Working Supervisor / Ganger
Lead the daily organisation, safety and quality of a Thames Water clean-water civils team — planning, setting out and supervising excavation and pipe-laying.
Location
Thames Water clean-water sites — projects primarily within about an hour of Purton, Swindon
Experience
5+ years' relevant civil or water-industry experience, including 2+ years supervising excavation and pipe-laying teams
You'll be responsible for the daily organisation, coordination, safety, quality and productivity of the team — a practical, hands-on supervisor role covering planning, setting out, reading drawings, controlling deep excavations, coordinating lifting operations, briefing the workforce and keeping site records.
What we're looking for
- Experience supervising deep excavation and water-main installation teams
- Planning the sequence of excavation, shoring, pipe installation, chamber construction and backfilling
- Understanding temporary-works drawings and installation sequences
- Recognising ground conditions, water ingress and other factors that could affect excavation stability
- Setting out pipe routes, chamber positions, formation levels and gradients
- Reading civil, structural, mechanical and pipework drawings
- Coordinating plant, labour, deliveries, concrete and lifting activities
Your day-to-day duties
- Review drawings, RAMS, permits and temporary-works designs before work starts
- Deliver daily briefings and toolbox talks, allocating duties to each team member's competence
- Set out the work and confirm excavation lines, widths, levels and gradients
- Control the permit-to-dig process and confirm services have been located before mechanical excavation
- Arrange and record excavation inspections — at the start of each shift, before re-entry, and after any event that could affect stability
- Coordinate lifting operations and confirm the approved lift plan is followed
- Check pipe bedding, alignment, gradient, jointing and restraint
- Coordinate pressure testing, chlorination, flushing and commissioning support
- Complete site diaries, inspection records and progress photographs
Essential qualifications & tickets
- CITB SSSTS or an equivalent recognised supervisor safety qualification
- An appropriate role-based Supervisor card
- Formal excavation-safety and competent-person inspection training
- Emergency First Aid at Work, subject to the project's first-aid assessment
- Full UK driving licence, where travel between sites is required
Useful to have
- CITB SMSTS
- NVQ Level 3/4 in Occupational Work Supervision, Construction Site Supervision or a relevant civil-engineering discipline
- CSCS Gold Supervisor card
- Temporary Works Supervisor training
- CPCS/NPORS Slinger/Signaller or Crane/Lifting Operations Supervisor
- Water Main Layer or Network Construction Operations qualification
This role is part of a 3-person team — see the full project overview and the other roles.