Drainage Operative

Specialist Drainage Operative

Do you take pride in diagnosing and resolving drainage issues right first time?

Are you confident working independently?

Do you enjoy providing excellent customer service when working in and around residents' homes?

Are you skilled at fault-finding, problem-solving, and delivering effective drainage repairs safely and efficiently?

We are a busy Housing service, responsible for repairing and maintaining homes across the city. This role plays a vital part in ensuring residents live in safe, healthy, and well-maintained properties by delivering high-quality drainage repairs, with a strong focus on customer satisfaction.

You will carry out a wide range of specialist drainage investigations, repairs, and reinstatement works, primarily in occupied homes, ensuring work is completed to a high standard and in line with health and safety requirements. Working both independently and as part of a team, you will take ownership of jobs from diagnosis through to completion, aiming to resolve issues on the first visit wherever possible.

You will also be expected to communicate effectively with residents, colleagues, and planning teams, keep accurate records of work, and manage materials, specialist equipment, and vehicle stock responsibly. There will be opportunities to support and mentor apprentices and less experienced operatives, helping them develop their skills and ensuring safe working practices.

Contract type: This role is permanent.

There is full information about the role below and attached but, if you would like an informal discussion, please contact Josh Lee on 07785 432256 or email josh.lee@brighton-hove.gov.uk

About the role

In this role, you will deliver a wide range of specialist drainage repairs, investigations, and reinstatement works across council housing stock, helping to ensure residents live in safe, healthy, and well-maintained homes. Your work will primarily take place within occupied properties and communal areas, where you will investigate drainage issues, diagnose faults, carry out repairs, and restore affected areas with a strong focus on getting things right first time. Day-to-day, you will manage your own workload, travelling between jobs, assessing drainage defects on arrival, and determining the most appropriate repair solution to achieve the best outcome for the resident.

You will work both independently and as part of a wider team, collaborating with other trades, contractors, and support teams to deliver an efficient and responsive drainage service. This includes communicating clearly with residents, keeping them informed throughout repairs, and ensuring a professional and respectful approach when working in and around people's homes. You will also complete risk assessments, maintain accurate records of your work, manage materials and vehicle stock, and follow all health and safety procedures. As a specialist operative, you will be expected to provide support, guidance, and mentoring to general operatives and less experienced colleagues, helping to develop skills and maintain high standards across the service.

The role includes drainage investigations, drain clearance activities, repairs to foul and surface water systems, excavation works, inspection chambers, gullies, and associated reinstatement works such as concrete, paving, pathways, and hard landscaping. You will be responsible for identifying root causes of drainage issues and taking ownership of repairs from investigation through to completion.

We are looking for someone with significant experience in drainage repairs, emergencies and maintenance. You will bring a strong understanding of domestic drainage systems, fault diagnosis, excavation and reinstatement techniques, together with the ability to work safely and effectively with minimal supervision. You should be comfortable using specialist drainage equipment, tools, and digital systems to record your work, and able to work both independently and collaboratively. Strong communication skills are essential, as you will be working with a diverse range of residents and colleagues, often adapting your approach to meet different needs. A good understanding of health and safety is key, along with the ability to plan your work effectively, prioritise emergencies, and meet service deadlines.

We are committed to creating an inclusive service that meets the needs of our diverse communities. You will play an important role in delivering services fairly and respectfully, recognising that every resident's circumstances are different. Our teams actively review how we work to ensure we are accessible and responsive to all, and we encourage feedback from residents to continuously improve our services. We foster a supportive and inclusive working environment where everyone feels valued and able to contribute.

In return, we offer a competitive salary, additional payments for participation in the emergency on-call rota, a company van and fuel paid for business use, generous annual leave, and membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). You will also have access to ongoing training and development opportunities. Working for the council provides a strong sense of purpose, as your work has a direct and meaningful impact on protecting residents' homes and improving communities across the city.

Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, female or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information

Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is term-time only. For part time applicants, where your working week is less than the council’s basic 37 hour week, contracted overtime rated pay will not form part of your working hours. This is because overtime rated pay is payable for hours worked more than the council’s basic 37 hour week. Your starting salary will be pro rata based on the basic annual salary elements of pay between £33,119 to £34,811.

Please note that this post is subject to a Basic Disclosure Criminal Records Check.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.