Why Water Continuity Must Move to the Board Agenda
State of UK Water Resilience 2025–26:
At the Economist Impact Water Summit in London, Water Direct launched its latest industry report: State of UK Water Resilience 2025–26
The message is clear: water resilience is no longer a sustainability sidebar — it is a core operational risk.
The UK water system is facing a number of challenges
The report brings together regulatory data, industry indicators and Water Direct’s own research to assess the state of water resilience across the UK.
The findings are stark:
• Average daily outage in England (2024–25): ~518 million litres per day
• 45,383 mains repairs recorded in England and Wales (Apr 2024–Mar 2025)
• 19% of water entering distribution is lost to leakage
• 556 drinking water quality events recorded in 2024, up from 533 in 2023
• A projected ~5 billion litres/day supply shortfall by 2055 without urgent
intervention
Ageing infrastructure, demand growth, climate volatility and tighter regulation are the main issues. When they overlap, disruption risk increases significantly.
Why this matters commerciallyWater continuity is often assumed — until it fails.
The report shows that the largest costs are rarely the water itself. They are the knock–on impacts:
• Operational downtime
• Compliance exposure
• Restart and validation time
• SLA penalties
• Reputational damage
For many sites, a single day of disruption can exceed the annual cost of preparedness:
• Data centres can lose £5,000–£7,000 per minute during an outage
• Manufacturing (food/pharma/chemicals): £100,000–£200,000 per day in lost output
• Manufacturing (food/pharma/chemicals): £100,000–£200,000 per day in lost output
Many businesses remain exposed
Research referenced in the report shows 46% of larger companies and 39% of SMEs have faced a water disruption within a 12–month period, yet many still rely on informal contingency arrangements.
It’s up to businesses to protect themselves. Insurance may not automatically cover the cost — and even when it does, reputational and operational damage cannot be fully recovered.
The shift leaders must make
The report calls on boards to:
• Treat water as a board–level continuity risk, comparable to power and IT
• Plan against time–to–impact and time–to–recover, not best–case network assumptions
• Move from “having a plan” to being able to mobilise and recover rapidly
Benchmark your readiness to build resilience
The report introduces the Water Resilience Maturity Index (WRMI) — a site–level self–assessment tool that benchmarks readiness across governance, monitoring, alternative supply and mobilisation capability.
It also sets out a clear 180–day resilience roadmap, moving organisations from exposure awareness to tested, assured continuity arrangements.
The bottom line
The UK can no longer take water reliability for granted.
The period from 2025 to 2030 will be pivotal for resilience and supply reform. In a tighter operating environment, continuity planning and assured contingency options will become essential — not optional.
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