RSE Driving Digital Transformation Across the UK Water Sector

RSE is helping reshape the future of UK water infrastructure by applying advanced manufacturing principles, as investment across the water industry is set to increase dramatically over the next five years. As a result, RSE is scaling its digital capabilities to deliver projects faster, more efficiently, and with greater certainty for clients.

RSE specialises in water treatment solutions, and our approach combines off-site modular manufacturing, standardised design, and digital delivery to reduce project timelines by up to 50% compared with traditional construction methods.

“The biggest challenge facing the sector is the sheer volume of investment coming. We’re looking at doubling or even tripling delivery rates in a relatively short period of time. Traditional methods alone won’t achieve that.”

Kes Juskowiak, RSE Operations Director, said:

To meet that challenge, RSE has focused on streamlining how information moves across projects, from design teams to fabrication workshops and client stakeholders. Central to that strategy has been the adoption of Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC), initially introduced during a project for South Staffordshire Water at Hampton Loade Water Treatment Works, where BIM-compliant delivery within a common data environment was a core requirement.

“At that stage, we didn’t yet have a common data environment in place. We reviewed our existing toolset and identified ACC as the right platform to support where we wanted to go.”

Jill Joiner, RSE Head of Digital, explains:

Because RSE already utilised Autodesk solutions within its manufacturing operations, integrating ACC was a natural progression. What began with 25 licences quickly expanded as teams across the business embraced the platform. Today, nearly 600 users across RSE work within ACC, with project adoption increasing more than tenfold over the past year.

The impact has been significant. Teams can now collaborate directly within shared models, eliminating many of the communication barriers and version-control issues that traditionally slow delivery.

“Our modular delivery model means design and manufacturing happen simultaneously. The workshop floor and design office effectively operate as one team. ACC allows everyone to work from the same model in real time.

That collaborative approach extended to clients as well. During the Hampton Loade project, South Staffordshire Water was given direct access to the digital environment, enabling greater transparency throughout the delivery process.

It created a far more open and trusted way of working. Everyone could see the latest information, engage with changes as they happened, and work from a fully auditable revision history.”

Cameron MacDonald, RSE Design and Digital Manager, added:

One of the most transformative tools has been ACC’s Issues module, which replaced fragmented communication methods such as email chains and messaging apps with a centralised workflow.

“We’ve always been collaborative as a business. What we lacked was a single connected channel. The Issues tool gives everyone, designers, engineers and site teams, a direct route to communicate and track progress in one place.”

Ewa Burnatowska, RSE BIM Lead, said:

RSE has also leveraged ACC’s open API capabilities to automate key compliance and data management processes. By developing a custom compliance checker and integrating ACC directly with internal ERP systems, the company reduced manual administrative effort by 80% while increasing client compliance rates from 70% to 99%.

Beyond operational efficiency, digitisation is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for working within the water sector. Information security, BIM compliance, and standardised data delivery are now essential requirements for suppliers seeking access to major frameworks and infrastructure programmes.

RSE continues to work closely with Autodesk partner Man and Machine to ensure the platform evolves alongside the needs of the water industry.

“RSE are operating at the frontier of what the platform currently offers. Their deployment is increasingly becoming a reference point for other organisations considering the same journey.”

Nathan Brownsword, Sales and Marketing Director at Man and Machine, added:

Looking ahead, RSE’s focus is not simply on deploying software, but on embedding digital delivery as standard practice across every project and every stage of the asset lifecycle.

From a single contract deployment to a nationwide digital ecosystem supporting hundreds of users, RSE’s growth reflects the same philosophy that underpins its engineering model: take proven solutions, scale them intelligently, and continuously raise the standard.