Heather Taylor

I currently work for jigsaw homes, a social housing organisation as the only research analyst and performance officer. I love working for a social orientated organisation and I love the statistical side of my job, I love that my research is very pragmatic and not just stuck in journals, anything from analysing true demand in our contact centre to profiling repair trends.

I got into my current professional by chance. My dad worked for a sports research consultancy at the time after being made redundant after a long computing career and being 10 years off retirement. I started scanning surveys as simple money making job until I found out what I wanted to do. I've been there 13 years now, the pension and benefits are great and I am very passionate about using all sorts of skills from developing and analysing surveys using snap to visualising map data and carrying out stats tests using tableau and r 

A degree from the School of Psychology has benefited me in the workplace as the stats side and the pure hard working ethic.

If I could, the advice I would give to myself now whilst studying would be don't be narrow in your career choices and don't give up. At the start I suffered so many job rejections when I left my first role and ended up working part time in a shop yet to I had 3 A grade A -levels and a first but everyone wanted the experience. You will find your feet, it just sometimes takes longer