A turning point for water – what the Cunliffe Review means for tech and resilience in the sector

The Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, released its landmark final report in July 2025 – a comprehensive and uncompromising vision for a reset of the UK water sector. Following extensive consultation, including thousands of responses to its call for evidence, the report sets out 88 recommendations across strategic planning, regulation, infrastructure, company governance, and environmental performance.

Taken together, the recommendations amount to a once-in-a-generation overhaul, not just a technical reform but a political and infrastructural reckoning for this sector. For the tech sector, this presents both a challenge and a strategic opportunity to help redesign and future-proof this essential national infrastructure.

While a full analysis of the 460-page report is beyond the scope of this piece and our work at techUK, three overarching themes have stood out to us, these being: systems thinking, regulatory transformation and the strategic deployment of innovation and digital tools.

From fragmentation to systems thinking

The Commission diagnoses a water system in England and Wales beset by fragmentation, short-termism, and regulatory silos. There is no coherent long-term strategy; regulatory duties are spread across multiple bodies; and planning is disjointed, often excluding agriculture, local authorities, and consumers.

The proposed response is structural. New national strategies should provide long-term vision and cross-sectoral coordination. New regional water system planners should be empowered to lead delivery through catchment-based collaboration and local engagement. This mirrors approaches now being adopted across energy, climate, and transport and reinforces our repeated calls at techUK for integrated infrastructure strategies that embrace digital and data-led delivery.

At the centre of translating these priorities into action will be the aforementioned regional water system planners (and one national planner in Wales). In order to deliver on this promise of a

more systems-based governance, these regional planners will need far better access to high-quality data, integrated platforms, predictive modelling and a move towards interoperable standards. This will help to ensure authorities have access to the innovation capacity and tools needed to drive smarter planning from day one.

The Commission’s recommendations also underscore a broader truth: water is national critical infrastructure, and must be treated as such in infrastructure and resilience planning. As the UK accelerates delivery of new housing, energy systems, digital networks and climate adaptation plans, the water sector must be fully integrated into national and regional infrastructure strategies. Catchment-based planning must sit alongside spatial planning, and digital infrastructure must underpin both.

Resilience as a core infrastructure obligation

Adaptation and resilience are no longer optional. The Commission is blunt: there is a 1 in 4 chance of large-scale water outages in England due to severe drought. Infrastructure is ageing, under-monitored, and poorly maintained. Flooding, abstraction pressures, pollution, and growing demand all compound the risks. The failure to grapple with these issues effectively has also helped to degrade both public trust and ecological health across the country.

The report highlights the need to scale up digital monitoring for real-time visibility into water quality, flow, and asset health. It also recommends using AI and automation to support better decision-making and reduce human error, alongside third-party assurance and transparency tools to rebuild public trust. Underpinning all of this is a call for common digital frameworks and standards to ensure interoperability across regulators, planners, and infrastructure owners.

Innovation and digitalisation in the sector

The Commission recognises that the current regulatory framework too often stifles innovation, due to rigid processes, inconsistent incentives, and lack of clarity around funding for experimental technologies.

In particular, smart metering deserves urgent attention. The Commission highlights smart meters as a core enabler of demand reduction and improved network management, yet progress remains slow and fragmented across the UK. A national strategy to accelerate smart meter deployment, aligned with digital standards and supported by targeted incentives, would unlock significant environmental, operational, and customer benefits.

Crucially, this innovation agenda is framed within a rebalanced regulatory model. Regulators will shift from strict compliance enforcement to a “supervisory approach” that encourages outcome-focused delivery and flexibility; provided safeguards are in place. This opens the door to experimentation and localised solutions while maintaining accountability.

As government considers the creation of a new integrated regulator, techUK believes this should be a digital-first institution from the outset – one that embeds digital capability into its operating model, workforce, and regulatory frameworks. This means not only using digital tools to monitor, enforce, and assess performance, but also enabling innovation through open data, digital sandboxes, and outcome-based regulation. If done well, this could serve as a model for modern regulation across other sectors of critical infrastructure.

techUK sees this as a defining moment for embedding digital innovation across the water sector. Water has historically lagged behind other sectors in digital maturity, despite its foundational role in public health, environmental protection, and national infrastructure. The Commission’s report provides a framework to change that – and we intend to seize the moment.

We will use our newly launched Water Digitalisation Working Group to convene tech and water sector leaders around:

In parallel, our Climate Resilience Taskforce will engage with the regional planning and resilience agenda to ensure digital tools are embedded in how we prepare for floods, droughts, and infrastructure shocks – especially as part of cross-sector efforts spanning energy, transport, housing and digital connectivity.

What’s next?

Over the coming months, via these member forums, techUK will meet with representatives from Defra, the regulators, regional authorities and industry stakeholders to help devise forward-thinking digital solutions and further ideas as the Government grapples with the Commission's recommendations.

This is a unique moment to put digital technology and cross-sector systems thinking at the heart of water reform. We invite our members, partners, and the broader infrastructure community to engage with us as we shape a more resilient and digitally-enabled future for UK water.

Climate, Environment and Sustainability Programme activities

The techUK Climate Programme provides opportunities for members to present tech solutions that assist carbon emission reduction, circularity, and human rights goals. We also help our members with their own net zero transition, including measurement, implementation, compliance, and reporting. Visit the programme page here.