Trade Union Latest: Scottish Water Statement

UPDATED: Tuesday, 19 May 2025.

Scottish Water issued the following statement after a between Scottish Water and joint trade unions on Friday, 16 May, 2025, where an improved pay offer was proposed.

 A Scottish Water spokesperson said:

"These pay negotiations have been going on for 11 months. In that time, Scottish Water has made seven offers.

"Our new proposal would see an average pay increase of around 7% over two years, comfortably above inflation.

"It would mean, for example, a Treatment Operator on a current salary of £31,205 would move to £33,980 (an increase of almost 9%).

"We have also included a minimum increase in each year, which, when combined, comes to £2,775. This means some employees could see their base salary increase by 11% in that period.

"This is a good deal. It balances rewarding our hard-working people with investing customers’ money sensibly.

"It is now time for the joint trade unions to put the details to their members in a ballot so that our people can get these above-inflation pay increases.

"Our employees have told us that they want this concluded so that they get their pay increases. We believe the offer we have made today can achieve this."  

All Scottish Water employees are also eligible for an annual out-performance bonus and the business recently reduced the working week to 35 hours from 37 hours previously.

During any strike action, contingency plans are in place to enable us to maintain normal services. Our advice to customers is always to report any issues to us as they would in normal circumstances.

Scottish Water’s model of being publicly owned, independently regulated and commercially run has helped it become one of the top performing utilities in the UK, delivering excellent customer satisfaction scores and some of the highest water quality standards in Europe.