And how music and community shaped my beliefs
For most of my working life I have been a freelancer. My main source of income comes from digital design and development. Since 2015, I’ve focussed on providing design and research services for agencies, in-house teams and one-to-one coaching for business founders and senior leaders. I am a qualified executive coach, you can find out more about my coaching credentials at theuxcoach.com.
I am proud to have been part of Government Digital Service (GDS) where I held the position of Senior User Researcher, working alongside colleagues as part of The National Team, helping local authorities across the 4 nations to develop better public services. I also lead projects for GOV.UK Notify, the main communications platform for UK public sector services and helped deliver the Emergency Alerts Broadcasting system. I lead research and design for the Data Standards Authority, developing policy and products for the standardisation of data services in government.
In 2025 I took on the post of Service Designer for The Service Manual and Service Standard, a guidance service for civil servants making and running services who want to adopt good practices, and create consistent experiences for people who need to use government services.
Other things I have done, or still do:
I am a true believer that great things happen when you’re away from the keyboard (AFK) and developed my coaching practice to fit into this, using walkshops as a way to untangle complex problems both professionally and personally.
My greatest passion is music, having played in a number of loud and brash bands with varying degrees of success. I ride motorcycles, bicycles, and boards, which is where I often find things come unstuck and I get clear. I’ve been in many bands, notably, Here There Be Monsters, a metalcore outfit from Brighton. We toured Europe, released a few records and slept on too many dank floors and in too many transit vans.
I took up photography in my teens and used it as a way to document the things going on around me. During the Flickr era I became known for my street photography portrait series Trash Flavoured Trash = Trash Flavoured Trash which got covered in national press both print and television. My portraits from The Great Escape Festival won best-of-the-fest during the Brighton Arts Festival, whilst my writing and photos formed part of my journalism freelancing for local national and global press including Source, Drownedinsound, Thrashhits, Rocksound, Kerrang, and Pitchfork.
Being outdoors gives me energy and as much as I love playing video games, I get more excitement from riding bikes with and without engines, snowboarding, surfing and just being out walking.
I was part of the first generation of web and UX people, and now want to focus my time on supporting the next generations make meaningful products and services that make a difference to all of us today, or in the future.