BT Business secures major contract to enhance CNI for Scottish Water

The new partnership will help Scottish Water to improve visibility across its network, respond more quickly to issues and strengthen the resilience of services relied on by households, businesses and communities nationwide.

Scottish Water is a publicly owned utility responsible for delivering water supply services to circa 2.6 million households and 150,000 business properties, supporting a population of more than five million people across the nation.

The multimillion-pound agreement with BT forms part of a wider £130 million Scottish Water investment programme in networks and security services. It will see BT take end-to-end responsibility for Scottish Water’s extensive connectivity and security estate, spanning both IT and operational technology environments. This includes managing approximately 7,000 network connections across broadband, MPLS, satellite and Internet services alongside a large-scale operational technology network that’s critical to delivering essential water services across Scotland. 

Delivering critical services

Scottish Water’s decision reflects a shift away from a traditional multi-supplier model towards a single and integrated approach, with BT bringing those capabilities together to improve visibility, support faster incident resolution and create a simpler operating model for essential services.

BT’s solution centres on a converged Network Operations Centre and Security Operations Centre, bringing network monitoring and cyber security together into a single, real-time operational model in support of Scottish Water’s long-term digital ambitions.

For customers, this means strengthening the technology that helps to keep essential water services running reliably in the background. By giving Scottish Water better visibility across its infrastructure and the ability to identify and respond to issues more quickly, the partnership will help in reducing delays when resolving faults, strengthen protection for critical systems and support more dependable services for homes, businesses and communities.

Local delivery, national impact

A key element of BT’s successful bid was its strong local presence in Scotland, combined with the organisation’s ability to deliver at national scale. BT will provide a locally based team working closely with Scottish Water, ensuring faster decision-making, stronger collaboration and deeper alignment with the organisation’s operational priorities.

The partnership also includes a commitment to delivering social value across Scotland, with a focus on supporting local employment, skills development and community engagement. Together, these commitments help to show how the programme will benefit people and places across Scotland, not just the technology estate behind the scenes.

As Scottish Water continues to deliver its long-term vision for a resilient, sustainable and innovative water sector that contributes towards Scotland’s journey towards ‘Net Zero’, the partnership with BT provides a flexible foundation that can evolve alongside these ambitions.

Important step forward 

Chris Toop (pictured, above left), Scottish Water’s director of digital and innovation, said: “This strategic partnership between Scottish Water and BT is an important step forward in our digital journey. By working with BT, we are strengthening the technology foundations that support every part of our business.”

Toop added: “Together, we’ll deliver more resilient, secure and efficient digital services that enable us to better serve our customers, support our colleagues and meet the challenges of the future.”

Ishbell MacPhail (pictured, above right), head of BT Business in Scotland, responded: “We’re proud to be working with Scottish Water to help keep essential water services running smoothly for millions of people across Scotland. By bringing together BT’s nationwide network, security expertise and local Scottish teams, we’ll help make the services people rely on every day to be more resilient, responsive and ready for the future. It’s about using technology to support better and more dependable services for homes, businesses and communities across Scotland.”

*Further information is available online at www.bt.com