Did you enjoy school?
I really enjoyed my time at school; growing up in a small community where everyone knew each other meant it felt friendly and comfortable. Strangely my favourite subject was algebra; I just loved doing equations! I even used to ask my teachers for extra practice sheets. My other favourite subject was history; I’m fascinated with the past and I still enjoy watching the history channel.
What qualifications do you have?
I have 8 GCSE’s and an HNC in Business Studies with IT. Growing up in a working-class family in a small village in Scotland, I never felt university was an option for me.
I started work in administration in local government when I left school at 16. I completed my HNC while I worked full time in operations in DWP.
I believe in lifelong learning and have completed lots of professional qualifications over the years such as IEEE certified IT Project Management; PRINCE, SCRUM, and Living Leaders. I’m not an engineer but I also learned some JAVA and Python a few years ago.
I have a really inquisitive mind so I’m always getting under the hood of our digital services; that has given me a very broad range of technical skills.
Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?
I started my career in DWP working in operations, I really enjoyed being able to support citizens through some difficult times. It was here that I developed a passion for technology.
I built my first database that was used to record and track benefit overpayments, it was quite primitive but simple and intuitive to use. As well as building the database I was the administrator and live support technician for around 80 users! In my local office I became the “go-to” person if anyone had computer issues hardware or application.
Then the opportunity came up for a secondment to work on a technology project in Newcastle and I’ve never looked back, I’ve now been in our Newcastle Digital Hub for over 25 years!
In the early days of my career, I did hit a few glass ceilings where my career stalled. I’ve often been the only female in the room, and at times, the only female on the team, which is hard. On reflection, this has helped me feel comfortable in any environment.
Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then and I’m grateful to work in an organisation that actively encourages and supports women to progress in digital roles. I feel so fortunate to work for an organisation that not only supports me but pushes me to do more and helps me to be my absolute best.
This has led to a great career path in digital for me, I do sometimes pinch myself as I think “how did this happen? How did someone with my background make it all the way to a senior digital role that is delivering systems with such impact across society?”
This was never more apparent than during the early days of the pandemic, the demand for sharing data across government services was critical to ensuring citizens across the country got the support they needed. Being able to lead my team to deliver quick, effective integration solutions was so impactful in enabling the NHS Vulnerable Citizen Database initial data load, the automation of over 3 million initial person validation checks for Universal Credit, and, increasing capacity on payment file transfer routes to the banks. I couldn’t have been prouder in my role in DWP Digital to be able to support citizens through an unprecedented time.
What is the best career advice you can give to others?
My advice to others would be don’t be afraid to try new things, venture outside your comfort zone, stay inquisitive and ask lots of questions.
I’d also say pro-actively manage your career, set, and review your goals and discuss these with a coach or mentor. It’s important to regularly review what you’re learning. When you stop learning; it’s probably time to move! Sideways moves are just as important as upward moves as they help you build a broad range of skills often needed at more senior levels. Think of yourself as a lifelong learner making sure you build a good balance of skills across digital specialisms and the softer people skills.
Finally, I’d also say be prepared to take measured risks, be bold in your decision making, do what you said you would do. It’s better to learn from your mistakes than to stand still! Being authentic, building trusting relationships and making well thought through decisions will help you build “brand you”.
If you had to pick one mentor, that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?
I’d struggle to pick one person if I’m honest, I’ve had so much support from a variety of people across my career including my current line manager. I’ve also had some great female role-models here in DWP Digital too that I’ve been able to call on for advice when needed.
My key recommendation is having a formal mentor, and also to build a network of informal support to help your development. It’s good to lean into experience when you have a really difficult problem to solve. I believe this mixture of formal and informal mentorship helps you get a wider perspective and more depth in building your leadership skills.
From where do you draw inspiration?
I think we all draw inspiration from different things, but mostly what we’re passionate about. The key is not to become complacent, don’t do everything by routine, try new things, exercise your imagination, and visualise what you initially think may be impossible!
I’m very fortunate to work with lots of inspirational women, and men, in DWP Digital; every day is genuinely a learning day. Helping other people is probably where I draw most inspiration from, I try to see things from different perspectives and find it really inspiring when I have the opportunity to really make a difference.
I lean into a variety of opportunities for fresh inspiration. This includes learning about new technologies and how they might help in designing better IT solutions for our citizens, mentoring and coaching colleagues at all levels of their career journey, particularly supporting those from under-represented groups and different social backgrounds, and, through volunteering and getting the opportunity to see real-life challenges that people face.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced to date?
I think my biggest challenge to date is learning to believe in myself as a senior leader. I think we all have a little imposter syndrome from time to time, as I moved through my career my confidence has certainly grown but there are still times those gremlins creep back in!
I’m very aware that sometimes I don’t sound like others in the room; I don’t always use the same words others may use, but I know that I can hold my own in most conversations, and I don’t need to be the cleverest person in the room to do that. When I reflect on my career, I’m actually really proud of what I’ve achieved, I’ve certainly gone further than I ever would have imagined when I started working in digital 25+ years ago.
What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?
There are lots of qualities that make a good leader, if I were to choose one it would be authenticity. In my opinion, leadership always boils down to people, you need to be authentic if you want people to believe in you and buy into your vision.
For me, being authentic is about have a strong moral code and being self-aware. I try to show my true personality in my leadership style. Asking a simple “how are you?” when starting a conversation goes a long way to breaking down the perceived barriers between leaders and their teams – as long as you are genuine when you’re asking the question! People can tell if you’re being fake, so I try to take the time to show a genuine interest in what people are doing at work, and a little of what is going on in their personal lives if they are happy to share.
From a work viewpoint what has the last 12 months been like?
It’s been a really busy 12months. In addition to my Head of Integration role where I’ve been driving forward our strategic, self-service integration services including our API and Event Platforms, I’ve also been helping my Data and Analytics colleagues deliver a data warehouse remediation programme that re-platforms over 20TB of data whilst renewing the operating system and application software.
Back in December 2022, I also took responsibility for the co-ordination and organisation enablement for our Strategic Reference Architecture. This new architecture moves us to an API/Event Driven composite architecture through building common, re-usable components. This has been a real challenge, to build wider understanding of the architecture and how it changes the way we build our services in DWP Digital. We have made great progress on this but there’s still quite a way to go to achieve full alignment which will completely transform the services to our citizens.
I’ve also had the opportunity to lean into mentoring and public speaking. I’ve picked up 6 national and international awards recognising the great work we have done in DWP Digital over the last year. It’s been great to celebrate our success with the various teams, and of course it’s fantastic to have all the awards on display in our new trophy cabinet!
What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?
I think there are two big challenges for technology right now; the first is security with cyber criminals becoming more sophisticated it is becoming more difficult for organisations to protect their customer data.
We are seeing major data breaches hitting the headlines almost weekly, a high number of these start from outside the UK. Whilst attacks are on the increase, the skills market in cyber security is challenging. Fortunately, we are seeing more network and boundary security controls and there is a rise in entry-level cyber security experts who will train as our line of defence for the future.
I think the second big challenge is the use of AI, understanding how far we can take it for it to remain ethical is a real head-scratcher for me. It can really help us analyse large amounts of data for trend analysis and to help define policy impacts, but it is only as good as the data it uses. It’s a known that AI like ChatGPT could be a game changer, but we need to go into it with our eyes open and fully understand its limitation on cognitive thinking, reasoned judgement, biases, and of course human compassion that no AI can mimic.
What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?
To start, we need to be doing more in schools to attract girls into design and technology. There is a traditional view that careers in digital is purely coding, the current curriculum can be a real turn-off for girls. If we could do more to show the range of careers that exist within digital and make the coding part more visual and more relevant, I think we could really improve the number of girls entering technology-based careers. Of course, that will take some time to filter through to the current workforce.
For now, I think lots of women do their research before taking on a new role. They are particularly attracted by benefits that help them balance home and work life such as flexible working hours like we have in DWP Digital. They will also look at how your company actively supports and promotes a diverse workforce, and particularly what networks and groups you have that will support them if they join your organisation. They will also look at the women you have in senior roles as an indication of how diverse your organisation really is.
I also think organisations need to stop trying to recruit unicorns and look at aptitude and transferable skills, particularly for entry-level roles where we can upskill people who are willing and able to retrain. This approach has been really effective in our engineering apprenticeship scheme where 50% of my last engineering apprentice intake were female!
Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.
I really struggled with this question because I’m such an open book, everyone knows everything about me! I’ve dug deep for this… I once represented the UK at the United Nations International Youth Year when I was only 18 years old. I spoke on the main stage in the auditorium at the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg about the need for peace for young people across the world.
Leap forward quite a number of years to March 2023 where again I was part of the UK representation for the United Nations Committee for the Status of Women. I attended a number of virtual events from across the world, including the opening, live from the UN in New York, and a small interactive session with a girls school in Ghana. Across the 2 weeks, we discussed the importance of digital in education and equality for women and girls, particularly in countries where women’s rights are being eradicated or severely disrupted by conflict.
