Primarily, I have been working on transforming data from the format that it is stored in, to a style which is easier to perform analysis on. By streamlining our data curation, we can accelerate secondary research in COVID-19, Visceral leishmaniasis, Malaria and many others. This is a powerful personal motivator and it is thrilling to see the advancements being made in this sector.

Studying at Lancaster prepared me for my career by providing the skills in time management, programming, statistics and machine learning that I now use every day. Specifically, the health-related modules, such as Epidemiology, Medical Statistics and Survival Analysis, have been massively helpful and I have looked back on my lecture notes a number of times since starting my role; the topics you learn at university are relevant and at the cutting edge of research. The world-leading teaching means I can confidently provide statistical support to colleagues and continue to thrive in the workplace.

After completing my placement year at Lloyds Banking Group where I was a performance analyst, I made use of the University’s practise assessment centres as well as tests and they helped me prepare for the real interview process. Without it all I don’t think I would be where I am today.

The most enjoyable part of my role as a Data and Analytics Consultant is the coding aspect. Having done bits of R, Python, and machine learning during my degree, it’s been great expanding it all as well as getting advice from older people within the company. I really recommend making use of everything that Lancaster has to offer; it really can make the difference when it comes to applying for your dream job.

At the same time, I'm studying for the 13 actuarial exams which need to be taken to become a qualified actuary. These are much more theory based and cover all the actuarial maths and statistics as well as the necessary business knowledge. What I love most about my career is being able to continuously learn. I am able to use some of the Mathematical Sciences knowledge from Lancaster and combine it with new actuarial concepts to see how it applies to the real world. 

I was unsure what I wanted to do after graduating but in the summer before my final year, I was allowed the brilliant opportunity to do a summer internship in Group Theory with the Department. This was a great experience and helped me confidently choose to follow an actuarial path. The statistics modules in my degree have proved very helpful for the actuarial exams. If you’re also considering becoming an actuary, I recommend taking the 'Stochastic Processes' module. All the lecturers at Lancaster provide high-quality teaching and are friendly and supportive. I really can’t recommend studying Maths at Lancaster enough!

My career is contingent on the rapid change and growth in the technology and software field, and I am constantly in contact with new upgrades, features and possibilities in terms of what software can do. What I like most about this role is the strong need for good logic. Just like a mathematical proof requires a step-by-step analysis of what the logical implications are, a demonstration to a customer is the same as the customer needs to be guided through the logic of the software.

Lancaster offers the unique possibility to connect closely with your professors. Whether during classes or in the weekly office hours they are always available to help with not only academic matters but also pastoral matters such as giving perspective and guidance. Lancaster has been an amazing experience for me, and the campus quickly became my home away from home.

In this role, I am challenged to find out (both mathematically and literally) how many trains can run through an area where engineering works will be taking place, and what changes may need to be made to the timetable.

At the beginning of a project, I am given the constraints to work within including what lines are closed, rules the trains must follow, and preferences of how different services should run. There is so much from my degree that I can apply to my work, as it has taught me to break down problems into their key elements by examining both the constraints and the problem itself - just as you would do with a mathematical proof!

The range of different types of mathematics available at Lancaster - from Complex Analysis to Graph Theory - has proved invaluable in my work so far, teaching me to look at problems from different angles and perspectives in order to find unlikely connections.

The most enjoyable thing about my new career has been networking and getting to know my colleagues. My team is full of brilliant and diverse people, who I learn from every day. My experiences on Grizedale’s JCR have translated perfectly into my new role where I have volunteered to take on the informal role of ‘social secretary’ for my team – I have organised an escape room, sailing trip, games nights and even organised our Christmas party in 2022! KPMG have also given me the opportunity to volunteer at several recruitment events, particularly those aimed at reaching university students from disadvantaged backgrounds and improving social mobility. This is an area I am really passionate about and it’s been so rewarding being able to get involved.

The careers service at Lancaster provided support to me throughout my degree, including the ‘Capital Connections’ trips to London and Manchester where I heard from Lancaster alumni who had secured jobs in the city. I made use of all of the help on offer to support my graduate job applications, including CV reviews, mock psychometric tests and mock interviews. More generally, my time at Lancaster provided me with lots of experiences and opportunities to become a well-rounded and employable individual and shaped the stories I used to demonstrate my abilities to employers in interviews.

I then took a nine month sabbatical and completed an MSc in Statistics at the London School of Economics and graduated in 2022. After graduation, I went back to the company and now work as an L1 Consultant. 

The company I work at is a start-up company and has been expanding massively in recent years. Econometrics is an area of statistics/economics that I had never heard of throughout my degree and is quite a niche area of business. As the company has grown, we have a greater degree of freedom to explore new statistical methods and build new tools from scratch using code which help us better visualise and explain the data to clients. We also have client interaction every day and are in close contact with them throughout the whole project so we can also practise more soft skills such as presenting and articulating ideas and client interaction. 

Lancaster helped me build up and practise my maths skills across various different areas. I enjoyed the pure maths side but also chose modules which focused on statistics and more applied mathematics. It allowed me to narrow down what areas of maths I wanted to go into and helped lead me to the job I'm in now which requires very analytical skills in reading models, making judgement calls and building context from the hard numbers to real life business decisions. 

In my current role, I create transport models of the road network and analyse the potential impact of various schemes proposed by both public and private clients. The job also offers continuous learning and personal development, paying for me to attend lectures on transport planning and giving me the chance to learn new code. I have already had the chance to implement what I learned in my degree such as the knowledge I gained from the ‘Graph Theory’ module in my final year. This helped me save time and optimise processes during my work. The skills I learned during my degree such as presentational skills and the ability to explain complex concepts and data sets help greatly in my role today.

I really enjoy seeing how technology can be utilised in different ways and help make other people's lives easier. We use a wide range of innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, VR/AR (virtual reality and augmented reality) and robotics. It's fascinating how these can be used in thermal and renewable generation with the greater goal to achieve our net-zero sustainability goals.

Lancaster helped me in lots of ways with securing my graduate role! My time on Fylde JCR gave me transferable skills that I could use on my CV. In my third year, Lancaster University also advertised a Change 100 summer internship aimed at students who are neurodiverse or have a disability, this opportunity kickstarted my career in technology. The option to do the integrated Master’s year significantly developed my skills in maths and also helped me to stand out against other applicants. I thoroughly enjoyed my four years at Lancaster University and I'm very grateful to the School of Mathematical Sciences and Fylde College for the support I was given and the friends I made there.

Here, I was the direct line manager for departments and shifts of between 50-100 staff. My time studying Maths at Lancaster has helped set me apart at Amazon. I have the knowledge and strong analytical skills that many others in the same role do not.

Following my time as an Area Manager, I moved into a Finance Business Partner role in late 2021. As a business partner, I support sites in their labour planning, performance reviews and CAR budgets, helping to provide data and financial insight to help improve the sites performance and save the business money. This was a role heavily weighted to data analysis which helped grow my skills in various coding languages and analysis software. Once more, having a sound background in maths gave me a head start in this role as I had the prior knowledge from my time at Lancaster in Statistics and Computational Maths.

In March 2023 I was promoted to Senior Finance Analyst, and I now work in the UK team which focuses on automation and large-scale projects. We aim to reduce the workload for Finance Partners across the UK (and later the EU) and identify areas of opportunity or trends for the business at a full UK level.

My role at Microsoft demands a deep technical knowledge of Azure, a hyperscaler designed to deliver IT resources through the internet, powered by Microsoft's global network backbone, with datacentres spanning 60+ regions. Crucially, being a Cloud Solution Architect requires one to be a trusted technical advisor to the customer. This involves ideating architectural solutions for their IT infrastructure, writing code in languages like Terraform and PowerShell to facilitate resource deployment, and demonstrating the capabilities of the platform through Proof of Concepts (POCs).

Having a degree in mathematics in this field truly allows me to stand out. All mathematicians possess an embedded curiosity to delve into first principles and understand how things work; the final answer is never enough. The value of this degree extends beyond its subject matter. It instils the belief that no problem is insurmountable, and I have the confidence that my sharpened curiosity and rationality will guide me to the answer.

Lancaster has been a great place for me, from the tight-knit community on campus, where everything you need is at your doorstep, to the excellent professors who dedicate their time to helping us succeed. If you are curious about the math course or life at Lancaster, please reach out to me on Luke Taylot @ LinkedIn.

The quant team sits within the quant strategies department that consists of pricing and risk developers, dealers, data scientists and a testing team. We collaborate with all of these teams and use statistical models to make strategic decisions based on the current market behaviour and design efficient processes in the automated pricing and risk systems.

I knew in my final year that I wanted to work in finance but had no formal financial experience. The staff in the School of Mathematical Sciences were incredibly helpful with this. I spoke to my advisor and asked about the possibility of doing a dissertation subject in the financial field. He put me in contact with a dissertation advisor who had access to a high frequency financial pricing database which I researched and modelled. I still discuss this project in interviews to this day and it really helped to get my foot in the door of my first finance job.

CMC markets is a relatively small company and small team, but we move fast with technology. I have found that the bigger companies do not have that flexibility and it can lead to working on outdated systems. I am constantly learning and developing my skills which is important for fulfilment in the workplace. My company focus on employee satisfaction and if there is a course or skill I want to develop, they will fund it or assign me to related projects. It’s very important to be listened to for your own personal progression.

One of the key reasons I chose to study at Lancaster was due to their Study Abroad degree scheme. They have partner universities all around the world which you can attend for a year and your performance goes toward your final grade. This was a life changing experience and developed my personality dramatically.

At Lancaster I had some of the best and most memorable experiences of my life. It’s a small university and it took some adjustments, but the college aspect is very unique, creates a sense of community and the campus is the most beautiful that I have seen in England. Lancaster is a place of unlimited opportunity and if you want to start or create something you can talk to the University, they will give you the platform and the community will support it.

I have now lived in Bermuda for 2 years and continue to love the relaxed lifestyle, gorgeous beaches and beautiful weather.

I love how every day is different in my job – it never gets boring, and you are constantly learning and improving. I’ve met some of my best friends through the firm and it has given me the opportunity to travel to different parts of the United States. Also, being able to go to the beach so easily after work always helps!

Lancaster enabled me to gain the skills and experience needed to secure a job at a Big 4 accountancy firm. The careers services they offered were extremely beneficial when attending interviews and assessment centres. They also hosted talks with different firms which offered valuable insight into the application process. Without securing this job, I would not have been given the opportunity to qualify as a Chartered Accountant and move to Bermuda.

I have also had the chance to work on text analytics projects including predicting the topic of our trust pilot reviews and inbound tweets so stakeholders can see where we might have a problem. It is a career that can be really rewarding, and it is easy to see the impact that your work has on the business, as often we can measure the financial impact of data-driven decision making.

Staying at Lancaster to complete my Master's degree in Statistics was the main catalyst for me getting my job. During my Master's I came to understand the power of data and was taught the fundamental knowledge required for a career in data science. This really provided the foundations for me to go out and learn more about the field.

After two years there, and completing my Financial Risk Management exams, I moved to Man FRM as an Investment Risk Associate. My role is focused on the investment risk management for clients who invest in portfolios of hedge funds. My role is very broad and utilises many of the fundamentals of statistics and financial maths that I learned during my time at Lancaster. As an Investment Risk Associate, I must think about many factors when managing risks and the solutions to this are always underpinned by mathematics. I believe having a Maths degree from Lancaster has been vital to achieving success in my current role.

AlphaSights operates as a knowledge on demand platform, offering primary and secondary knowledge products (in the form of expert calls and content) to private equity firms, hedge funds, consulting firms, and corporations, enabling them to fill their knowledge gaps and enhance their decision-making processes.

During my degree, I acquired a solid analytical foundation that empowers me to navigate intricate business challenges using an axiomatic and logical approach. Moreover, the degree enhanced my proficiency in articulating solutions to ambiguous problems, by emphasizing a harmonious blend of numerical analysis and persuasive written arguments. This skill set has proven instrumental to my achievements in my current role.

In my role, I have the privilege of working in a highly analytical environment with diverse projects. One of the highlights is the close collaboration I enjoy with our co-founders, executive team, and exceptional colleagues. This collaborative setting fosters continuous learning and growth for me. I am grateful for the level of responsibility entrusted to me, as it allows me to actively contribute to driving positive change within the organization.

Choosing this career path allows me to apply the skills and knowledge I learnt whilst at university and also get exposure to working with clients and a broad spectrum of people. My role involves a wide range of tasks which can include analysing data and deciding how to present this to a client, performing valuations of pension schemes, calculating benefit corrections, and being part of the people leaders' team where I help with our graduate recruitment process and the development of our new joiners.

Over the last 5 years the staff and partners at LCP have allowed me to develop the areas of my interest. I have been involved in a range of work from the moment I started, and I now have the flexibility to peruse the work I enjoy. At LCP I really believe there is a culture to help people develop and reach their full potential. I have always been offered endless support right from my buddy on day one, through exams, general work and currently a speaking club where we can practice our presentation skills.

Since leaving academia, I have been working within the UK defence industry tackling engineering problems on a number of projects involving radar, navigation, electronic warfare countermeasures, and command and control systems.  

I’m currently employed as a systems architect at QinetiQ. Systems architects divide large and complex systems into manageable subsystems that can be handled by individual (or small teams of) engineers. I support these engineers in solving problems related to each of their individual subsystems and ensure that they interface together to achieve the goals of the overall system that they compose. Studying mathematics has greatly developed my ability to understand, and tackle, high level conceptual problems which is an essential skill for my success in this role.