CIWEM Conversations: Discussing "squiggly careers" and public service in the water sector

19 April 2026

CIWEM fellow Sarah Mason and graduate member Alex Taylor compare perspectives, in the latest instalment of this interview series

Sarah Mason is a nature-based solutions strategy manager at Yorkshire Water, where she has worked in a broad variety of roles since 2012. Prior to that, Sarah worked within consultancies, including across wastewater and flood risk management. She became a fellow of CIWEM in 2024.

Alex Taylor joined the Environment Agency’s graduate scheme in 2023, having graduated from the University of Bristol in 2022. He is presently the catchment co-ordinator for the Bristol Avon catchment, having previously worked in the Thames area. He joined CIWEM as a graduate member in 2023 and is currently putting together his application for full membership.

Sarah and Alex chatted in December 2025 about career progression, networking and the benefits of having a technical background.

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Sarah Mason: I work for a private company, but I feel like a public servant. I think a lot of people in the water industry would consider themselves in service to the customers and the natural environment. The water industry doesn't have a good reputation at the moment, but some of the best people I've ever met work in the water industry: really passionate, talented people, completely driven by impact.

What the water sector offers is belonging. Yorkshire Water feels like a home but I’m sure I would feel the same at the Environment Agency (EA) or elsewhere in the sector. There's a common goal of creating good in the world.

Alex Taylor: After studying environmental geoscience at university I was looking around, trying to figure out what to do for a career. I knew it needed to be nature-related, but didn't really have any firm ideas. I managed to get a place in the first cohort of the Environment Agency’s environment and science graduate training scheme, which I'm really happy about.

I felt quite strongly that I wanted one of the few roles that involve rotating around different teams. I started in the Thames Environment Programme team, covered the Kennet catchment co-ordinator role for about six months, and I'm now doing the same thing on an assignment in the Bristol Avon catchment. I landed in the right spot.

SM: Within the water sector, and for me at Yorkshire Water specifically, we're really lucky that we can move around. It sounds similar to what you’re doing in that there are lots of roles, lots of opportunities. Careers are a marathon, not a sprint. We're all going to be working for a really long time. If you choose to progress upwards, to more senior roles, then having really strong foundations makes that progression so much more sustainable, because you're more adaptable. You've got a much wider skill set to be able to take on different challenges.

I've always really strived in my career to maintain flexibility. I don't want to feel trapped anywhere, and having a broad skill set, a really broad understanding of whole businesses, helps with that. It feels more sustainable for your wellbeing as well, because you move up when you're ready rather than rushing.

Don't look around at your peers who are moving up. Just focus on your skill set and run your own race. Networking is so important: get the mentors, get the relationships and your career progression will feel sustainable. Squiggly careers are fine. I've taken pay cuts to move sectors, because I felt like it would overall give me more learning and put me in a better position. You don't do that lightly, but you need to stay openminded about what a career looks like. There are no rules.

AT: That’s advice I've heard before: don't be afraid to take a sideways step. If anything, rotating around different roles at the EA felt to me like quite a good way of getting that learning for free, really.

SM: Absolutely. And having a technical discipline – I studied geology and then a master's in catchment dynamics and management – makes it easier to transfer, because you understand how other technical disciplines might be approached. It teaches you about how design monitoring processes work, which you can then transfer to other areas. We think of business management skills being transferable; your technical skills can be transferable as well. I really value that. Having a technical background in something doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.

AT: You keep learning. That’s a key point. I really enjoy learning. So yes, I have that background, but I also really enjoy taking on new information, be that technical or otherwise. In my current job, you don't strictly need to have a technical background: for a lot of it you can rely on internal colleagues and external partners to provide that technical background. But from my perspective, if you're on site with lots of partners from a catchment partnership, technical specialists from within the EA, it really helps to be able to speak the same language. It makes the job a lot easier to do. Otherwise, you'd be scrambling a little bit, I think. So I've found that really valuable.

SM: I've always liked learning and I've always planned my career: I've not waited for somebody else to make suggestions. That's the power of networking, right? If you can network, you can see all the other roles, see what other people are doing, then you get exposure to what you might like to do in the future.

I joined CIWEM when I was a fresh graduate with a consultancy that had a structured programme for membership. CIWEM is quite unusual in that it welcomes generalists; it's inclusive. That's really important because I’m not an engineer, I’m not an ecologist. As I've moved through my career, I've maintained CIWEM membership but at different points, I've brought in different organisations too. When I was a programme manager, I was also a member of the Association for Project Management and now I'm also linking into the Institute of Sustainability and Environment Professionals because I have commonality with some of the work that's going on in that world and I want to build my network with more sustainability professionals. But because CIWEM’s so inclusive I've been able to move my career around and still feel like I belong here.

AT: Professional organisations are a sort of marketplace for ideas, aren’t they, as well as a way of making contacts. That can be quite a good way of getting things done, along with building your network internally.

SM: Especially now that there’s so much available online. I came back to work after two maternity leaves after Covid had finished, and I feel so much more included now that we have these online communities. In person events are well worth doing to make the connections, but in a lot of ways it's more inclusive now.

AT: I'm somebody who enjoys the in-person aspect of things as well. It's made easy because I live within walking distance of my office but I completely understandable that it's not easy for everyone. Post-Covid is all I’ve ever really known in a professional setting. It's hard to imagine what it was like before.

SM: I had a desk, and my computer stayed on my desk. I never carried a laptop anywhere. It feels like another world now. It doesn't really make sense what we used to do before, but we now have a cultural divide of the early career professionals wanting to be in the office because you learn so much by osmosis, and the later career professionals who don't necessarily want that. They're quite happy with their home office setups. I've got two kids. It's much easier for me to be at home. How do we make it work for everyone and make sure that everyone's getting those opportunities?

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Learn more about water sector skills opportunities in CIWEM’s Your Future report. Learn more about the benefits of CIWEM membership here.

This article originally ran in the Spring 2026 print issue of The Environment magazine. Become a member of CIWEM today to gain access to the quarterly magazine, as well as digital access via MyCIWEM. Non-members can also access the monthly The Environment digital newsletter.

Sarah Mason is a nature-based solutions strategy manager at Yorkshire Water
Alex Taylor is a catchment co-ordinator at the Environment Agency