Lauren Faye Gledhill

Job:

Industry Facilitator

Company:

Greater Manchester Clinical Research Network (NHS)

I work in the 'research' arm of the NHS! I travel to hospitals across Manchester, helping to set up and run clinical trials. These trials help to discover whether new medicines and treatments work to help patients get better. I work with hospital teams, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors. We use business intelligence and data to monitor sites and make sure they are meeting targets - otherwise, we have to have stern words! Ultimately the goal is to make a difference to patients' lives!

I am...

Friendly

Kind

Efficient

The skills I use most in my job...

Communication - lots of meetings and working with lots of different people

Organisation - you need to make sure you can manage your workload and aren't late for all the meetings!

IT - we use computers for everything, you need to be IT literate for every aspect of the role

Teamwork - we work alone often but also need to work well as a team and help each other out

Prioritisation - heavy workloads mean we need to know what is urgent and what can wait

The most interesting thing I've worked on in my career so far...

Being involved in groundbreaking research on a daily basis is pretty interesting for me! We work behind the scenes so aren't often well known, but knowing that we help the teams that deliver the research is rewarding because ultimately this has a knock-on effect in benefiting the patients of Greater Manchester!

What inspired me into digital and tech...

It's the future! Although I don't work directly in a digital/tech role, we (and the rest of the world) use it an awful lot and it will keep progressing and developing, hence why it's a great sector to work in.

My educational background is...

I enjoyed school and got A-C at GCSE (except Spanish which I got a D in - I'm not good at languages!). I did Geography, Biology, and Psychology at A Level, all A-B, and then Psychology at Newcastle University. Psychology was a broad degree which meant I didn't have to be a psychologist after - it's definitely helped me get where I am now. It gave me a lot of adaptable skills which I use every day now.

What advice I'd give to girls thinking about a career in digital and tech...

As I said, it' the future - It's probably one of the only fields that we can guarantee won't go out of fashion. Lots of roles are being automated these days - by the tech companies! Work hard, take every opportunity you get (volunteering, shadowing, work experience etc), think about what you'd like to change and how you'd go about it! Digital and tech needs girls to empower, inspire, and grow the sector!