Thames Water is the largest water and wastewater services provider in the United Kingdom, supplying millions of households and businesses across London and the Thames Valley.
Established in 1989 following the privatisation of the UK water industry, the company is responsible for maintaining extensive infrastructure, including reservoirs, treatment plants, and pipelines. Thames Water plays a critical role in public health, environmental management, and sustainable water resource planning.
The requirement
Thames Water approached Provek to assess the current project management capability of their PPM Digital team and subsequently design a tailored training programme that would address identified skills gaps.
The objective was to gain a clear, evidence‑based understanding of existing strengths and development needs, in order to improve overall capability and operational efficiency.
The solution
Thames Water deployed Provek’s Project Management Assessment (PMA) across a cohort of 40 Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, Portfolio Managers, and Programme Managers.
PMA is an online assessment designed to evaluate both project management knowledge and practical experience. Following completion, the data is consolidated to provide independent benchmarking against industry-recognised project management competencies.
Working closely with Thames Water, Provek reviewed the assessment outcomes and delivered structured feedback on the team’s capability strengths, development opportunities, and priority focus areas. These insights informed the design of a tailored learning and development programme aligned with Thames Water’s strategic priorities and digital transformation objectives.
The programme comprised of a series of targeted one-day workshops. The programme focused on key capability areas, including power skills, risk management, planning and estimating, and project monitoring and reporting.
This data-driven approach ensured that learning interventions were highly relevant, practical, and directly aligned to business needs. The modular structure also provided a scalable framework that could be adapted and extended to support capability development across other teams within the organisation.
The benefits
A key strength of the programme was its consistency and alignment with Thames Water’s ways of working.
The one-day courses were carefully tailored to reflect Thames Water terminology, methodology and stage gates, while balancing practical application with established best practice theory. This created a strong foundation for participants to build on, supporting improvements in tools, processes and collaborative working.
The programme also had a positive cultural impact, with participants reporting increased motivation and a stronger sense of being valued by the organisation.
Feedback from participants was highly positive, with many highlighting the opportunity to step away from day-to-day pressures, engage fully with the learning, and reflect on how to enhance their own performance.
