

Since 2021 Spring, alongside the innovation ecosystem, has helped inspire trust in innovation among the UK’s water companies, supporting better-informed decisions, adopting innovation faster, and reducing costly duplication. Alt-P, an Ofwat Innovation Fund project led by United Utilities, is a recent example. By showing that natural coagulants can halve ferric sulphate use while improving solids removal the project has helped generate £5.3m in capital savings while reducing ODI risk. Spring’s role in sharing the innovation knowledge has led to adoption at Southern Water. 

Spring Innovation Managing Director Carly Perry commented: “We are delighted by the return of our valued partner Thames Water and welcome their openness to partner and collaborate to confront the sector’s diverse challenges. We look forward to working together on current and future initiatives that will deliver substantive, measurable impact to water companies and their customers.” 

Phil Higgins, Chief Engineer Thames Water added: “The relationship between Thames Water and Spring represents an incredible opportunity to leverage innovation from across the industry and beyond, to the benefit of our customers, the community, and the environment. Working together with Spring, we hope to achieve a step change in our ability to harness and accelerate innovation in Thames, identify partners and their innovative solutions, and to work closely across the industry to solve large scale challenges that require innovative approaches.”