Background and Career Journey

Josh joined Barhale in September 2023 as a Change Manager before moving into his current role as Innovation Project Manager in January 2025. His path into innovation came through a mixture of hands-on water industry experience and through personal projects.

Prior to joining Barhale and working on Anglian Water projects, Josh initially worked for Clancy in their repair and maintenance team. He then moved into supervisory and project management roles before eventually taking on a project manager role with BIFFA. Along the way, he developed a real interest in problem-solving and innovation. That interest became a driver outside of work too. In his spare time, he started doing some work on Mycofiltration and began sharing it around the business. It grew from there, and when the opportunity to join the innovation team came up, he went for it.

Defining Innovation

When asked what innovation means in the context of infrastructure and construction, Josh is clear:

“For me, innovation is doing things differently and achieving a better outcome—whether that’s lowering carbon, reducing costs, improving safety or making processes easier. If we can take something that’s been done the same way for years and deliver it in a safer, more sustainable and more efficient way, that’s innovation.”

A Day in the Life

No two days are the same for Josh. His role sits at the intersection of ideas and delivery.
“An innovation project manager is a mix of things,” he says. “Sometimes people around the business will submit an idea and we’ll investigate new products or equipment. Other times we go out into the market, talk to suppliers or work with universities to see what’s possible. The challenge is taking an idea, nurturing it and bringing it all the way to site.”

Recent projects include:

Timber frame kiosks – made from sustainable wood and built with screw piles instead of concrete. “It reduces carbon, saves money, and eliminates the need for a heavy concrete base.”

Zebra mussel removal – tackling invasive mussels that clog intake pipes and reduce flow. “The traditional solution would be to spend a large amount of money building a new intake line. Instead, we’re trialling alternative methods, from pigging to sound pulses to introducing fish species that feed on mussel spawn.”

 Mycofiltration: Harnessing Fungi for Water Quality

One of Josh’s most exciting projects is his pioneering work on Mycofiltration, using mycelium, the root-like structure of fungi, to filter water and remove pollutants.

“We’ve already seen some incredible results,” he says. “In trials, Mycofiltration has removed over 99% of E. coli, 97% of phosphorus and 86% of nitrates. And that’s just scratching the surface of what it can achieve.”

The potential applications are wide-ranging from wetlands boosting productivity so that less land is needed to deliver the same environmental benefits to rain gardens capturing and filtering pollutants such as hydrocarbons and heavy metals from roadway runoff.

Josh is currently collaborating with the University of Essex and Imperial College London on field trials, including a large test site at Benfleet as part of the Catchment to Coast project. “We’ve set up bays with Mycofiltration bags and rain gardens, some with mycelium and some without, so we can compare the effectiveness,” he explains.

Josh and the team are currently pulling together a bid with the Ofwat Innovation Fund. “Our goal is to carry out our work over the next 18 to 24 months,” he says. “The environmental improvements, water quality benefits and cost savings could be transformative—not just for Anglian Water, but for the whole water industry.”

Josh’s line manager Simon Crowder (Engineering Delivery Manager, Eastern Region) is extremely pleased with his progress and what he has brought to the team:

“It is a pleasure to work, manage and to have got to know Josh and to see him grow, as he goes above and beyond with every part of his work and personal life.

Josh’s own initiative, Mycofiltration, has undertaken an immense body of work, much of it in his own time to fact-find, validate and collate data, leading to presentations, promotion and test cases. He even grew his own mycelium samples and the project has now received funding and industry support to extend trials for implementation within the UK water industry, with the potential to expand into agriculture and wider industrial applications.

This is a fantastic piece of work that, I believe, could deliver one of the most significant step changes in recent years in reducing pollution from wastewater treatment and the management of spill events.”

Staying Ahead of Trends and Balancing Creativity with Practicality

Josh draws inspiration from across the industry and beyond. “I spend time researching, reading, looking at what’s happening in other countries. LinkedIn, Google, academic papers, all of that helps. Driving change isn’t always straightforward. The hardest part is getting people on board,” Josh admits. “We’ve got a project with 3D printed concrete at the moment and while it has massive potential for carbon and cost savings, there’s always pushback when something new challenges a tried-and-tested method.”

Josh is clear about how innovation can’t come at the expense of feasibility. “We work in an engineering-heavy environment, so it’s about balancing creativity with practicality. Nature-based solutions are a big passion of mine, but we have to make sure innovation meets industry standards and actually works on the ground.”

Beyond work and Final Thoughts

Outside of the office, Josh keeps active. He’s a keen cross fit enthusiast and also loves to surf. “The best places I’ve been are Indonesia and the Canary Islands,” he says. He’s also enjoying life as a new dad to his 10-month-old daughter.

Josh is quick to endorse Barhale and the @one Alliance as an employer.

“It’s a place where you can bring ideas forward, be listened to and actually see your projects make a difference.” When asked what makes someone successful in the innovation space, Josh adds: “You’ve got to be inquisitive, resilient and not afraid of failure. Innovation is unique, sometimes a project doesn’t succeed, but that doesn’t mean it’s wasted. Every outcome teaches us something valuable.”