Smart Skies, Healthy Waters named a winner of the fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge

• The project sees Northumbrian Water working in partnership with Makutu, Skyports Drone Services, Newcastle University and Proteus Instruments
• Over 10 years, the Ofwat Innovation Fund is investing £600 million in innovative projects and technologies to benefit the environment, society and customers 
• The fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge has awarded more than £42 million to 16 innovation projects solving major challenges in the water sector

Tuesday 20 May 2025, Durham, UK: Smart Skies, Healthy Waters, a world-first innovation that uses automated drones and real-time data analytics to monitor water quality has been named a winner of the fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge by the Ofwat Innovation Fund, also being a headline project from the challenge.

The project is a collaboration between Northumbrian Water, Makutu, Skyports Drone Services, Newcastle University and Proteus Instruments.

Current manual water quality monitoring methods are labour-intensive, infrequent and, when carried out at sea, carry safety risks. With limited alternative methods that are difficult to scale, Smart Skies Healthy Waters offers a world-first solution that will transform how the water sector can manage resources, respond to risk, and serve communities.

The solution works by combining automated drones, advanced sensors, and cloud-based analytics to deliver data directly to water companies and the general public, providing vital insights into the health of coastal waters. Samples will be analysed close to the site at “lab in a box” locations, providing results in near real-time. This data will then be made public, empowering visitors to the coastal sites with information on the quality of the water. This proactive, tech driven approach will transform how the water sector can manage resources, respond to risk, and serve communities.

Makutu brings deep expertise in cloud-native data platforms, AI, and IoT — typically associated with enterprise-scale digital transformation — into the heart of the UK’s environmental challenge. For Smart Skies, Healthy Waters, Makutu’s technology powers the real-time data infrastructure that turns raw sensor inputs into meaningful, accessible insights for decision-makers and the public.

Skyports is the world’s leading drone airline and an expert in operating long range automated drones in challenging environments, providing the supporting infrastructure and regulatory knowledge to bring complex logistical projects to life. Within this project Skyports brings water sampling and analysis sensors directly to waterways, providing a faster, safer, and more cost effective alternative to collecting water samples by hand.

Richard Warneford, Head of Wastewater at Northumbrian Water, said: “This project provides a ground-breaking opportunity to harness new technologies to enable more frequent monitoring of our bathing waters. It will be a world-first and a step change for our sector, helping to ensure healthier waters for our customers, communities and our environment.”

James Sumsion, CEO, Makutu said: “Smart Skies Healthy Waters is a powerful example of how innovative thinking can tackle real-world challenges, in this case, bringing real-time coastal water quality data directly to the public. We’re proud to be working alongside Northumbrian Water and Skyports Drone Services on this world-first initiative, which will improve operational efficiency whilst driving environmental sustainability. This funding marks a major milestone, enabling us to scale our impact — not just across the UK, but globally — delivering high-quality, actionable data exactly when and where it’s needed.”

Alex Brown, Director of Drone Services, Skyports, said: “Monitoring and improving the UK’s water quality is so important to all of us. With drones we can reach further, more frequently and provide better insights compared to the normal way of collecting water samples. We started working with Northumbria Water and Makutu two years ago with our first water monitoring service, and this is the latest milestone to take this service to the next step. In the future we see a large network of water monitoring drones flying Beyond Visual Line of Sight around key water sites in the UK, providing instant insights back to Northumbrian Water, as well as other utilities, allowing them to take action where required to keep our waterways clean.”

David Black, CEO of Ofwat said: “Water underpins our society and economy, and the water sector faces a range of challenges requiring urgent solutions. The Ofwat Innovation Fund was established five years ago to incentivise the water sector to collaborate with partners across industry, charities, and academia to accelerate the pace of transformation and create lasting benefits for customers and the environment.  The level of ambition of this year’s winners is remarkable. We are supporting these projects to prove their impact so that they can be scaled, not only here in England and Wales, but exported around the world as a driver of economic growth”. 

The Ofwat Innovation Fund is a key pillar in Ofwat’s mission to drive innovation that ensures the water sector is ready for the challenges of the future and results in better outcomes for customers and the environment. It is delivered by innovation prize experts Challenge Works (part of the Nesta group), in partnership with Arup and Isle Utilities.  

To find out more about all 16 of the winners of the fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge or to discover previous winners, visit waterinnovation.challenges.org 

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors 

About Makutu

Makutu creates exceptional business outcomes by harnessing the power of innovation and data. We specialise in scoping, designing, building and supporting advanced Data Platforms, AI, and IoT solutions, tailored for the enterprise market.

Find out more at: www.makutu.io

About Skyports Drone Services

Skyports Drone Services is the world’s leading drone airline. We are experts in BVLOS flight for delivery and inspection use cases. We partner with maritime and offshore industries, healthcare providers, infrastructure and asset owners, and public bodies to improve connectivity, safety and sustainability with drone operations. Skyports Drone Services is committed to scaling the drone industry to enable businesses and individuals to reap the rewards of drone technology.

Find out more at: www.skyportsdroneservices.com

About the Ofwat Innovation Fund  
The Ofwat Innovation Fund aims to grow the water sector’s capacity to innovate, enabling it to better meet the evolving needs of customers, society and the environment. It is encouraging new ways of working that go beyond business-as-usual innovation practices in the water industry, in particular increasing and improving collaboration and building partnerships from within and outside the water sector. It is delivered by challenge prize experts Challenge Works in partnership with Arup and Isle Utilities. The Innovation Fund forms part of Ofwat’s approach to innovation in the water sector. Ofwat with the Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate also runs StreamLine, a joint service for innovators and businesses to get informal regulatory advice.  To contact Ofwat’s press office, please call 0121 644 7700.   

About Challenge Works   
Challenge Works is a global leader in the design and delivery of high-impact challenge prizes that incentivise cutting-edge innovation for social good. In the last 10 years, we have designed and delivered 101 prizes, distributed more than £310 million in funding and engaged with 16,000 innovators. Challenge prizes champion open innovation through competition. We specify a problem that needs solving, but not what the solution should be. We offer large cash incentives to encourage diverse innovators to apply their ingenuity to solving the problem. The most promising solutions are rewarded with seed funding and expert capacity building support, so that they can prove their impact and effectiveness. The first or best innovation to solve the problem wins. This approach levels the playing field for unknown and previously untested innovators so that the best ideas, no matter their origin, are brought to bear on the most difficult of global challenges.