The Water Industry's Talent Crisis Won't Wait

By Sophie Borgne

Every new data center built to power the AI boom needs two things most people think about (electricity and land) and one thing most people don’t: water. Cooling is the hidden constraint behind every rack of GPUs, and as compute demand scales, so does the pressure on local water systems. But water demand isn’t just an AI story. It’s an everything story. Manufacturing, agriculture, energy, healthcare: water is the resource every sector depends on, and the infrastructure behind it hasn’t kept up.

I’ve spent 25 years in automation, digital operations, and essential infrastructure, most of it at Schneider Electric. In that time, I’ve watched the water sector evolve from a mostly mechanical industry into one driven by software and data. What hasn’t kept pace is the workforce. With nearly half of water and wastewater plant operators aged 45 and older, the people who have traditionally operated and maintained America’s water systems are retiring, while awareness among the next generation has not kept pace.

A System Under Pressure

The EPA estimates the U.S. faces $625 billion in drinking water infrastructure needs over the next 20 years. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our drinking water systems a C- grade. And according to a 2024 EPA report to Congress, roughly a third of water utility operators are eligible to retire in the next decade.

This is already underway, not something coming down the road. And the skills the sector needs are shifting faster than the talent pipeline can fill them. The roles opening up aren’t just for traditional engineers. Utilities are hiring data scientists, cybersecurity specialists, automation engineers, and people who can design digital interfaces for critical systems. These are the same roles every other industry is competing for, and water hasn’t traditionally been part of that conversation.

Closing The Water Gap

Closing the water gap starts with treating water as a system-level challenge, not a siloed utility issue. Resilience depends on integrating digital intelligence across the entire water lifecycle — from source, to treatment, to reuse — so operators can anticipate disruptions, reduce losses, and optimize every drop. Technologies like real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and digital twins make it possible to shift from reactive maintenance to proactive management, improving both efficiency and reliability. They also enhance transparency across stakeholders, helping utilities, industries, and municipalities coordinate decisions on allocation and conservation amid growing demand.

But technology alone won’t close the gap without parallel investment in people and partnerships. Bridging water scarcity requires collaboration across public and private sectors, along with a workforce equipped to manage increasingly complex, data-driven systems. That means accelerating digital adoption while also building the skills to support it, combining engineering, software, and sustainability expertise in new ways. When water is approached as both an infrastructure priority and a platform for innovation, the sector can move beyond simply meeting demand to actively shaping a more resilient, efficient, and equitable water future.

What Today’s Water Careers Actually Look Like

When most people think about working in water, they picture hard hats and treatment plants. The reality has moved far beyond that. Utilities are deploying digital twins and AI-driven optimization to manage networks serving hundreds of millions. They’re hiring for data science, cybersecurity, industrial IoT, and human-centered design. Many of these roles didn’t exist a decade ago.

At Schneider Electric, we see the water-energy connection up close every day. Water treatment and distribution are energy-intensive; energy production relies heavily on water for cooling and processing. Our work in electrification, automation, and digitalization is built around that overlap. The innovation happening in our industry right now, from liquid cooling for data centers that can cut both cooling energy and water use by up to 60 percent, to AI-optimized treatment systems, shows what becomes possible when you treat water as an engineering challenge rather than a line item.

And because water touches manufacturing, energy, agriculture, healthcare, and digital infrastructure, the skills you build in this sector don’t lock you in. They travel. A career in water is one of the broadest foundations a technical professional can build on.

The Industry Has A Recruiting Problem, Not A Talent Problem

The talent to fill these roles exists. Software engineers, data analysts, sustainability professionals, career-changers from tech and energy: the people the water sector needs are out there. The problem is that most of them have never considered water as a career, because the industry hasn’t asked them to. The sector still carries a “boots and pipes” image that doesn’t reflect what the work has become.

Changing that takes deliberate work. Companies and industry groups need to get into universities, workforce programs, and STEM organizations to build visible on-ramps into water technology. Schneider Electric’s education and entrepreneurship programs have reached over one million young people globally, training them for careers in energy, water, and automation. What makes programs like these stick is that they reframe water as what it actually is: a technology career.

But building a pipeline only works if you’re also looking in new places. The water sector has traditionally recruited from within its own ranks, and that approach can’t keep up with the pace of retirements or the shift toward digital skills. Career-changers from tech and energy, veterans transitioning out of the military, recent grads who don’t yet know water is an option: these are the people the industry should be recruiting. When you need to replace a third of your operators in a decade, you can’t afford to fish in the same pond.

Building The Next Era Of Water

I didn’t plan a career in water. I came to it through industrial automation and digital operations and discovered a field where every technical skill I’d built had a direct, visible impact on people’s daily lives. I share that not as a recruitment message, but as a reflection of what I have experienced in practice.

That same opportunity is now wide open to engineers, data scientists, sustainability professionals, and anyone with technical skills and a willingness to contribute to work that has a real-world impact. The roles are evolving rapidly, the industry is ready, and the remaining question is whether enough people will step forward to meet the moment.

Sophie Borgne is Segment President of Water & Environment at Schneider Electric.