The UK Hydrology Skills and Satisfaction Survey

The UK’s 25-year Flood Hydrology Roadmap was published in 2022. The Roadmap was developed by the UK hydrology community to identify the areas of greatest need and to deliver actions across four themes: Ways of Working, Data, Methods, and Scientific Understanding. Ways of Working Action W5 aims to build the ‘skills, esteem and value’ of flood hydrology but this is currently not possible as there is no baseline available. To provide a baseline, a UK-wide survey of hydrologists and the users of hydrology was conducted.

The survey was designed after consultation with hydrologists working in academia, consultancies, and other authoritative bodies in the UK. The objective of the survey was to baseline the current number, skills, satisfaction, backgrounds, and diversity of hydrologists practicing in the UK. A further consideration was to understand how prepared hydrology is as a discipline for anticipated changes in methods and skill requirements. The survey covered both low and high flow hydrology, not just flood hydrology.

In this presentation, we will summarise the key results of the survey and highlight the implications for hydrology training, education, and teaching. Finally, we will share our recommendations, from the perspective of operational users of hydrology, for the future skills needs in hydrology.