I am currently a Data Engineer within the Chief Data Office at Lloyds Banking Group. My main responsibilities are to build sophisticated data solutions to key business areas throughout the bank, whilst producing and distributing Business Intelligence (BI) to enable more data-led decisions and help the bank achieve its ambition to be a truly data driven organisation.

I have worked on a portfolio of high profile and regulatory projects that has given me great exposure and opportunities to work with some fantastic colleagues and cutting-edge technology. I regularly use languages such as SQL and Python to support me with my engineering practices and have the pleasure of working with cloud-based technologies and Machine Learning (ML) concepts. My professional journey started a little over 4 years ago in August 2016, where I finished my A-Levels and went straight onto the BSc Degree Apprenticeship.

An apprentice ambassador and mentor

In parallel to my work duties, I also play an influential role as an apprentice ambassador where I support and mentor other apprentices who are on the Degree Apprenticeship scheme. Additionally, I attend various apprenticeship fairs at schools and other universities to help promote and empower ‘young data minds’ to consider apprenticeships and how they can benefit their futures. This is something that is extremely close to my heart because I initially discovered the degree apprenticeship through attending an apprenticeship fair in Leeds city centre, and from there the rest was history.

Choosing a degree apprenticeship

My professional career started with me taking a leap of faith on the BSc Degree apprenticeship. I didn’t know what to expect, coming straight from school meant I was really nervous to start working in a professional environment. However, I had always been passionate about IT and knew this apprenticeship was for me. I think what attracted me specifically to this apprenticeship was the ability to get hands on experience in an extremely large and diverse organisation, whilst also gaining a qualification. The fact that the degree I was getting was debt-free wasn’t what drew me in, it was the thought of developing my skills and learning ways of working that I has never heard of or seen before. For someone who was really eager to have a career in IT, I knew that understanding the culture of a large organisation was vital. So that is another reason I chose to work for Lloyds, because their cultural behaviours are at the heart of their values and strategy.

When I look at the way the digital world is evolving, data and analytics is becoming increasingly demanded and important across every sector and industry. Engineering insight from data and providing key analysis to help inform better decision making is something that I have always found motivating. This is why it was an easy choice for me to on-board onto the Data Analytics pathway on the apprenticeship. Fast forward to 4 years later and I can proudly say after recently completing the apprenticeship I have obtained a first class honours degree. But the fun doesn’t stop there… I have decided to continue my studies by enrolling onto the MSc degree apprenticeship where I will complete another 2 years on advanced Data Analytics.

Fantastic support

The support has been absolutely fantastic during my time so far. From a Lloyds Banking Group perspective, I have had endless opportunities to apply what I learn in class to my everyday duties, attend training workshops to help further my knowledge in technical areas such as Python and provide me with a platform where I can develop and build my confidence in presenting and networking to stakeholders. From a Manchester Met perspective, the team, in particular the skills coaches, have been with me all along the journey from the start to the end (not quite there yet). Not at any point did I feel that I couldn’t speak to anyone or ask for advice when needed. It was also very clear that the university took on-board the feedback I gave at times around how the course was delivered etc. something which showed great respect and professionalism.

Overall, I owe a lot to both the university and my organisation as they have really helped me mature and develop into a well-established and efficient professional. I would not have thought in a million years I would be where I am today, having delivered what I have and working with the people I have met.  Whilst 4 years seems like a lot to someone so young, the time certainly does fly. What’s that saying… time flies when you’re having fun? It absolutely does!

Business Trip to India

As part of a high profiled project I was given the opportunity to travel to Hyderabad, India, for two weeks to help with the technical delivery and also help integrate our ways of working through agile practises. Having worked extremely hard on the project up to this point, I was put forward as the only engineer to take this trip along with two other project managers. This business trip was a real eye opener for me. I never thought by the age of 20 I would have been flying to another country to help deliver a project. The experience was breath-taking. On weekends I was able to explore the area and really get to understand and appreciate the culture and colourful surroundings.

What challenges have you encountered?

Challenges have often occurred along this journey. Things such as technical implementations not going as planned, presentations not as well as they could have, being rejected for internal promotions etc. But all of this is natural and expected to happen. As an apprentice, you are bound to make mistakes due to inexperience but the key is to learn from that so that it doesn’t happen again in the future. One key skill I have picked up is always give and receive feedback. Not only does this show that you are keen to develop, but also gives you areas for improvement so that you can continuously improve and become more efficient.

In addition, naturally as you are responsible for balancing both university and work related commitments, it can often get quite intense when approaching deadlines and submissions either on a project or assignment. There is never any need to panic, at Lloyds Banking Group, management are always happy to provide support and give the odd day here and there to enable you to complete your work. It is very flexible in that regard.

University projects impacting directly into my work

I think one main example would be my delivery of a fully automated and robust data solution for a high profiled and regulatory project. We were tasked with engineering some data and building monthly reports that would be submitted to regulators illustrating some key metrics. Historically, this job had been done manually by a group of colleagues and seemed a fairly time-consuming activity. After learning about Python at university, I decided to speak to my management about attending a week-long training course in London to help deepen my knowledge as I really found this interesting and useful.

When I returned to the office, I took the initiative to spend a few days in between work building a small part of automation to show my management what this programmatically language could do. After being given the thumbs up, I went away and spent ~6 weeks building a fully scalable and automated solution which would automatically Extract, Transform and Load the data into the warehouse and build the reports which would be ready to send to the stakeholders. This was a huge result as it took a lot of pressure off our engineers, reducing the chances of human error and freeing up resource so they could work on something else. Ultimately, providing a substantial financial saving to the organisation and reducing duplicating efforts.